WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival is an annual film festival

Film festival

A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

, dedicated to various types of independent films, held in Houston, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

.

History

WorldFest-Houston is one of the three original international film festivals in North America, after San Francisco and New York. It was founded in 1961 as Cinema Arts, an International Film Society. WorldFest/Cinema Arts became a competitive International Film Festival in 1967 and presented its first edition in April 1968. It is the only international film festival in North America to be dedicated completely to independent films, as it does not accept films from the major studios. The festival was founded by producer/director Hunter Todd to present a film festival for independent filmmakers. WorldFest-Houston is the oldest film festival in the South of the USA and its Founding Director Hunter Todd is one of the longest running festival directors in the world, having started the festival in 1961.

Events

The festival presents around 55 new Indie feature films and 100 new Indie Short films during the ten-day film festival each April. Aside from the film viewing, the festival offers six Master Classes, professional seminars, and workshops. Both the films and classes are open to the public. In addition, a Festival Club exists that is open every evening during the festival, a Remi Awards Gala Dinner and a unique Sailing Regatta and Texas BBQ held annually at The Houston Yacht Club on the final day of the festival. It is the only film festival in the world that presents a regatta. Attendance is over 30,000 general public and more than 550 international filmmakers over the ten-day event.

Notable Festival Award Winners

WorldFest gave first honors to Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg

Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

, George Lucas

George Lucas

George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...

, Ang Lee

Ang Lee

Ang Lee is a Taiwanese film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman , Sense and Sensibility , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Hulk , and Brokeback Mountain , for which he won an Academy...

, Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott

Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...

, The Coen Brothers, David Lynch

David Lynch

David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...

, Brian De Palma

Brian De Palma

Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...

, Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone

William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...

, John Lee Hancock

John Lee Hancock

John Lee Hancock, Jr. is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for directing the sports drama films The Rookie and The Blind Side.-Early life:...

, Randal Kleiser

Randal Kleiser

John Randal Kleiser is an American film director and producer, perhaps best known for directing the 1978 musical film Grease.-Life and career:...

, Shane Stanley

Shane Stanley

Shane Stanley is a multi-Emmy Award winning filmmaker best known for Executive Producing Gridiron Gang starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for Sony Pictures and directing Bret Michaels music videos supporting the smash hit show Rock of Love and Bret Michaels: Life As I Know It...

, Daniele Gangemi

Daniele Gangemi

-Biography:His debut film, Cobalt blue night, is interpreted by actors Corrado Fortuna, Regina Orioli, Valentina Carnelutti and Alessandro Haber. The music carry the signature of Giuliano Sangiorgi of Negramaro.- Director and Writer :...

 and many more. Sci-Fi director David Winning

David Winning

David Winning is a Canadian and American dual Citizen film and television director, screenwriter, producer, editor, and occasional actor. Although Winning has worked in numerous film and TV genres, his name is most commonly associated with science fiction, thrillers and drama.-Biography:Winning...

 has won twenty-two Gold/Platinum Remi Awards from 1994 to present, making him the winningest filmmaker in the history of Worldfest.

Remi Awards

The Remi Award is inspired by the creative genius of the western artist Frederic Remington

Frederic Remington

Frederic Sackrider Remington was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in depictions of the Old American West, specifically concentrating on the last quarter of the 19th century American West and images of cowboys, American Indians, and the U. S...

, famous for his paintings and sculptures of cowboy life in Texas and The West. The Grand Remi Statuette is presented for the top award in each major category. The Special Jury Awards are Grand Remi Nominees, they are the highest awards for creative excellence in each major category. Then the Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze Remi Awards are 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place in each sub-category. There are ten major competition categories that can win the Remi Award; Shorts, Features, TV Productions, Student Productions, TV Commercials, Experimental, New Media (including Interactive and Websites), Music Videos, Unproduced Screenplays and Film & Video Production (which includes Documentaries of various genres). WorldFest receives a total of more than 4,500 category entries in all ten categories and about 15% of the entries go on to win the Remi Award.

External links

• WorldFest Official Website