The Sarasota Fringe Film Festival

This year’s Halloween weekend marks the first horror-themed event program for the two year old Sarasota Fringe Film Festival.

Nicknamed “Hallowscreen”, the Festival takes place in conjunction with the annual Sarasota Chalk Festival, in Burns Court, Sarasota. The weekend crowd is expected to be +20,000. 

“Hallowscreen” runs Friday evening October 29 through Sunday afternoon October 31.

"Hallowscreen" is a FREE admission festival. FREE to all film lovers, young and old alike, but we need your support. You can help us cover our expenses by sending us a small donation! Donate what you can. Your $25 donation gets you a FREE "Hallowscreen" T shirt to wear with pride, Halloween weekend!

 The Sarasota Fringe "Hallowscreen" Film Festival will screen over 100 feature and short films related to the Halloween-Horror theme, many of which are made by local filmmakers. There are also classics, and a side bar of films being presented in association with The New Orlean’s Vampire Film Festival, whose Halloween weekend program runs simultaneous to the Sarasota Hallowscreen event.

Highlight of the weekend of screenings will be an outdoor screening of the classic silent film, “Nosferatu” featuring a new, original soundtrack performed live during the movie by the Sarasota band, World Collision. World Collision, created by former Neurotica guitarist Shawn Bowen, is a unique mixture of world music with American rock sensibilities driven by tribal beats as old as time, or as old as the main character of the film they're scoring, Count Orlock.

While Nosferatu is the main event for the Hallowscreen festival, it's not the only cool event being hosted. Hallowscreen will honor a staple of the horror genre, cult star Brinke Stevens, “The Scream Queen”, with a special presentation of Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-a-Rama from 1988.  Brinke, a popular actress in the genre,  personally picked the film as one of her favorites out of the over 100 films in which she has starred.

Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-a-Rama, a favorite amongst fans as well, has been generously provided to the festival by Full Moon Features.

The Sarasota Fringe Hallowscreen Film Festival starts off with an opening night film on Friday, October 29 and runs all day Saturday, noon to midnight in our 200 seat indoor “Screaming Room”. The outdoor screening of Nosferatu, and the live performance of the score, is slated to start at 6:30 Saturday evening, in a parking lot at the corner of Burns Lane and South Pineapple. The festival continues on Sunday from noon until 4 pm when there will be an awards ceremony and the closing celebration.

Admission is FREE to the general public.

Program Director for Halloscreen is Sarasota filmmaker Lori Bowen.

For more information about Hallowscreen events please go to www.sarasotafringefilmfestival.com and www.chalkfestival.com.

Or contact:

patricknagle@yahoo.com

Go to the link at the right for full details on dates, location and submissions. More to follow over the next few weeks. Hope you'll join us!

Dear Filmmakers and Film Lovers, Not quite there yet, but almost...

Year two is almost behind us, but there are things to manage and consider over the summer to do in the Fall. For example, we are planning to do "Fringe Film" events around Sarasota starting in September-October that will feature more local and international filmmakers who share the "Fringe Spirit".

"Fringe Spirit" can get you where you wanna go! Regardless of age.

So what is "Fringe Spirit" anyway? The first thing you should know about Fringe Films is that they are made by filmmakers who are willing to “put it out there” and take a chance. That’s "Fringe Spirit".

Guess who was filming train wrecks at age 9?

Fringe filmmakers are not “flakes”, but filmmakers who take chances. The most noteable example of a Fringe filmmaker I can think of is probably Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg, huh? What? How can you say that? Throughout his early teens, Spielberg made amateur 8 mm "adventure" films with his friends. He charged admission (25 cents) to his home films (which involved the wrecks he staged with his Lionel train set) while his sister sold popcorn. His actual career began when he showed up at Universal Studios in Hollywood as an unpaid, seven-day-a-week intern and guest of the editing department. As an intern and guest, Spielberg made his first short film for theatrical release, the 24 minute film Amblin' (1968),^[3] the title of which Spielberg later took as the name of his production company, Amblin Entertainment.

From train wrecks to truck wrecks...only took "Fringe Spirit" growing up!

After Sidney Sheinberg, then the vice-president of production for Universal's TV arm, saw the film, Spielberg became the youngest director ever to be signed for a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio (Universal). Age 22.

Young Andy was the father of "Fringe Spirit", here with his assistant Gerard in the Silver Factory.

Fringe Passion and Appreciation

True Filmmakers have a passion for making films and true film lovers have an appreciation for that passion. That’s "Fringe Spirit" too. If you’ve ever looked deeply into the structure of any film, good or bad, you can see the inner workings of the filmmaker’s mind. Here are the intricacies, expressions of thought, and energy that drive the idea forward. Maybe you don’t quite get it, but the filmmaker wants you to try. And you do try. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes impossible.

Young Jonas Mekas brought his "Fringe Spirit" from Europe in the late 40's.

Understanding a film can sometimes be real work, but that’s where your appreciation comes in. If you can open your mind, maybe you can understand the filmmaker. It’s like life…sometimes it doesn’t come easy, but when it does, it’s a joy! Having a passion for filmmaking is like any other obsession, you can’t get enough of it. It’s in your mind all of the time, in your dreams all night, and going strong from the moment you get up in the morning.

Young Quention Tarantino got his "Fringe Spirit" working night and day in a video store.

Film appreciation is like any appreciation. Something you like to do. Something that you look forward to doing. Getting your kicks by sitting quietly and opening your mind to that filmmaker’s idea. Like the film or not, you’re the type of person who’s willing to watch, willing to find the joy in it all…celebrating the idea of watching as much as feeling entertained or informed. Sometimes it’s a ‘ride’, sometimes it’s a mind bend, sometimes it’s boring and awful, but always worthwhile. That’s "Fringe Spirit" too!

Every young filmmaker today has "Fringe Spirit"...but age doesn't make a difference!

If you have "Fringe Spirit", perhaps you’ll join us for the next the Sarasota Fringe Film Festival Event. Whether you consider yourself to be a filmmaker or a film lover, we would like to hear from you. We invite your comments!

Sarasota, Florida...Home ot the Sarasota Fringe Film Festival

As you probably know, Arts Funding in the United States has been slashed to the bone. New York State is about to slash their fifty million dollar arts budget in half. Here in Florida, the Legislature has dropped its funding for the state's arts groups to one million bucks. Half of which, I believe, is going to one group! That leaves a half-million for the rest of the state's needy arts groups. I am told that local Sarasota arts groups represent 20% of the incomes in the area! Yikes!

Fortunately we have "Fringe Spirit", and we will put it out there one way or another! 

Thanks for reading! Patrick Nagle, Filmmaker-Film Lover

The 2010 Sarasota Fringe Film Festival was a marvelous three-ring circus of Film Screenings (three hundred and ten films), Fringe Lounge Festivities (Five Days and Nights of continuous music and entertainment), and Fringe Art (in association with Frary Gallery, over 500 contemporary artworks by Sarasota Artists were exhibited).

VIEW PHOTOS OF THE FRINGE HERE....

www.lcp.photoreflect.com

Our Press Coverage was superlative and positions us to continue into the future in fine fashion. Did we make mistakes, yes. Were we a success, yes. Will we do better as we go into the future, yes. Perhaps the most important accomplishment of 2010 was to organize a team of dedicated volunteers and supporters.  Although our sponsorship support remained weak this year, we know how to build on that now.

If you are still reading, we should add that the Fringe will be more visible than ever as we proceed, with special monthly screenings throughout the SRQ region, and promote local filmmaking as well as work earnestly to establish distribution opportunities for ALL the filmmakers who participated.

Along with our Fringe Festival, we were fortunate to create production opportunities for a number of new film properties, many of which will be showing up on small and big screens world-wide. This is most fortunate as the revenues created by these films will keep us moivng forward, assisting and promoting SRQ as a great place to make and watch films. REAL FILMS for REEL PEOPLE.

Stay tuned for next year's registration invitation and updates on Fringe Film Screenings coming up!