Deadline approaching for submissions for annual festival

HUNTINGTON -- Read it now and believe it later, but Saturday is March 1.

That means, the clockwork Appalachia is ticking in downtown Huntington.

Filmmakers in the 13-state Appalachian region must have their screenplays, feature films, documentaries, short films, young film maker and micro films to the Fifth Annual Appalachian Film Fest committee by March 10.

The film fest is set for April 17-19 at the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center, 925 Fourth Ave., in downtown Huntington.

Entry fees are $25 to $40 depending on the category.

Go online at www.appyfilmfest.com to find out more about the Appalachian Film Fest.

Appy film premiere

Local filmmaker Francesca Karle is again using her film's premiere for good as she's got a fundraising premiere set to kick off the Appalachian Film Festival on Thursday, April 17.

Tickets are $25 and go on sale Monday, March 3.

The benefit premiere for "Back to the Bottle," a docu-drama that tells a local man's fight with alcohol abuse, will include a pre-screening buffet donated by various local restaurants. All proceeds will go to the Cabell County Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership.

Ticket-holders will enter through a red carpet into the Keith at 7 p.m., and the film will start at 8 p.m.

Karle's first film raised more than $25,000 for the Cabell-Huntington Coalition for the Homeless.

Tickets will be available at Cinema Theatre in downtown Huntington; The Herald-Dispatch; the United Way, 820 Madison Ave.; Midway Barbershop, at the corner of 1st Street and 4th Avenue and charge by phone at (304) 523-2764.

For more information, e-mail tksaints@zoomnet.net.

Got guns, got freedom

Local filmmaker Ashley Stinnett, whose first full length-feature indie film, "Lake Forest," was screened at the Appalachian Film Fest in 2006, is back, but with something entirely different.

Stinnett and crew have made a 30-minute documentary called, "Our Second Amendment; Our Guarantee of Freedom," which is a pro-Second Amendment (right to bear arms) film that features interviews with local hunters and politicians, including U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, Cabell County Sheriff Kim Wolfe and David Tyson, former head of the Republican Party in West Virginia.

Stinnett has submitted the film to the Appy Film Fest, and the just-finished documentary is now available on DVD for $12.95.

"It is written and produced with an Appalachian perspective," Stinnett said. "Aside from the interviews, we've got some good statistics that are a little eye-opening for people. It is really something close to my heart, and we really put a lot into it."

E-mail Stinnett at oursecondamendment@gmail.com.

Audition on the move

South Charleston resident Sam Holdren, whose film "Audition" screened last year at the Appalachian Film Fest, is showing the film at festivals around the country.

Holdren just had the film, shot partly in Charleston in 2005, screened in Macon, Ga., at its film fest last weekend. In late March, it will show at the Fargo Film Festival in Fargo, N.D.

Last year, "Audition" won Best Student Short Film and Best Regional Student Film from the Bluegrass Independent Film Festival in La Grange, Ky., and an Award of Excellence from the West Virginia Filmmakers Film Festival in Sutton.

Holdren -- who is finishing up his master's degree in fine arts from Temple University's prestigious Film & Media Arts program in May -- is a 1997 graduate of Winfield High School and a double-graduate of West Virginia State University. He currently resides in South Charleston.

More information about each film is available at www.auditionmoviesite.com or www.samholdren.com.

'Rise Up! West Virginia' showing in Ansted

As fuel costs go through the roof and environmental awareness increases, there are an increasing number of films about mountaintop removal and coal.

At 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, the Ansted Historical Preservation Council presents a free screening of the documentary "Rise Up! West Virginia" at the VFW Hall on U.S. 60 in Ansted.

A former West Virginia filmmaker of the year, B.J. Gudmundsson of Lewisburg, takes a road trip to understanding the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining in communities in southern West Virginia. She begins on Kayford Mountain, where 8,000 acres have been destroyed.

For more information, call (304) 658-4910.

Burning the future

Vivian Stockman, of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, was one of the guest speakers last week at a screening of David Novack's new film, "Burning the Future," an award-winning full-length feature film about big coal and climate change.

The film premieres Friday in New York City at the Landmark Sunshine and March 7 in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Encino.

It will premiere in Europe in April, and will be shown on the Sundance Channel beginning in May as part of its "The Green" series.

The DVD release of "Burning the Future" includes a comprehensive action guide with which viewers of the film can gain a deeper understanding of the issues and directly participate in change.

Stockman said the film brings about real debate and critical examination of coal in our future.

"Clinton, Obama and McCain have pledged to take action to reduce global warming, but they fail to recognize a national disgrace that is the front end of climate change -- the enormous cultural and ecological destruction of mountaintop removal coal mining," Stockman said. "To take real action on climate change, the candidates' policies should help the country transition quickly out of the carbon era to a cleaner-energy future. That includes ending mountaintop removal and imposing a moratorium on new coal-fired plants," Stockman said in a release. "We have to get the truth out, because the coal industry is swamping the nation with the meme of 'clean coal.' But, coal's dirty when you mine it, dirty when you clean it for market, dirty when you transport it, dirty when you burn it, dirty when you 'dispose' of the ash -- and it sure dirties up politics."

Go online at www.burningthefuture.org.

Photo courtesy of www.auditionmoviesite.com

William Ashe, played by Todd Waters, rehearses for his date with Veronica in “Audition,” a film by Sam Holdren.

Photo courtesy of Francesca Karle

Francesca Karle shot her new film “Back to the Bottle” around Huntington at places such as Ritter Park, St. Mary’s Medical Center, the Heritage Farm Museum and Village and Sharkey’s.