Jason Fraley, WTOP Film Critic
WASHINGTON – Leap Day is Launch Day for the 14th annual D.C. Independent Film Festival.
Judges selected 47 films out of nearly 1,000 entries from more than 20 countries.
They include both feature-length and short films of the live-action, animated and documentary variety.
If you’ve never been to one of these before, I suggest the shorts. If you don’t like what you see, you can just wait 10 minutes, and then it’s onto the next one.
The festival kicks off at 7 p.m. Wednesday and runs through Sunday.
Last year, the festival held a Q&A with Ed Sanchez, co-director of “The Blair Witch Project” (1999).
This year, it will feature a special tribute to documentary filmmaker Les Blank, who won a BAFTA Award for his documentary “Burden of Dreams” (1982) — about the chaotic production of Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo” (1982) — and the Sundance Special Jury Prize for his polka documentary “In Heaven There is No Beer” (1984).
Still, the highlight might come Friday with the festival’s first-ever Zombie Walk and Undead After-Party. The zombie events coincide with two short films by local filmmakers, “Zombie Bohemia” by Vince Brando and “Beneath” by Christopher Fernandez.
Events will be held at both the Landmark E Street Cinema and the U.S. Navy Memorial.
Click here for the festival’s complete schedule.
Read more from WTOP Film Critic Jason Fraley by clicking “Fraley on Film” under the “Living” tab above, and check out his blog, The Film Spectrum.
(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
