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The 2009 Backlot Film Festival Program:

Click on these dates to discover more about the program



Wednesday, October 7, 2009
12 Noon

Pitchfest
Producers of uncompleted projects, documentaries, feature films, etc. can pitch their projects to potential producers, distributors and/or investors
Each pitch will last no more than 30 minutes.
 
Tickets:

2.00 p.m.
Strike Up The Band 1940
Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. Directed by Busby Berkeley and produced by Arthur Freed - 3 Stooges Comedy
 
Tickets:

4.00 p.m.

Unchosen Companion - 48 minutes
 Documentary by Barry Gaines
The story of Stage and Screen Writer Louis Garfinkle's ("The Deer Hunter"). Twenty-seven year battle with parkinson's disease.
Producer will be on hand for Q&A after the film.
 
Tickets:

5.30 p.m.

88 Keys to Heartbreak - 35 minutes
Fiction short -written and directed by Nishit Mohan Singh
Mohan Sinha a talented musician involved in a car accident wakes up from a coma after 14 years.

 
Tickets:

7.00 p.m.

Bloomingdale's Film Initative
Young Filmmakers Program
The Love Game
Directed by Andrew Hunt, award winning writer/director and animator - A board game about dating literally comes to life for two twenty-something manhattenites.
My Adventures In Ladies Undergarments - 4th Floor
Directed by Antonio Campos. While shopping with his mother at Bloomingdale's, a six year old boy finds his first love, a lingere mannequin.
Recession Special
Written and directed by Emily Abt, recently selected as one of Variety Magazine's top ten directors to watch. Ella and Liz are best friends with nothing in common except for their unemployment. When they decide to throw a party, they realize that ending their financial difficulties may come with a certain amount of compromise.
Tall Enough
Written and directed by Barry Jenkins; A day-in-the-life piece where a young couple explore their relationship on a quiet Sunday.
Tea for Three
Directed by Amy Redford and written by Hall Powell. Over tea, the past and the present collide with the relentless questioning of a six year old.

 
Tickets:

7.30 p.m.
The Harry Hastings Method
 A Student film produced by Culver City High School Student Duncan Ballantine and directed by Josh Blake. Featuring Jesse Pilchen and Curt Mortensen. A young cat burglar who is also a would-be-writer repeatedly breaks into the home of screenwriter Harry Hastings and learns the true meaning of "The Harry Hastings Method." Adapted from a short story by Warner Law.
 
Tickets:

8.00 p.m.
Toot Blues discover more >>
 West coast premiere of a documentary by Chris Johnstone and Anna Ferrarie. Fifteen years ago, a penniless musicology student, Tim Duffy began the Music Maker Relief Foundation dedicated to recording and promoting traditional Southern musicians while helping to improve their standard of living. The film was made possible with generous donations from Martin Scorsese, Paul Allen and The Blues Music Foundation Q&A with the producers.
 
Tickets:

10.00 p.m.

Short Films
Inventing Kin
Directed by Fro Rojas - Winner of 2008 Backlot Film Festival for Best Short Fiction Film "Pencil Fighting" Produced by Fro Rojas, Debbie Margolis, Paula Jimenez, JC Nunez. A young woman reconnects with her father after twelve years of not seeing him. With Nikki Borges, Marc Macaulay, Melvin Lima and George Smith.
Birth Control
A trio of short films exploring how a young married couple deal with her pregnancy.
Breakfast With The Wifey, Drive Thru and Toast
Produced by Jonathan Dane, who also stars and co-starring Monica Allgeier, Jorge Luis Pallo, Bo Barrett and Jennifer Marsalla.
Old Dogs
Written and directed by Jonathan Fahn, Produced by Jonathan and Tom Fahn, With John Saxon, Larry Gelman and Phil Lamaar. Three guys in their seventies regain their vitality when they mistakenly pick up a bag of cocaine and are caught between the cops and the mob.

 
Tickets:

11.00 p.m.

Death Calls
Feature film - fiction - Produced by Ken Del Conte and Dr. Thomas Washita, Directed by Ken Del Conte
A love story with lots of action on the Mexican border.
 
Tickets:

 



Thursday, October 8, 2009
12.30
p.m.
 So Far so Kush
Producers, Alexander Duong
Two small town stoners drive to L.A. in search of a premium strain of weed known as Kush.
 
Tickets:

1.15 p.m.
Invisible Women
A film by Susan Davis that explores the fading image of mature women in the media. It spotlights the diminished careers of actresses who find themselves pink slipped at 40 and challenges the message that the obsession with youth sends to our daughters and the world.
Q&A with the filmmaker follows.
 
Tickets:

2.15 p.m.
Words and Music
Starring Mickey Rooney, June Allyson, Perry Como, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charrise, Betty Garrett and Mel Torme. Directed by Norman Taurog and produced by Arthur Freed. In Technicolor.
 
Tickets:

4.15 p.m.
Medicinal
Documentary feature written and directed by Dan Frank
Documentary that explores the controversy over medicinal marijuana. In 1966, California passed Proposition 215 which legalized the use of it in the state. Since then, state licensed clinics and the DEA have been at odds and thousands of tax payer dollars have been spent fighting over the controversial initiative.
Q&A with the Producer Director after the screening.
 
Tickets:

7.00 p.m.
Humanity
Directed by Spike Lee - Produced by Elizebeth Howell and Noika - Mobile device used to generate original material edited and directed by Spike Lee.
 
Tickets:

7.15 p.m.
A Vision of Wholeness
Student film by Ben Duffy – Documentary about a Rabbi who works with autistic boys to prepare them for their bar mitzvah.
 
Tickets:

7.45 p.m.
JUMP discover more >>
Starring Patrick Swayze, Ben Silverstone, Stephanie Powers, Martine McCutcheon, Sybil Danning and Richard Johnson. Before he came to America to become a top celebrity artist, Philippe Halsman (Ben Silverstone) was tried and convicted in Innsbruck, Austria for the murder of his father. Set in 1928, against the spectre of Nazism on the rise, Halsman, who is Jewish was defended by prominent Jewish lawyer Richard Pressburger (Patrick Swayze). Halsman was convicted on false testimony and flimsy evidence. Pressburger spent nearly a decade trying to win his freedom.
"Jump" was written and directed by Joshua Sinclair, multi-talented writer, director and actor. Sinclair wrote and produced the television mini-series "Shaka Zulu - The Last Great Warrior," "Judgement In Berlin" with Martin Sheen and "Just A Gigilo" Marlene Dietrich's last film.
Q & A after the film with the Director.
 
Tickets:

10.30 p.m.
La Cucina
Last year's Backlot Film Festival co winner for Best Fiction Film, directed by Allison Hebbie and Zed Starkovich, written by A.W. Gryphon whose novel "Blood Moon" will soon become a major motion picture. One warm summer evening, in a suburban apartment house, four important meals are being prepared in the heart of the house; the kitchen.
 
Tickets:

 



Friday, October 9, 2009
12.30 p.m.
Drive A Crooked Road
Starring Mickey Rooney in a career changing role in a hard-boiled film noir.
Special guest to introduce the film.

Tickets:

2.30 p.m.
Ticket To Hollywood
Directed by Antonello Villani - Introduction to a proposed television series on Europeans of arts and letters coming to L.A. from 1928 to 1956 spurred by events in Europe and the opportunities the movie industry in Hollywood was believed to offer.
 
Tickets:

3.15 p.m.
90404 Changing
Documentary - Drama Produced and directed by Michael W. Barnard - This film was produced over a six year period at the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica. Producer-Director Bernard was joined by a group of actors, writers, students, puppeteers, friends and fellow filmmakers to create a multidimensional exploration of the decline of the once-thriving Pico neighborhood in Santa Monica.
Discussion with filmmaker to follow.
 
Tickets:

7.00 p.m.
Let It Be
Documentary about three elderly rice farmers in Houbi Township in Taiwan and depicts their lifestyles over the last half century.
Co-directed by Yen-Lan-Chen and Juang Yi-Tseng.
 
Tickets:

9.00 p.m.
Herstory - World Premiere
Produced by Rayna Saslove and directed by Krista Eulberg. Comedy Marley a young filmmaker decides to make a documentary interviewing her old boyfriends to find out why she chose them.
Q & A with the Filmaker to follow
 
Tickets:

11.00 p.m.
Midnight Madness
Till Death Student Film produced by Devon Perez. Directed by Hart Perez From St. Mary's College of California.
Two short films by filmmaker Nathaniel Atcheson
The Isolationist winner of Best Student Film Award at the SoCal Independant Film Festival, 2008
Sombrero James and Raymond meet for a blind date at a Mexican restaurant with awkward results.
A****** of The West Short fiction Film by Matt Oswalt. Two men fight to the death over buried treasure in the middle of the desert.
I Love You- Don't Shoot Short fiction film by Rob Macie. Complications follow when a man's ex-girlfriend comes calling as his fiancee is on her way to his apartment.
 
Tickets:

 


 
Saturday, October 10, 2009
10.30 a.m.
"KIDS ARE FIRST"
Free exhibition of properly installing car seats for tots outside in the parking lot while cartoons are run inside.
11.30 a.m.
The New Westenaires
with Paul Pitti, Pam and Randi Turner play Western music and introduce clips from a new documentary Celluloid Cowboys
 
Tickets:

12.30 p.m.
National Velvet
Starring Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Revere and Angela Lansbury Voted one of the most likeable movies of all time by film critic Pauline Kael.
 
Tickets:

2.30
p.m.
Bravo! Bravo! The Adventures of Bravo - The Counting Cainine
Documentary by Julian Gotlieb
 
Tickets:

3.15
p.m.
Land of Dreams
a one woman live presentation - portraying a fifteen year old Mary Pickford as she dreams about her future on her way to New York.
 
Tickets:

3.45
p.m.
The Hoodlum - 1919 silent movie starring Mary Pickford, directed by Sydney Franklin.
Presented by the Mary Pickford Institute for film education on the anniversary of it's original release. A new HD transfer of the film by the Motion Picture Academy with a new symphonic score by Bonnie Janofsky."The Hoodlum" was the second film that Mary Pickford produced as well as starred in as a young girl on the tough streets of New York City.
 
Tickets:

5.15
p.m.
Social Security Guard
Written and directed by Jason Cook co-star in ABC's "General Hospital" starring John Ingell, Matt Ashford and Will Utay.
An eighty year old man struggles to get by after the death of his wife. - Filmed in Culver City.
 
Tickets:

6.30
p.m.
VIP Reception for Mickey Rooney in Rotunda Room
 
7.30
p.m.
 Gala Awards Ceremony in Main Auditorium

FILMMAKERS' AWARDS
BEST FEATURE FILM (FICTION)
BEST FEATURE FILM (DOCUMENTARY)
BEST SHORT FILM (FICTION)
BEST SHORT FILM (DOCUMENTARY)
BEST STUDENT FILM (ARTHUR FREED AWARD)
FOUNDERS AWARD TO CHARLES CHAMPLIN
FOUNDERS AWARD TO SYD KRONENTHAL
THOMAS INCE AWARD TO MICKEY ROONEY
 
Gala Event Pass:

 



 
 

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