Film at Eleven

The British Thunderclap Award was set up to find and publicly recognise the director who, as voted for by the British film audience, is producing the most innovative or interesting work in British independent film. Be it in features, shorts, documentaries or fiction, The British Thunderclap Award aims to reward and acknowledge the director who so clearly stamps his or her own individual identity, creativity and vision on an independent film.

The awards that invariably mean the most to film makers are those which are voted for directly by the audiences who watch them. Therefore, the winner of the British Thunderclap Award will be voted for directly by you, the public.

The Thunderclap panel has shortlisted for the public vote seven film directors who have for one reason or another caught their attention over the last twelve months, in showing particular individuality, expression and innovation in their work. The budgets vary widely, as do the experience or professional status of the directors themselves. However, all the directors in this shortlist have, in the eyes of our panel, shown true unique individuality in their films.

The British Thunderclap Award official selection for 2008 are

Mark James & Phil O’Shea for Vampire Diary
Chris Jones for Gone Fishing
Franny Armstrong for The Age of Stupid
Paul Taylor for We Are Together
Vito Rocco for Faintheart
Jan Manthey for The Adventures of a Plumber in Outer Space
The Blaine Brothers for Hello Panda

Polls close on 27th October. You can cast your vote at www.thunder-clap.com

Charles A. Christman III’s The Eye of Menw (review, trailer) continues its festival run with The Vermont Horror Film Festival, which will take place on October 17th and 18th in Burlington, Vermont.

This is the seventh film festival to have accepted the film.

Wanna see something really scary? For the entire month of October New York’s Two Boots Pioneer Theater presents the largest single-screen horror and cult film festival in the city’s history:

The Schlock-tober Film Restival!

Hyperbole? Perhaps. Baloney? Perhaps Not!

The Two Boots Pioneer Theater, New York’s Showplace for Independent Cinema, presents an entire month de(a)dicated to Horror and Cult Film programming, including World Premieres of Brand-New Indies, Double Feature Retro-Trash Classics, Horror Shorts, Bigfoot Movies, free Screenings, Special Guests Every Night and much, much more! More details can be found here

Adults-only, Vintage Grindhouse Smut slithers its way back to New York City. Presenting: 42nd Street Pete’s Night of Perverted Pleasures!

The evening’s erection-inducing events start with The Rare Raunch Review – featuring a quick trivia contest for Adult DVDs, a tease from some XXX trailers and then a few filthy, vintage 8mm shorts from 42nd Street Pete’s personal stash of stag films – including rare Linda Lovelace loops that will leave a dirty taste deep in the back of your throat!

Following all that f-wording is the funny and filthy John Holmes feature film Dear Pam – straight from 1976 and right into your loving lap. When advice columnist Pam Slanders (Crystal Sync) is nominated for the “Most Moral Woman of the Year” award by the Decency and Morality League, the league find themselves in for more oral than moral as Pam corrupts every last one of them. An all-star 1970s cast of characters and choice porno dialogue makes this a real four star, and five finger, relic to reckon with!

And lust, but not least, is The Miss 42nd Street Contest – lorded over by judge, jury and Sexecutioner, 42nd Street Pete. Anyone who attends dressed as an old-school streetwalker is in the running – running pantyhose and all – the more authentic and pimp-catching you come, the better your chance to win. Prizes awarded for the three best-dressed dolls of the old Deuce, plus the grand prize, an appearance in one of Pete’s upcoming DVDs.

So, come one, come all – just don’t come in the theater, because Pete will be watching, and he’s packin’ quite a punch. Further details and tickets are available from Tix.com.

Absolutely no-one under 18 admitted to this show, with or without a damn guardian – ID will be checked at the box office.

Philadelphia’s Terror Film Festival has announced the 2008 official nominations for the annual Claw Awards are now posted on their website.

The Claw Awards ceremony will be held in Philadelphia PA at the Ethical Society Building at Rittenhouse Square on Saturday October 25, 2008 at 9 PM. Filmmakers and celebrities from around the globe will be in attendance for what has been acclaimed as “one of the most theatrical events on the East Coast”, and, “The Oscars of Horror”. It’s a very special event that you don’t want to miss.

Tickets for TFF 2008 are available at the Terror Film Festival website.

After two tears in the making Scotty JX, the man behind Actiongirls.com and Actiongirls: Soldiers of the Dead, has announced his latest destination with fresh new content dedicated to Western Babes.

Actiongirlswesternbabes.com will be updated monthly and includes a plethora of stars including Erica Campbell, Kathy Lee, Susana Spears, Sophie Moone, Liliane Tiger, Clara Hunter, Marketa Morgan, Angel Dark, Hana Black, Irena Stevens and many more. The site features music by Soil, Hanzel und Gretyl, Art of Dying and many more guest bands.

Scotty JX is pushing the Actiongirls brand to new heights by breaking off several new niche sites under the Actiongirls Company Umbrella. This new Western Site is only the first of many new to come.

Philadelphia’s Terror Film Festival has announced that their selected films are now posted for the 2008 festival and are available on their website!

The festival will be held in Philadelphia PA at the prestigious Ethical Society Building at Rittenhouse Square from October 21–25, 2008. Filmmakers and celebrities from around the world will be in attendance throughout the week-long international Halloween event, from Pakistan to England to Canada to the USA, and the films this year are even more frightening than ever before. “Our goal is to support the new filmmakers of tomorrow and help them achieve their dreams of success in the industry. And with so many returning filmmakers, and so many new ones, it’s very clear that our ideal is resonating favorably with them. And we can also see that the independent filmmaking community of the world is very much alive and very much unstoppable. Plus, the quality of their films has become quite staggering – rivaling some of Hollywood’s slickest fare”, says Festival Director “Claw”.

One of the films showing at this year’s festival is Charles A. Christman III’s The Eye of Menw (review, trailer). This is the sixth festival appearance for this stunning debut.

Spooky Movie: The Washington DC International Horror Film Festival has announced the full, expanded schedule for the third annual horror film festival, returning to Fairfax, Virginia’s Cinema Arts Theatre October 16-20, 2008.

Festival goers will once again enjoy the finest in independent cinema from around the globe, selected from hundreds of submissions that came in everywhere from London to New York; from Oklahoma to Iran. From their opening night screening of the award winning Australian feature No Through Road, to the shorts from Spain, France, Canada and Italy, as well as the heart-stopping Taiwanese feature Alone, and finally to the American premiere of the British sci-fi/horror hybrid, Bane, on closing night, Spooky Movie 2008: The 3rd Annual Washington, D.C. International Horror Film Festival has worked hard to present a festival as diverse as the fans of the D.C. metro area region.

American independents are also well represented this year, as intensely represented by the festival’s two features selections on Friday, October 17 – Crushed and the award winning zombie film Brain Dead, as well as Thicker Than Water and Strange Girls, both of which are screening on Sunday, October 19.

The backbone for each screening at Spooky Movie has always been the amazing selection of short films. Movies like Foet, Night of the Hell Hamsters, The Sleuth Incident, Excision, The Procedure, The Room, Kirksdale and the stunning Vanished Acres (review, trailer) challenge the viewers with provocative, well crafted original stories of people experiencing the worst days of their lives – and all at a fraction of the time and cost of most of the features out there today.

Animation will be an important aspect of the 2008 festival, from opening night’s Back To Life, to the brilliant Australian short Break in the Monotony, to the inspired Tofu the Vegan Zombie, and to the Washington, D.C. premiere of the new Bill Plympton short, Shuteye Hotel.

Once again The Spooky Movie Film Festival exceeds at challenging the concept of what a horror film festival should screen, with eclectic selections from the underground (A Beautiful Day), to science fiction (Fun on Earth, Attackazoids!), comedy (Casting Call of Cthulhu), experimental (Transerexia), music video (Crystal, Dead Boyfriends), and even documentary (Snuff: A Documentary About Killing on Camera).

Entrance to Spooky Movie 2008 is $8.00 per block, with the exception of the Friday, October 17 double feature, which is only $12.00; an All-Fest Passes, good for all five days of the festival, is now available at the Cinema Arts Box Office, or through the website, for just $30.00.

I am grateful to Lee Perkins for the heads-up that Live Evil will premiere at the Valley Film Festival in LA on Thursday, September 25 at 9:00 PM. Perkins plays Officer Hicks opposite Tim Thomerson in the film, which was directed by Jay Woelfel and produced by Mark Terry. Also starring in this vampire film with a spaghetti western feel are Tiffany Shepis and Ken Foree.

In other genre news, Vanguard has picked up Into the Arms of Strangers, which was written and directed by Chris Harris. The film is already available on video. And Shoreline has signed up to handle distribution for Edges of Darkness – a zombie film written and directed by Jason Horton with Blaine Cade. 

In non-genre news, Perkins has recently finished shooting dark comedy DaZe: Vol. Too (sic) – NonSeNse, in which he plays Archduke Bartimus Barwitch opposite Gary Busey. He has also wrapped Strawberry Cliff, a thriller that was filmed in LA and China and period baseball fable. Gandhi at the Bat is screening this September at the Baseball Hall of Fame.