WorldFest Houston

Offering another tantalizing cornucopia of true Indie films, WorldFest’s 50th edition opened with a full house to applaud Rob Reiner, in attendance to receive his much deserved Career Achievement Award and present the WorldFest premiere of his most recent film, the impeccably crafted LBJ. 

WorldFest continues until Sunday, April 30th with 17 World Premieres from 87 independent features and an amazing contingent of 109 award-winning shorts. Special showcase of The Twelfth Annual Italian Panorama features Gianfranco Cabbidu’s, The Stuff of Dreams (4/28 at 7pm), a picaresque take on Shakespeare’s Tempest shot on the isle of Sardinia. Another Italian treat is Edoardo Leo’s What’s the Big Deal? (4/29 at 7pm) plus the World Premiere of Giovanni Galletta’s There is a World Outside (4/23 at 5pm).  The Third Annual Panorama China expands to 33 films to showcase its own strongly emerging market component. 

Among WorldFest’s enticing array of dramas & quirky comedies, there is the sardonic Ministry of Love from Croatia (4/28 at 7pm); Fate or Choice, an Eritrean love triangle (4/23 at 9pm); the Azerbaijani psychological drama, Inner City (4/26 at 9pm) plus The Black Prince (4/28 at 9pm), a keen depiction by director, Kavi Raz, of the last king of Punjab’s struggle against Queen Victoria’s British Empire. And as always, a few suspenseful thrillers providing festival audiences an amazing variety of cinematic treats. All screenings will be at The AMC Studio 30 on Dunvale, our longtime festival cinema partner. (2949 Dunvale, Houston, TX 77046).  Trailers, times and ticketing at

www.worldfest.org/calendar

 
WorldFest’s signature event held on Closing Day is the Annual Regatta & Texas BBQ which is hosted by Houston Yacht Club, one of the oldest yacht clubs on the Gulf Coast, tickets available for purchase. And to wrap it all up, WorldFest closes with Tatara Samurai (4/30 at 7pm), the Official Closing Night film, an epic Japanese drama by one of Japan’s top directors, the prolific Yoshinari Nishikori. Tatara Samurai depicts the young blacksmith, Gosuke, as he tries to save his people from vicious raids as a Samurai but he finally realizes his true destiny.

WorldFest- Houston is proud to announce the nominees for the 2017 Remi Awards, honoring the best actor, best actress, best supporting actor, and best supporting actress and also the exciting new category; Rising Stars. The WorldFest Remi Awards will be presented at the Gala Awards Ceremony, April 29th 2017 at The Westchase Marriott Hotel (2900 Briarpark Drive).  

BEST ACTRESS nominees are: Delfin Bafort (You Go to my Head) Belgium, France & Germany; Mi Yang (Reset) China; Ai ai de las Alas (Area) The Philippines; Tracey Birdsall (Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter) USA; Tahmina Rafaella (Inner City) Azerbaijan.

BEST ACTOR nominees are: Shahab Hosseini (Gholam) UK; Luoyong Wang (Justice Forever) China; Edoardo Leo (What’s the Big Deal?) Italy; Marc Clotet (The Chess Player) Spain; Calvin Du (Special Encounter) China.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Olga Pakalovic (Ministry of Love) Croatia; Lotlot de Leon, (First Semester) The Philippines; Amanda Root (The Black Prince) UK/India, Sue Prado, (Area) The Philippines; Eva Kessler (You Are Everything) Germany.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR William Lee (The Legend of Ben Hall) Australia; Shawn Pyfrom (The Moleskin Diary) USA; Scott Patterson (Yellow Fever) UK; Sergio Rubini (The Stuff of Dreams) Italy; Firdovsi Atakişiyev (Inner City) Azerbaijan.

In the WorldFest Rising Stars Category, WorldFest jury members have made their considered deliberations for final nominees in Best Rising Female Stars: Hannah Victoria Stock (The Moleskin Diary) USA; Jessica McLeod (The Hollow Child) Canada and Aliyah Conley (I Am Still Here) USA. For Best Rising Male Stars the nominees are: Harrison Samuels (One Penny) USA; Jarrett Maier (The Things We’ve Seen) USA and Presley Massara (The Pineville Heist) Canada.

 
WorldFest continues with its annual Short Film Showcase, a special review of 109 new short and student films from the festival that gave first top honors to Spielberg, Lucas, Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Randal Kleiser, Spike Lee, Gavin Hood, John Lee Hancock, Michael Cimino, Steven Poster and from their debut features The Coen Brothers, Oliver Stone, Ang Lee, Atom Egoyan, Jonathan Demme and David Lynch, among many others! Few other festivals have such a “discovery” track record! 

WorldFest began in August 1961, as an International Film Society, screening Independent, Foreign & Art films. In April 1968 seven years later, it became an officially competitive International Film Festival, and has been in continuous operation ever since. It is one of the original three film festivals in North America, with San Francisco and New York as the first two. Following WorldFest was Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, and Seattle. Then Telluride, Sundance, Toronto, SXSW and more recently, Tribeca.

 
The 50th Annual WorldFest offers International Competition in Features, Shorts, TV production, TV commercials, unproduced Screenplays & Teleplays, Experimental, Student, Documentary, Business & Industry, New Media, and Music Videos. WorldFest is the largest film & video competition in the world, in sheer number of actual category entries, with more than 4,300 category entries received in 2017. There are over 200 sub-categories for competition, allowing each film to compete in its own genre.

WorldFest-Houston is sponsored by Action Limo, Arcodoro, Celebrity Cruises, The City of Houston,  AMC Theaters Entertainment,  Boxer Properties, The Houston Yacht Club, The Texas Film Commission, The Westchase Marriott Hotel, Avis/Budget, Lopez Negrete Communications, Masterpiece International & The Houston Arts Alliance (HAA).                

More info:    http://www.worldfest.org 
Instagram: @worldfesthouston 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldfest/