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I**ron Chef* meets Sundance in the UndergroundfilmMaker Festival, an upcoming film fest that challenged five budding aueturs to conceptualize, shoot and edit a polished digital short with a minimal budget and a four-week deadline.
The resulting films will be shown the first time at the upcoming juried event, Thursday Jan. 31, with the winning entry earning its creator a $5,000 grand prize.
"We're requiring the filmmakers to produce high quality on a short schedule with no budget," said Daniel Watts, director of programming for event and parent site Undergroundfilm, one of the longest-running indie film portals online. "It's a true celebration of the art of underground film."
Undergroundfilm selected the five finalists from more than 600 entries spanning nearly 40 countries. Filmmakers were given few requirements -- the films must be documentaries, less than ten minutes long and fit the broadcast format of sponsor CurrentTV, where eligible entries could be showcased in the future. Filmmakers were given the theme "the state of counterculture," a topic Watts thinks was nicely captured by a contender who traveled around polling Elvis impersonators, in an entry titled "What Would Elvis Say?"
Three finalists will be in attendance at the event: Danny Plotnick, a San Francisco-based trailblazing DIY filmmaker known for his bawdy, avant-guard concepts and mobile screenings; Annabel Osbourne, a darkly witty Australian filmmaker; and Randy Morgan, whose previous work includes a spoof of the film Super Size Me.
Finalists Chicago-based experimental filmmaker Chris Hefner and animator Nicholas Kallincos who recently received a grant to produce a gorgeous short about an entomologist with an unusual physical feature, will debut their work at the event, but not be in attendance.
The five newly minted shorts will premier at the Roxie Cinema in San Francisco, on Jan. 31.
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