JamFest International Independent Film Festival scheduled Oct. 28 and 29
Contact: Tonya Lowentritt
10/24/11
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“AN EVENING WITH MY COMATOSE MOTHER” – An actress performs a scene from “An Evening with My Comatose Mother,” one of the short independent films to be screened at the JamFest International Independent Film Festival Oct. 28 and 29 at Southeastern Louisiana University’s Ralph R. Pottle Music Building. The film is similar to the style of Sam Rami’s “Evil Dead.”
HAMMOND – The 4th annual JamFest International Indie Film Festival will screen award-winning films from the United States and around the world Oct. 28 and 29 at Southeastern Louisiana University.
The festival, whose motto is “No money just vision, truly Independent,” is sponsored by the Northshore Regional Endowment for the Arts and Southeastern Louisiana University’s Department of Fine and Performing Arts.
Festival directors and Southeastern faculty members Alan Marsh and Martie Fellom said approximately 50 films will be screened in Southeastern’s Ralph R. Pottle Music Building. Admission is free and open to the public.
The featured festival speaker is Valerie Rodriguez Black of Upload Films and the Louisiana Arts and Film Organization. Black will present a free lecture about independent filmmaking on Saturday, Oct. 29, at 3 p.m. in Pottle, room 119.
“Screenings, which begin at noon and end at 9 p.m. each day, will be shown simultaneously in two auditoriums, the Pottle Music Auditorium and the Pottle Music Recital Hall,” Marsh said. “The films will be broken down into one-hour blocks and separated by genre, such as comedies, dramas, documentaries, experimental, music videos and documentaries.”
Film selections were made with the assistance of the 2011 JamFest adjudicators, many of whom are Southeastern faculty and staff, including David Armand, Cheryll Javaherian, Heather O’Connell, Chad Winters, James Winter, Agnieszka Guthy and Stephen Suber. There will be a question and answer period after screenings, where attendees and aspiring filmmakers can ask questions about the creation and production of pictures, Marsh added.
Some feature screenings include “Death by Medicine,” a feature documentary exploring the danger of conventional medicine; “Catching Dreams,” about a performer in Cirque du Soleil; “North or Camp Nevin,” the tale to two southern youths bent on becoming war heroes in 1864 Kentucky; “Pennipotens,” an animated short based on the Flemish fairytale “White Caroline and Black Caroline;” and “An Evening with My Comatose Mother,” a short invoking the style of Sam Rami’s “Evil Dead.”
Other screenings include “Heart of a Volunteer,” a feature documentary about the Firefighters of Livingston Parish’s District 4, and “Bicycle Season, a drama short film about a down-on-his-luck father trying to save Christmas for his daughter.
“Several filmmakers are flying in to network with each other and to celebrate storytelling through the medium of film, including JamFest alum and New Jersey native Julius B. Kelly,” Marsh said. “Kelly screened his film ‘Forgiveness,’ receiving the Iago Award at last year’s festival and returns this year with his new short, ‘Jackin’ Carlos,’ about two idiots who try to rob a DVD bootlegger.”
For additional information, contact Marsh at smarsh@selu.edu or mfellom@selu.edu, or call 985-549-2133. To read about the films, log on to www.strawberryjam.org.
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