Great Lakes International Film Festival

by Steven Opsanic
(Erie PA USA)

Showcasing the best films of the 2011 season, the Great Lakes International Film Festival will be held LIVE in the great city of Erie Pennsylvania on September 23rd thru September 24th 2011, with our online festival taking place September 22nd thru October 1st, 2011.

Considered among the top 100 most popular film festivals in the world, the 10th annual Great Lakes International Film Festival has officially opened its Call for Entries and will accept submissions internationally of independently produced feature length and short length films and scripts in the genres of documentary, horror, experimental, Religious/Spiritual, animation, and all genre of music videos and Gay/Lesbian for the 2011 festival.

The Great Lakes International Film Festival, having produced one successful film festival after another while showcasing more than a thousand films has paid out thousands of dollars in awards and prizes for our scriptwriting competition, not to mention the countless films and filmmakers who have gone on to bigger and better things after screening at our festival.

Among the many outstanding films we have had the honor to present are "The Collector of Bedford Street" which was nominated for an Academy Award; "The Derby Stallion", which was picked up by a subsidiary distribution company of Disney and can be found on the shelves of Wal-Mart and other national retailers and additionally has been shown on Stars Encore and other major networks; "The Still Life", which is now distributed by Warner Brothers and "South of Heaven, West of Hell" which was directed by Dwight Yoakam and went on to screen in theaters grossing more than $4 million dollars in its first weekend and being picked up by such networks as HBO.

We have also had many, many films that have screened on the Sundance Channel, IFC, PBS and HBO along with countless filmmakers who have received distribution deals after screening in our festival.

Our LIVE film festival will be held as a benefit fundraiser for the Second Harvest Food Bank of Erie Pennsylvania. There will be absolutely NO admission fee or ticket price charged to attendees of the LIVE film festival event, and the event will completely be FREE OF CHARGE to attend. All we ask is that each attendee makes a small donation of a non-perishable food product or cash. Moreover, 100% of all food and cash donations collected at the LIVE event will go to those of our local community who are in desperate need. More details will be announced as they become available.

Our film festival has reached a global echelon launching our festival interactively online allowing independent filmmakers and fans to watch and enjoy the films world wide on the go, from work and from the comfort of their own homes. In this technologically advanced world we live in, where communication and convenience MUST be at the tips of our fingers, we knew this was the next evolution in film festivals.

Since launching our fest online we have gained even more popularity among the film viewing public and filmmakers, not to mention production houses and distributors because they no longer have to travel to find the next film that will make Hollywood sit up and take notice. In this day and age, convenience is the name of the game, especially for the independent film industry.

Much like most other festivals, ours was limited by time in how many films we could screen at the fest. Simply put, if a film is good, it will be accepted and screened without time constraints. Films will not be available for download, but shall be presented in a video on demand system that will allow users to watch the films. The V.O.D. system will be secured and can be viewed from any computer.

Unlike other festivals streaming films online, films in this festival cannot be downloaded, the films HAVE NO EMBEDDING CODE and our HTML code if copied and pasted, the films will not play, therefore they CANNOT be placed on other websites.

The only time and place they can be viewed is in our festival. In short, we have gone to great lengths to set this system up to protect the safety and security of each filmmaker's film always keeping the filmmaker in mind. Basically, it is just as secure as a brick and mortar theater screening, only much better.

You hear so much about the environment and global warming it got us thinking. When you realize how much power is used during the film fest ? electricity for the building, natural gas for heat and the gasoline the people use to get to the fest it left one hell of a carbon footprint. By doing the whole festival on line it actually helps cut down on greenhouse gases.

We shall accept all ranges of music videos, along with entries of short and feature length screenplays, stage plays, and teleplays of all genres and niches.

The 2011 Great Lakes International Film Festival will accept all forms of religious, Christian, and spiritual films including African, African American, Gay/Lesbian, Black, Hispanic, Islamic, Latino, Native/Aboriginal and student films from the United States and around the world.

The Great Lakes International Film Festival horror categories for scripts and films will include Horror, Thrillers, Science Fiction, Suspense, Grindhouse Horror, Horror Documentary, Horror Animation, and student films and scripts.

The annual screenwriting competition is a way for new and veteran scriptwriters to possibly get the break they need.

If there is anything as universal as the ageless storytelling of motion pictures, it's the music that makes up life?s soundtrack.

The 2011 Great Lakes International Film Festival shall accept music videos from around the world of cross-continent and cross-genre productions. We shall accept music videos of all ranges from pop, punk, rock, alt-country, country-western, folk, reggae, hip-hop to electronica, jazz, blues, Zydeco, industrial, gothic, karaoke, avant-garde, world music, and experimental.

The Great Lakes Film Festival Scriptwriting Competition offers a $1,000.00 cash award to our first place winner of the 2011 competition among other prizes. The winning script will be forwarded to agents and industry professionals for consideration.


Visit www.greatlakesfilmfest.com for more details

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