hi/lo film festival

2005 Call For Entries!
Our regular submission deadline is January 1, 2005 after that, submission fees go up but you can still get it to us by our final deadline - January 15, 2005.

You can click here to download a PDF application form. Simply print it out, fill it out, and send it to us with your film and your submission fee. Or, yo can fill in the online application (and pay by credit card) and send us your film separately. (Please, be sure to label THE SPINE of your video box/case/whatever with the title of your film and the film's running time - this helps us a bunch!).

The festival will screen in San Francisco in the spring of 2005 and then will tour the country, films accepted into the festival will also be considered for inclusion on our 2005 hilo film festival DVD. So, if you're a high concept-low-budget film makers whose films really ought be seen a more people, then: SEND US YOUR FILM!

Just what is the hilo all about and kind of films are we looking for? Hmmm, those are good questions...here are some answers!

DID you miss the hi/lo film festivalthis year? Not too worry, you can BUY THE hilo 2004 DVD - just email us and we'll tell you what to do. The disk costs $15 including shipping and contains 15 films with a total run time of 80 minutes. This is the perfect back-to-school stocking stuffer and good for those of you who saw the festival but forgot how exciting standing on a street corner for 13 minutes and rocking out to X-tina could be.

We're still sending the 2004 fest out across the land. After spring showings in San Francisco and Oakland, the festival has screened this summer in New York, Jacksonville and San Diego (thanks to the Union-Tribune for the great review) and is coming back to Seattle this October.

If you're looking to bring the festival to your town tell us!

We're still getting very nice compliments about this years festival, so thanks to Scott Adler and San Francisco Magazine for saying that the hilo films "did what the best of cinema should do: entrance." The first time we read that we read "entrance" as a noun and not an adjective and were like "how do films entrance?" But then we calmed down and a polite bystander set us straight.

7x7 magazine - another SF glossy publication - put us in their top 5 "must-do" festivals. We're mentioned alongside the Film Arts Festival, the SF International, the Asian-American Festival and the SF Gay and Lesbian Festival. It's rarefied company indeed and we are humbled.

We've left descriptions of the fils we showed this year up on the site if you'd like to peruse them. And if you really need to do some online reading here is a nice bit of indy media analysis of the festival from Kitchensink Magazine.

If you'd like to submit a film to the next hilo we'd be delighted to accept it....later. In the mean time drop us an email so we can be sure to send you an announcement when we open up the submission season later this year. much love,
the hilo honchos
marc, dan and michelle

For info on the 2004 films check out the Program Schedules for:
Program 1 Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 6pm; Sunday at 6pm
Program 2 Friday at 10pm; Saturday at 2pm and 10pm
The Documentary Program Saturday at 4pm
Feature Film: Monster Road - Saturday at 8pm

hilo film festival is the SF Bay Guardian's Critic's Pick:
Proving that it doesn't take $100 million to make a decent movie, the seventh annual Hi/Lo Film Festival features three days of "high-concept, low-budget" shorts and features. There just aren't enough films out there like Roger Beebe's kitschy "Famous Irish Americans," a graphic lecture insisting that black celebrities with Irish last names really are Irish, or Judy Fiskin's "50 Ways to Set the Table," which highlights competitive "tablescaping." If you're into parodies, director Hanelle Culpepper replaces HBO's estrogen-powered coterie with curious toddlers in "Six and the City." Not surprisingly, quirky humor is a top priority in this event presented by San Francisco comedy collective Killing My Lobster, but expect smatterings of seriousness as well. Sonja Shah's "Something Between Her Hands" documents Cambodian sex-workers, and filmmaker Tom Putnam takes us on a mind trip with "Tom Hits His Head," in which a genteel office worker suffers from a nervous breakdown. Though a few works on the bill comply only with the "low-budget" part of the deal, most are good for at least a hearty laugh."
-Kimberly Chun, SF Bay Guardian, March 31, 2004

Monster Road is the SF Weekly¹s Pick For This Saturday Night:
"Sweatshops have nothing on stop-motion animation studios. Every second of a stop-motion film contains 24 individual shots, each of which must be painstakingly staged and lit. Consider the infinite patience it takes to produce, say, just one freaking Gumby episode, and it's easy to understand why master Claymation technician Bruce Bickford is such an eccentric. In his desolate Seattle-area home, his only friends his Alzheimer's-patient dad and those clay "little guys," Bickford has been making underground flicks in his basement for nearly 50 years. Even his best-known creation, the 1979 Frank Zappa vehicle Baby Snakes, is utterly obscure, and Bickford himself is practically a nonentity. But as Monster Road- a funny, moving cinematic biography of him -- proves, he lives an inner life so rich and bizarre that he hardly needs adulation."
> -Joyce Slaton, SF Weekly, March 31, 2004

and the SF Bay Guardian recommends Monster Roadtoo:
"*Monster Road Clay animator Bruce Bickford doesn't claim to be God, but considering he's been bringing clay figures to life for more than 40 years, the guy might as well be. Director Brett Ingram's feature-length documentary explores the intriguing, often macabre world of Bickford's art, while also delving into the artist's childhood and family background. The other major character is Bruce's father, George, a retired rocket scientist living with his son in a home studio outside Seattle. Intertwining a war-hungry U.S. culture, the Bickfords' philosophies, and the intricate beauty of claymation, Monster Road is at once a private and public history, told in a somewhat minor key. But gentle humor offsets the nostalgia and the younger Bickford's childlike inclinations prove to be just as charming to watch as his livelihood."
-Kimberly Chun, SF Bay Guardian, March 31, 2004

Get to know the filmmakers in our Q and A section.

Props from the press for the 2003 festival:
San Francisco Bay Guardian
SF Weekly
San Francisco Chronicle
SF Flavorpill

Questions, Comments for hi/lo organizers?
Drop us a line at info@hilofilmfestival.com