WorldFest-Houston Wraps its 41st on Angelic note!

(The 41st Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival) WorldFest-Houston, the 3rd longest-running International Film Festival in North America, celebrated the conclusion of its 41st Annual Independent Film Showcase with a Grand Awards Gala on April 19th and Closing Day Festivities on April 20th with a VIP NASA and Space Center Houston tour and Texas BBQ sponsored by The Houston Yacht Club and wrapped it up with a double bill of Claude Lelouch’s Roman de Gare and Turkey’s singing sensation Mahsun Kirmizigul’s debut film, White Angel.  All WorldFest events are always open to the public.         

 WorldFest, founded as an International Film Society in August 1961, became the third competitive international film festival in North America, following San Francisco and New York.  WorldFest evolved into a competitive Intl Film Festival in April 1968 and has a long list of “discovered” film greats such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, David Lynch, Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone, Atom Egoyan, Randall Kleiser, Ang Lee, Robert Rodriguez, Brian de Palma, the Coen Brothers and many others from their beginning efforts with submissions early in their careers. 

Multi award-winning producer/director, Hunter Todd, founded this Int’l. Film festival to honor all categories of film and video production continuing his long dedication of “Discovery” in spotlighting emerging Independent filmmakers, “the Spielbergs & Ang Lees of tomorrow.” 

WorldFest’s mission is to recognize and honor outstanding creative excellence in film & video, validate brilliant abilities and promote future filmmaking in Texas as well as enhance cultural tourism for Houston. 

The 10-day film festival ran to a smooth finish with several sold-out full houses, 15 World Premieres, 50 Indie feature productions, 76 award winning shorts and over 500 USA and International filmmakers in attendance. 

All film premieres were screened at the Flagship AMC Studio 30 Theatres, a fifth year WorldFest-Houston Cinema partner.

Other major VIP Partner/Sponsors of WorldFest include Eastman Kodak, Microsoft, The Renaissance/Marriott Hotels, The City of Houston, The State of Texas, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Houston Arts Alliance, Budget Rent a Car, Wagner Media, Plus8Digital, NASA/Space Center Houston, Boxer Properties, Green Mountain Energy, The Wellness Center of Houston, Redwood Creek and Barefoot Cellar Vineyards, The Houston Film Commission and The Houston Yacht Club. 

WorldFest’s  REMI Awards Gala on Saturday, April 19th was held in The Renaissance Hotel, VIP partner and official host hotel for the 41st annual WorldFest.  Festivities began with a cocktail reception hosted by The Houston Film Commission.  Five-time World Champion Bagpipe Band from Houston’s St. Thomas Episcopal School launched the awards segment by piping in festival founder, Hunter Todd, leading the parade of beautiful Page Parkes models, award presenters for the special evening. Local celebrity and veteran news anchor, Bob Beaudreault was Co-host. Dance entertainment was presented by MECA Mexican Folkloric Dancers of Houston followed by the Champion Scottish Highland St. Thomas Episcopal School dancers with a grand finale of Shawn Welling’s Planet Funk Academy’s premiere dancers who performed a high-energy dance mix created especially for the gala. 

 WorldFest conducted Six Film Industry Seminars concluding with the ever popular Indie Forum of WorldFest Directors moderated by David Winning, a multi-award winner at WorldFest. Producer DJ Paul a longtime festival friend returned with his directorial debut film B.O.H.I.C.A. and presented the Indie Financing Seminar. Panorama Entertainment’s Stuart Strutin presented Distribution for Indies, Hollywood’s Jon Scheide offered Protocol for Scriptwriters and Laura Pennino of Pennino and Partners presented How to Promote your Indie Project and award-winning Canadian Documentarian Alan Mendelsohn’s Docs on a Dime rounded out the WorldFest Master Class Production Seminars this year. 

WorldFest 2008 Grand REMI Awards are:

BEST THEATRICAL FEATURE to Before the Rains, Santosh Sivan, Director & Ashok Rao, Executive Producer, Excalibur Pictures, USA/India;

BEST FILM & VIDEO to Stop the Aerial Hunting of Wolves in Alaska, Bill Burnett, GVI, DC;

BEST TV & CABLE PRODUCTION to Extraterrestrial, Nataliya Gerovska, STAR MEDIA, Kiev, UKRAINE;

BEST NEW MEDIA, Creative Capers Entertainment Website by Creative Capers of Montrose, CA;

BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM & VIDEO to Pablo Millan for Long Path of Stone, ArteAutor, Lugo, SPAIN;

BEST SHORT SUBJECT to Bill Block for The Drummer, Bill Block Films, NY, USA;

BEST TV COMMERCIAL to Max Gutierrez for Guinness “At Last”, NY, USA;

BEST STUDENT FILM to Julia Schwarz for Nachts Das Leben, GERMANY;

BEST MUSIC VIDEO to Rosemary Garner for Weird Al  - Mixed Up S.O.B., Seattle, WA 

All other award results from this year’s WorldFest competition are posted on our website at www.worldfest.org – There were more than 4,500 category entries in all film and video competitions, and around 15% of the entries won awards. 

WorldFest Closing Day Festivities included a special VIP tour of NASA & Space Center Houston with a Regatta & Texas BBQ & Marimba Band party hosted by The Houston Yacht Club.

The final event was back at the AMC cinema for two Closing Night films, Roman de Gare, directed by Claude Lelouch and White Angel, (Istanbul, Turkey) which won the Special Jury Award for Best Director (Mahsun Kirmizigul) and also the Best International Feature Gold Cup presented by the Russian-American Business Magazine. 

During the 10-day festival, over 500 filmmakers from more than 33 nations around the world were in attendance to personally accept their various awards from this year’s WorldFest’s competition of thousands of submitted category entries.

Dates for WorldFest-Houston #42 are April 18-April 27, 2009. 

Please check our website at - www.worldfest.org - for the full winners’ list or call 713-965-9955 for more information. “Call for Entries” for next year’s event will be mailed out in late September.

Entries officially open August 15th, 2008. Main deadline is December 15, 2008.

You may download official entry forms from our Internet website starting August 1st 2008. We are now streaming particular Remi Award winners on our website!

WorldFest-Houston, PO Box 56566, Houston, Texas 77256-6566

713-965-9955 www.worldfest.org    mail@worldfest.org