Indie Fest USA 2009, which is scheduled to open with red carpet arrivals at the Disneyland Hotel Aug. 22 and continue seven days thereafter in Anaheim, vows to “break the mold in film festivals,” according to Ray L. Gibb, vice president of events with Indie Fest USA Entertainment Group.
“At other film festivals, high ticket and pass prices mean less can afford to attend,” Gibb explains in an email. “Limiting selections to films that have won awards limits the screening availability to the other thousands of filmmakers with equally great films just starting out.”
Among the independent films listed on the online schedule are Robert Stephens' House of Fallen, a good vs. evil tale starring C. Thomas Howell and Corbin Bernsen; Paul Osbourne's scathing documentary about film festival circuit Official Rejection; Benjamin Paquette's oddly Oz-ical feature The Woman of Ahs; Kurando Mitsutake's revenge tale Samauri Avenger: The Blind Wolf; and two Chip Richie documentaries on the mistreatment of American Indians, Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy and Our Spirits Don't Speak English: Indian Boarding School.
Besides independent-film programming, Indie Fest will include live music and celebrity appearances at the opening ceremonies, the awards show finale and after parties, according to Gibbs, who boasts of being able to pluck from a “long contact list within the major motion picture industry including distribution and acquisition executives, studio executives and ancillary markets.”
Some promised highlights follow after the jump . . .
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*Indie Fest USA 2009 opens Saturday, Aug. 22. Registration begins at tables outside the Disneyland Hotel at 5 p.m. Celebrity red carpet arrivals begins at 6:30 p.m. at the hotel entrance. Music kicks up in the hotel's Magic Kingdom Ballroom at 6:45 p.m. Doors to the event open to the paying public at 7 p.m., when Giovanni Leiva, vice president of public relations, takes the stage to welcome everyone and outline the program. Sorry Nelson performs at 8:45 p.m., followed at 10 p.m. by Natalie Marie, who celebrates the release of her debut single on her new label Universal Fontana Records.
*Kiss Army performs on Media Day–Sunday, Aug. 23–at the Grove of Anaheim.
*Film screenings and filmmaker events begin Monday, Aug. 24, at the AMC 12 Downtown Disney Theaters and continue through Thursday, Aug. 27.
*Phillip Bauer presents his musical tribute to Johnny Cash Aug. 24 at the Grove.
*Sam Morrison presents his musical tribute to Bob Seger Aug. 27 at the Grove.
*The awards show is Friday, Aug. 28 in the Disneyland Hotel's Magic Kingdom Ballroom. Xavier Toscano and Stevie B entertain. Sorry Nelson performs at the after party immediately following the awards show.
Some times and performers may be changed without notice. Visit IndieFestUSA or call (775) 593-6201 for more details.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.