Last year, Brian and I received word that our short horror film 'Throwaway' had been accepted into the Festivus Film Festival.  This was a festival we had tried to get into the prior year, but they didn't have space for us.  However, the film left a good impression on the judges and they decided to just grandfather us into the 2010 festival.

The festival runs from Jan 14-17 in Denver, Colorado at The Oriental Theater.  'Throwaway' will be screening Saturday, Jan 16 at 6pm in a big short film block at the Oriental.  Here is a link to our B-Side screening page with more details, a trailer and pictures: http://festivus.bside.com/2010/films/throwaway_festivus2010;jsessionid=95B1BF8D621494793087A4DC6DFD30A0

I gotta say... getting into film festivals is usually bittersweet.  Depending on the festival, you go through two phases.  1) Being excited that your film was accepted... to 2) Being upset by how bad the festival is run.  Well, so far everything we have seen from Festival has been great.  Stellar website, big attention to filmmakers, tons of useful information, and good promotion of the featured films.  Hell, they even have their screeners do video reviews of some of the films, and 'Throwaway' was chosen and received a very positive review:

For more information on the festival, check out its official site: http://www.festivusfilmfestival.com/index.html

Check this out! In his daily DVD segment of G4's hit show "Attack Of The Show", film critic Chris Gore took a second to pimp Postcards From The Future: The Chuck Palahniuk Documentary. The segment is called DVDuesday and after making a few DVD recommendations for movies that have just come out, Chris highlighted his 'quickpick' for the day, which turned out to be none other than our Chuck Palahniuk DVD documentary!

The plug happens in the last 10 seconds of the clip.  Big props to our man Joshua Jabcuga for spotting this one.  He just made my month!

Check out a link for the video here: http://g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/dvduesday/68784/Transformers-Box-Set-Natural-Born-Killers-DVD-Review.html

Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the U.S, and one of the coolest aspects of it is something called Filmmaking Frenzy.  This is a contest whereby they select the Top 10 films to screen at their festival as commercials, or 'bumpers' at the start of each presentation.  The rules of the contest state that each film has to be 30-45 secs long, star a kid, star a monster, and end off with the word 'Fantastic'.

Below are the two bumpers that we directed for the festival.  The first one, 'ICE CREAM!' was the runner-up film this year and has already become the most viewed film on the Filmmaking Frenzy website.  It will be screening randomly before films during the 8 day festival.  But if you'd like to see it now, check it out below along with 'Demon Cat', the other bumped we made.  We don't know yet what the 10 other selected films to screen for the fest will be, but we're hoping 'Demon Cat' makes it in too.  Wish us luck!

Kevin and I will both be at the festival.  So if you're in town, come on over and say hi!

In our ever expanding attempt to gain distribution for our feature film Absence. every lit bit of exposure we can attain helps.  So when reviewers contact us for screener copies of the film, I always jump at the chance to send them a DVD asap.  Sometimes that may not pan out too well, as a bad review may hurt our chances of getting the film out to the masses.

So when Joel Harley contacted me, requesting a screener of Absence to review for his awesome movie site Porkehad's Horror Review Hole (how's that for a title?), I knew we may be taking a risk.  After all, Absence isn't typically classified as a horror film... but like I said, you go for it in order to try and help your chances to get the film to that crucial next step.  Well, I'm glad to say that the risk paid off.   Joel gave Absence a 4 out of 5 star rating as well as a great write up.  Here's a sample:

A low-budget feature written & directed by Kevin Kölsch & Dennis Widmyer, Absence plays to its strengths. The plot is simplistic but gripping; the violence comes in short, powerful bursts – and the climax is, simply put, excellent, largely avoiding the pitfalls of melodrama. And whilst none of the characters are especially likeable, they’re well-rounded and engaging.

 So a big thank you to Joel for these awesome words.  And if anyone else reading this maintains a movie review site or a blog, you can contact us for a screener copy.

Read the full review of Absence here!

'Throwaway' has just gotten into 2 more festivals: Horror UK and Festivus Film Festival.  What's cool is that, with each of these fests, there's a story to go along with the good news.  Horror UK ended up liking 'Throwaway' that they outright chose it before even officially beginning their screening / selection procees.  And with Festivus, we actually joined the previous year and didn't get in, but the fest director remembered how well 'Throwaway' did with the screeners, so they contacted me this year to have it included for 2010's fest.

So along with Dragon*Con, that marks three fests this year for 'Throwaway'.  Thanks all, Brian and I couldn't have done it with you, and it's so cool to see 'Throwaway' still being recognized almost 2 years after we made it.

Stay tuned for screening dates and details.

As you may recall, 'Throwaway' was accepted into the 2009 Dragon*Con Film Festival.  This festival runs for 4 days from Sep 4 - 7th, 2009.  It's in Atlanta, GA.  For any of you nearby that are interested in checking out our vicious little horror film about terrible things happening to nice people, we now have our screening block!  Here are the details:

When: Sep 5, 2009
Horror Shorts Block: 10pm

No theater details are posted on the official Dragon*Con website yet.  So stay tuned.  We'll update this News post once we have it.

'Absence' had its screening at the 2009 Action On Film International Film Festival on Tuesday, July 28th.  I want to thank everyone who came and got to finally see the movie.  I think we had about 25-30 people, and about 90% of them were friends of mine.  I'm not trying to be self-deprecating, nor am I necessarily taking a shot at the festival.  If there's one thing I've learned from being an independent filmmaker, it's that many of these festivals require you to be your own PR machine.  And, being in NY right up until almost the screening date, I just didn't have the time to plaster posters and postcards all around Pasadena, nor do I think I would have.  AoF was a fun experience, but I was pretty sure there weren't going to be any industry people there... or anything related towards helping us get distribution for the movie.  So it was really just about having close friends of mine get to see and hopefully appreciate the movie.  And I think we scored well on that front.  » Read more