 | |
| Location | Santa Monica, CA, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Website | http://www.filmcrash.com/ |
Film Crash is a California-based annual film festival and screenplay competition, programming independent, animated, experimental, low-budget and underground films. The programmers award prizes. [1]
In 1985 film director Matthew Harrison launched a floating film screening series in the East Village, Manhattan, adopting the name Film Crash and its associated logo in early 1988. He was joined later that year by film directors Karl Nussbaum and Scott Saunders. [2]
Film Crash grew, playing in venues such as 124 Ridge Street Gallery, Performance Space 122, R.A.P.P. Arts Center, Angelika Film Center, [3] Shooting Gallery, São Paulo Museum of Image and Sound, Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. and Heliotrope Theater in Los Angeles. [4] In 2014 Film Crash was held in Mid-City, Los Angeles on October 22. [5] In 2015 a Screenplay Competition component was added to Film Crash. The 2023 Film Crash festival and screenplay competition was held at the Laemmle Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles on October 14.
As a collective of filmmakers, Film Crash also collaborated with the experimental theater group Ridge Theater , producing and directing films for several theater productions including Jack Benny [6] at La Mama in 1988 and The Manson Family [7] opera at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1990.
In 2002 Film Crash presented Mark Christensen's debut feature film Box Head Revolution . In 2006 Film Crash produced Ben Rodkin's debut feature film Big Heart City starring Seymour Cassel and Shawn Andrews.
Harmony Korine is an American filmmaker, actor, photographer, artist, and author. His methods feature an erratic, loose and transgressive aesthetic, exploring taboo themes and incorporating experimental techniques, and works with art, music, fashion and advertising.
Melvin and Howard (stylized as Melvin (and Howard)) is a 1980 American comedy-drama film directed by Jonathan Demme. The screenplay by Bo Goldman was inspired by real-life Utah service station owner Melvin Dummar, who was listed as the beneficiary of $156 million in a will allegedly handwritten by Howard Hughes that was discovered in the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. A novelization of Goldman's script, which itself won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen, later was written by George Gipe. The film stars Paul Le Mat, Jason Robards, and Mary Steenburgen, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film was released on September 19, 1980, receiving positive reviews from critics.
Zoe Byrd Akins was an American playwright, poet, and author. She won the 1935 Pulitzer Prize for drama for The Old Maid.
Todd Phillips is an American filmmaker. Phillips began his career in 1993 and directed films in the 2000s such as Road Trip, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, and School for Scoundrels. He came to wider prominence in the early 2010s for directing The Hangover film series. In 2019, he co-wrote and directed the psychological thriller film Joker, based on the DC Comics character of the same name, which premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival where it received the top prize, the Golden Lion. Joker went on to earn Phillips three Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, with his co-writer Scott Silver, his second, third, and fourth Academy Award nominations after also being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for Borat at the 79th Academy Awards.
Steven E. de Souza is an American screenwriter, producer and director of film and television. He is known for writing several high-profile action films of the 1980s and '90s, notably 48 Hrs., Commando, The Running Man, Die Hard and its first sequel, Hudson Hawk, and Judge Dredd.
Laurence T. Fessenden is an American actor, producer, writer, director, film editor, and cinematographer. He is the founder of the New York based independent production outfit Glass Eye Pix. His writer/director credits include No Telling, Habit (1997), Wendigo (2001), and The Last Winter, which is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He has also directed the television feature Beneath (2013), an episode of the NBC TV series Fear Itself (2008) entitled "Skin and Bones", and a segment of the anthology horror-comedy film The ABCs of Death 2 (2014). He is the writer, with Graham Reznick, of the BAFTA Award-winning Sony PlayStation video game Until Dawn. He has acted in numerous films including Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Broken Flowers (2005), I Sell the Dead (2009), Jug Face (2012), We Are Still Here (2015), In a Valley of Violence (2016), Like Me (2017), and The Dead Don't Die (2019), Brooklyn 45 (2023), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Michael Almereyda is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer.
Debra Granik is an American filmmaker. She is most known for 2004's Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga, 2010's Winter's Bone, which starred Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout performance and for which Granik was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and 2018's Leave No Trace, a film based on the book My Abandonment by Peter Rock.
Göran Gentele was a Swedish actor, director, and opera manager. He was director of the Royal Swedish Opera from 1963 to 1972 and briefly the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1972.
This Is That Productions was one of the leading independent feature film production companies. Established in 2002, and based in New York City, the company was founded and fully owned by Ted Hope, Anne Carey, Anthony Bregman, and Diana Victor. The four partners previously worked together at the groundbreaking Good Machine, which Ted Hope co-founded in 1991.
Joseph Nussbaum is an American film director and screenwriter. Nussbaum got his break into the film industry by passing around Hollywood offices his short film George Lucas in Love. The success of the film eventually got him a deal with DreamWorks, and he has since directed films such as the 2004 production Sleepover, the 2006 film American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile and the 2007 film Sydney White starring Amanda Bynes. He has also co-written such screenplays as 2016's The Late Bloomer.
Jonathan A. Levine is an American film director and screenwriter.
Sidney Kimmel Entertainment is an American financer, film and television production company founded in 2004 by philanthropist and film producer Sidney Kimmel. Sidney Kimmel Entertainment focuses on bringing entertainment projects to audiences in association with studio distribution partners.
Matthew Robbins is an American screenwriter and film director best known for his writing work within the American New Wave movement.
The L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival (LACS) is an annual film festival held in the spring in Los Angeles, California. LACS programs short films exclusively in the comedy genre, and is the largest festival of its kind in the United States. During the four-day event, between 60-90 comedy short films from around the world are screened at the festival's main venue in Downtown Los Angeles, with additional industry panels and parties taking place at various locations around the city. The festival culminates on the final night with a red carpet awards ceremony, where winning filmmakers and screenwriters are honored and the "Commie" award is presented to a comedy industry notable for career achievement and "excelling in achieving outstanding comedical achievements in the field of comedy excellence."
Pen Densham is a British-Canadian film and television producer, writer, and director, known for writing and producing films such as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and television revivals of The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone, as well as writing, producing and directing MGM's Moll Flanders.
Matthew Harrison is an American television and film director, producer and writer. He first came to prominence when his feature film Rhythm Thief was awarded Special Jury Recognition for Directing at the Sundance Film Festival. His first studio feature Kicked in the Head was executive produced by Martin Scorsese and released by Universal Studios. He directed episodes 1X11 and 1X12 of HBO's Sex and the City.
Rhythm Thief is a 1994 independent drama film directed by Matthew Harrison. The standard 16mm black-and-white feature was made for US$11,000 and was awarded a Special Jury Recognition for Directing at the Sundance Film Festival. It was given a limited theatrical release in the US and Europe on November 15, 1995. In 2008, Rhythm Thief was released on DVD by Kino Lorber.
Ronald Bruce Pittman is a Canadian television and film director best known for directing the 1987 slasher Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II. He also directed the 1989 film Where the Spirit Lives, which won the Gemini Award for Best TV movie and numerous international awards.
The 124 Ridge Street Gallery was a collective gallery founded in New York's Lower East Side in 1985. Founding members were Susan Bachemin, Elizabeth Evers, Jane Fine, Matthew Harrison, Michael Kaniecki, Robert McGrath, Heidi Marben, Laurie Olinder, and Joe Vinson. Subsequent members included Amy Berniker, Ruth Pomerantz, Paul Rodriguez, Roger W. Sayre, Ann Shea, Paul Villinski, and Carla Weisberg.