Las Vegas Film Festival
Showcased Films From Around the World
Photos by Nikki Artale
On July 18-21, 2013 the Las
Vegas Film Festival brought in filmmakers, screenplay writers, actors,
actresses and fans from all over the world. The categories included feature
films, shorts, documentaries, foreign films, animation and videos. Honored this
year was Rory J. Saper, the 2013 Male Indie Icon Award Winner. Rory
is from the United Kingdom and his film “Rufus” was one of the featured films
shown at the Festival. The 2013 Female
Indie Icon Award Winner was Zoe Bell
who is one of the best stunt actors in the industry and has won two World Stunt
Awards for her work. Zoe was featured in the film “Raze”, directed by Josh C.
Waller. The film is about 48 women who have been abducted and must fight to
kill each other in order to protect their loved ones. Zoe spent quite a while
on stage talking with her fans in the audience.
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Another outstanding film was “Liars, Fires & Bears” directed by Jeremy Cloe. It is a heartbreaking story of a 9 year old girl who
goes on a cross country road trip to find her brother. It is a powerful story
of Dave and Eve as they form a close bond with each other running from the law.
UNLV and CSN filled the
days with the Student Film Showcase and as always the films were impressive and
showed the talent of the young filmmakers. Domenica
Castro wrote, acted and directed a short film “Jaquie Jaquie Oh” shown at
the festival. www.vimeo.com/65163210 Domenica just graduated from UNLV
with a Bachelors of Arts degree and is well on the road to become an excellent
filmmaker. She is currently producing another short film “Splitsville”. Professor David Schmoeller was there to
support his students. David wrote and directed the award winner film “Little
Monsters”.
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Magic Camp showed the magic that
many of our children possess and where they learn to become magic superstars at
the camp. It was a joy to see the children perform their sleight of hand and
magic tricks and bring out the magic inside of themselves.
Siegfried Fishchbacher attended
the showing of Magic Camp and commented after the show that he liked the film.
It was good to see Siegfried who is a master magician and illusionist.
Siegfried Fishchbacher
Another sleight of hand
master, known as the fastest hands in the world, was Mickey Silver. Mickey has a new project called “The Perfect Move” which is a true story of a young boy’s
fascination with sleight of hand that takes him into a world of power that
enables him to make millions by out-witting the gaming industry.
Mickey Silver
Magical Universe directed
by Jeremy Workman is a story of Al
Carbee, an eccentric artist who spends his days photographing Barbie dolls.
Al Carbee has over 500 Barbie dolls and 1,000 negatives and prints. His work
was shown at the Saco Museum and people called it fascinating and intriguing.
The Lufthansa Heist
written by Daniel Simone and the
late Henry Hill, explored in depth
the true story of the heist. Jimmy Burke and his seven man crew made off with
$6 million in cash making it the largest cash haul in history. A question and
answer period was held after the screening of “Jimmy the Gent Burke.
Coldwater was a powerful and
disturbing film about a reform facility that parents send their boys to in the
hope that they change their delinquent behavior. The punishments are harsh and
tragic and somewhat unbelievable. Vincent
Grashaw won for Best Director, PJ Boudousaque won for Best Actor and the
film won the Grand Jury Award for Best Movie.
Charo was the guest presenter
and she was so full of life, energy and lots of smiles and hugs for her many
admirers that were so excited to see her at the film festival. An added treat
was meeting her son Shel Rasten who
is so gorgeous and too handsome to describe. His smile melted my heart. Shel
was featured in the film “The
Boulevard”, directed by Tom Badal. It is a film about the last night of a
streetwalker. He is mesmerizing on the screen and I personally would vote him
the “Sexiest Man Alive”.
Shel Rasten an Charo
Shel Rasten
Nikki Artale and Charo
The Silver Ace
Award went to Robert Cochrane for the film “You
Should Know Jack”
Screenplay
Competition 3rd place went to Jack McLaughlin for “Moonlight Bandit”
Short Screenplay 2nd
place went to Ron Podell for “Tyrannosaurus
Sex”
Congratulations to the
team that was responsible to put together the Las Vegas Film Festival.
Milo Kostelecky Film
Director, Frederick Apcar Director of Operations, West McDdowell Program
Director, Voula Konstantarakis Event Manager, Jennifer Kotowski Art Director,
KJ Howe Emcee, Jon “Jersey” Goldman Director of Sponsorship/Emcee, Grayson Orr
Asst. Programmer, Joe Fopiano Asst. Programer. A great event and we look
forward to next year’s
