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• If you go: Appalachian Film Fest
• Roll it: Schedule for the Appalachian Film Festival

It's that time of year.

President of the Huntington Regional Commission, St. Clair and his dozen or so board members of the volunteer organization are prepping for the sixth annual Appalachian Film Festival set to roll nearly 30 indie films for three April weekends in venues around Huntington.

The Commission, which meets on the last Thursday of each month at the Cabell-Huntington Convention and Visitors Bureau, has sifted through more than 109 entries from across the 13-state region of Appalachia for the films chosen to be shown.

As in past years, St. Clair said the festival features a wide breadth of subject matter as films are scattered throughout the Appalachian region, which runs from New York to Mississippi.

"You get everything in Appalachia from the rough urban films to the rough Appalachian mountains and films like, 'Bonecrusher,'" St. Clair said.

"Bonecrusher" was picked as one of the finalists for documentary, a tough choice since they received many good coal-related films, St. Clair said.

"We've had tons of coal films and good quality coal mining documentaries," St. Clair said. "It runs through the current of Appalachia."

St. Clair said the fest is about at capacity for the number of films they can show.

"Our first year we got about 40 films and we thought we were big time," St. Clair said laughing. "Right now I don't think we want to get much bigger."

They do, though, want more people to see the films.

Gone are days of showing films in a weekday morning.

Now in its sixth year, the Appalachian Film Festival is splicing its fest into three parts.

Organizers are going to run a half dozen films each on Friday, April 3, at the Huntington Cinema Theatre, 1021 4th Ave., and then on Friday, April 10, at the Marshall University Memorial Student Media Center to give more indie movie fans around the region a chance to see the wide array of film from shorts and documentaries to wild action features.

Admission is a $2 donation to the Huntington Regional Film Commission.

"A film is only as good as the audience watching it," St. Clair said. "Nobody wants to see their art in a closet. .. We thought about it and think that spreading it out over three weekends and throughout the community gives these people's films a better chance to be seen."

Not only are the films seen but they also rack up prize money and the coveted Blenko Glass-blown glass apples, The Appy.

The winner for Best Micro and Best Young Filmmaker will get $250 while the Best Feature, Best Documentary and Best Screenplay will get $1,000 each for first place; $500 for second and $250 for third.

The awards banquet is at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, April 25, at The 21 Club at the historic Frederick Hotel.

As always, the film fest carves out some time for workshops to give filmmakers tips from film experts.

This year, there are two workshops Saturday, April 25, at The Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center, 925 4th Ave., Huntington.

The West Virginia Film Office is hosting a free workshop at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 25. The workshop will be on incentive programs available to film makers in West Virginia. The workshop will be conducted by Pamela Haynes, director of the film office and Jamie Cope, the location services manager for the film office.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, April 25, there will be another workshop with Daniel Boyd, director of the Paradise Film Institute at West Virginia State University. The Film Institute currently has active travel/study/production exchange partnerships with film schools in Tanzania (School of Fine and Performing Arts, University of Dar Es Salaam), Russia (The All Russian State Institute of Cinema), the Czech Republic (Film Academy of Performing Arts), Venezuela (Escuela de Cine y Television) and Belize (Ministry of Culture).

There also will be a special feature presentation at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, April 23, of Boyd's well-known film "Paradise Park" aka "Heroes of the Heart," a trailer-park comedy starring such music stars as Porter Waggoner, Larry Groce of Mountain Stage and many others.

Pamela Haynes, director of the West Virginia Film Office, said they are excited to see Huntington's film fest growing and to be a part of it.

"The Appalachian Film Festival continues to show its strength as an event that attracts and celebrates the filmmaker," Haynes said. " As such, it opens an important door for the state Film Office to 'sell' West Virginia's film incentive program, and other positive attributes, directly to filmmakers and encourage them to select West Virginia as their next place to conduct business."

Haynes said they're excited to share info about the state's new program and that two new feature film productions will start shooting in West Virginia this year, thanks to help from the West Virginia Film Industry Investment Act, which the Legislature enacted and the Film Office began implementing last year.

Last week, Allegheny Image Factory received approval to participate in the program for an independent film version of a highly successful novel, "Feast of the Seven Fishes."

Emphatic Films, a film development and production company based out of Los Angeles, also received approval last week to participate in the program for "The Deposition," a story about a lonely court videographer who becomes obsessed with videotaped testimonies, begins his own investigation into an accident and takes matters into his own hands.

While many of the Appalachian Film Festival films are scattered throughout the region, several do have Huntington connections or are made by Huntington residents including David Smith, Joe Murphy and Michael Valentine.

One film has an obvious, Huntington/Marshall connection as the short documentary "Make a Dream Happen: Jean Francois Bro Grebe" will highlight the charity work of Marshall University graduate and former basketball player, Jean Francois Bro Grebe, who has returned to his native Ivory Coast to rebuild basketball courts and hospitals.

This showing will be in conjunction with a fundraiser for Bro Grebe's foundation: "Give a Little, Save a Lot." The Foundation will host an Ivory Coast/French-inspired dinner at the Huntington Galleria, 945 4th Ave., beginning at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 23. Tickets we be available at the door.

St. Clair said the fest, which hosted "Back to the Bottle," a charity fundraiser last year, tries to give back, especially during these tough times.

"Movies seem to be Depression proof," St. Clair said. "It's an industry in America that we celebrate widely. Normally, you only see this big industry at the theaters, but we are making sure we take care of the mom and pop filmmakers."

The Herald-Dispatch

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The Herald-Dispatch

Jean Francois Bro-Grebe in action in November, 2007.

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