Vote for your favorite 60-second film, Win a Prize!
Posted by Cynthia Corral
The first audience and fan participatory event is here already! SanDisk has given 20 Cinequest filmmakers a smart phone and a SanDisk® 8GB microSDHC™ mobile memory card, and have asked them to make a 60 second film. The results are incredible, ranging from one minute documentaries, animated film, sci-fi, comedy, and narratives. The filmmakers are competing for a grand prize of $5,000, but you can win your own smart phone and SanDisk® 8GB microSDHC™ mobile memory card by helping to vote for the winner. Just go to http://www.youtube.com/sandisk to view all twenty films and then vote for your favorites. Each film is only 60 seconds, so it takes 20 minutes to watch each and every one of them. After you’ve voted, sign up to win a smart phone of your own. The contest runs from January 26 through February 16.
After that, the top four film finalists will be chosen by text votes where you have additional chances to win. That voting period will run during the Film Festival, from February 23 to March 6. We will keep you updated on the progress of the contest.
So visit the YouTube/SanDisk site now! There are a great bunch of films and you don’t want to miss your chance to win your own smart phone. It’s like an early mini Cinequest!
Please visit www.youtube.com/sandisk for Official Rules, complete entry instructions, prize descriptions, eligibility limitations and other restrictions.
Tags: 60 second film, contest, prize, smart phone.
Announcing Jason’s CQ Pass giveaway, version II
Posted by Jason Wiener
Originally posted at Jason Watches Movies
So I just got confirmation that I will have a press pass for Cinequest this year (the big 20th anniversary). And like last year, I also donated at a level that gets me an all-festival pass (specifically, a VIP Pass that gets me into every film, every event, and every party). Last year, I gave that pass away as a “travelling pass“–use it, write what you saw, and pass it on. That was half successful. I know a lot of people used it, because I saw it full of comments on the final weekend, but it never got back to me at the end. Some would call that completely unsuccessful, but I’ll count it as half-successful. Anyway, I’m trying a new way to do it this year.
This year I’ve decided to give away the pass to just one person, but someone I know will write about what they see. If you are that lucky person, you may keep the pass to yourself or pass it among friends (or even strangers). The only rule is, as before, you must note everything you (or your friends) saw. And you/they must write opinions of some of the movies you see . I don’t plan to provide a notepad this year, as my old one never reappeared. So bring your own. Better yet, just post your opinions here on CQCentral.com, or e-mail them to me at puppymeat(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll post them. If you do keep a physical notebook, just give it to me at the end of the festival and I’ll scan/transcribe them online (depending on my energy and your handwriting)
So now how do you win this pass? Easy, just e-mail me with your reviews of at least two movies you saw last year. I’ll pick a winner. The idea is I want to give it to someone who can can show that he or she can write movie reviews and is willing to do it in exchange for a pass (really, the idea is that more people should be like me). You can send me more than two reviews, and it might increase your chances (unless they suck. I don’t need any competition on the quantity over quality front). My fellow bloggers are welcome to enter, however my idea is really to challenge new people to put their opinions out there, so I’ll probably be biased against well-established bloggers. Besides, if you already blog and want to cover Cinequest, you could just e-mail the publicity office and ask for your own press pass.
Anyway, let the contest begin!
Film, Fiestas, Forums and Famous Figures — It must be time for Cinequest!
Posted by Cynthia Corral
The countdown has begun to the 20th Anniversary of our own Cinequest Film Festival and there is plenty to get excited about.
You can count exactly 76 premieres at this year’s festival and we got a sneak peek at them some of them last night. SO EXCITED!! There are an amazing amount of return filmmakers to the festival, including San Jose’s Alejandro Adams (Around the Bay, Canary) with his new film Babnik. Congrats to Adams for coming back to Cinequest for the third consecutive year. New to the Bay Area but already loved by the Cinequest family is our own Jarrod Whaley who is bringing his much anticipated Hell is Other People. And Cinequest fan favorite Cullen Hoback (Freedom State, Monster Camp) is returning for his third time with Friction. These are only three of the amazing directors bringing films to Cinequest this year.
To help you organize your film watching, Cinequest has developed an interactive scheduler that will sync to your mobile device. This went live at midnight and will be very helpful to festival attendees. Personally, I prefer the scheduler that Festival Fanatic developed, but they both have their pluses and minuses. FF’s schedule is a little more helpful for the filmgoer with a large amount of movies to watch, but Cinequest’s schedule is downloadable (I am not sure if FF’s is) and will sync from your computer to your phone and vice versa. I recommend you look at them both and use what works for you – the important thing is that you get to the festival, not which scheduler you use.
PARTIES: Without parties, Cinequest would just be another day at the movies. This year there will be the usual fabulous opening and closing night festivities, 12 nights of soirees for filmmakers and VIPs, and ten nights of meet-ups for anyone to come have a drink, discuss film, and make friends. A variety of downtown establishments are participating and the whole city is going to be a flurry of excitement this year.
This year’s Maverick Spirit Award is going to Benjamin Bratt, and he’ll be bringing along a special screening of his latest film La Mission. This is a special screening on March 4 at 7pm and tickets will be $15, which includes a 30 minute conversation with Benjamin Batt where he’ll be presented with his award.
This year’s Life of a Maverick Award will be presented to Deepak Chopra. Head to the California Theatre on March 2 at 7pm to hear a conversation with this influential writer and motivator.
Day of the Writer will be March 5th this year. Part 1 is How to Write Comedy for the Big Screen, Part 2 is Comedy Writing for Television, and Part 3 will be a Maverick Spirit Conversation with a soon to be announced writer.
Cinequest will continue its tradition of presenting the future of film while never forgetting its roots. Silent Cinema is returning to the California Theatre with showings of The Merry Widow (1925) and The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) and there will be a 3D showcase examining the new wave in film that is quickly moving from gimmick to norm.
Is that it? No. There is still much, much more to come. More Maverick award winners are waiting to be announced, and there is even a “surprise” screening scheduled where you won’t know what movie you’ll be seeing until you’ve sat in your seat. There is the return of Outsourced, one of my personal favorites, which fans voted most requested encore film from Cinequest past. CQCentral writers have piles of screeners to get through and you should start seeing reviews of some new Cinequest films very soon!
Keep your eye on the Cinequest website for more news, and as always CQCentral will be packed with reviews, interviews and more news updates as we become aware of them. We look forward to seeing you all at the festival and hopefully meeting you as well!
Film Festival programs are now available at a Peet’s Coffee near you starting today!
THE END (CQ 2008) is coming to DVD
Posted by Jason Wiener
And you should Netflix it.
Originally posted at Jason Watches Movies:
Back in Cinequest 2008, I saw this brilliant little no-budget thriller, and loved it (scroll down for my review). Since then I’ve been waiting for it to come to DVD. And just a couple days ago I got an e-mail from the director Jeremy Thomas announcing my wait is (almost) over. Cinequest is actually releasing it on their own DVD label (good for Cinequest!) No firm date yet, but could be early December (in time for Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Solstice Festival/Festivus/whatever else you celebrate in winter)
But the size of the DVD release depends on pre-orders, and the best way to get pre-orders up is for more people to put it in their Netflix queue. So if you have a Netflix account, click here and click Save.
If you don’t have a Netflix queue, then follow these instructions:
- Go to Netflix.com. (US residents only)
- Register for a free-trial.
- Pick a plan (one DVD at a time, 2 at a time, unlimited, etc.), and enter billing info.
- Click “Get Started”
- Click tab reading “Your Queue”
- Type “The End” in the Search Box in the upper right corner
- Click the second title (the one directed by Jeremy Thomas)
- (Optional) It would be great if you gave it a 5 star rating!
- Hit “Save” when the confirmation box comes up!
If enough of you do this, it’ll get a bigger DVD release. So let’s show ‘em what my army can do!
Okay, enough of my shilling for others, let me talk a bit about my favorite subject–myself.
In my review I mentioned that I was telling everyone else at Cinequest to go see it. Well, a few of them took my advice and came back to me thanking me for recommending it. That was really cool. In fact, I realized that’s what I want to do with this blog and all my movie watching/reviewing. I love it when someone sees a movie on my recommendation and comes back and tells me they liked it. In fact, I realized that is exactly what I want to do with this blog (how to do it is something I haven’t figured out yet). So the reason I’m pushing you to see THE END is:
- If you read my blog regularly I assume you’re interested in strange, obscure, independent movies. And if that’s the case, I think there’s a good chance you’ll like THE END.
- You’ll be helping a young independent filmmaker who I want to see succeed so he can make more movies that blow my mind.
- I hope some of you who see it will let me (and more important, Jeremy Thomas–you can find his contact info at the film’s website) know what you thought of it. Even if you hated it, and hate me for telling you to see it, go ahead and let me know (and tell all your enemies to see it out of spite)
Well, that’s pretty much all I have to say. Other than re-posting my review from 2008:
…I ended the night with “The End”. I am so grateful that I ran into Jeremy at the VIP party [earlier that night, where he convinced me to see his film instead of whatever else I was planning on], because this ended up possibly being my favorite film of Cinequest. Absolutely awesome. In this no-budget existential thriller/comedy Jeremy stars as Joseph Rickman, a schoolteacher with a legendary past. Years ago, he could see what no one else could see, and as a result saved a girl. Now he’s got the same feeling again. Pulled by some force, he wanders into the woods and witnesses a shadowy figure lobotomizing lawn gnomes (yeah, and it hasn’t gotten weird yet). Perhaps he’s going crazy, and if it wasn’t for his past, the local detective (and sister of the girl he saved way back when) would have him locked up. But she goes with it, at least for the time. And then…there’s a huge freakin’ twist, and I won’t tell you what it is. This actually put me in a weird position, because for the rest of the festival I was telling people to see this movie and also telling them to not be afraid to walk out. You see, when the twist happens you’ll know, and if you’re not ready to follow the premise to well beyond it’s logical conclusion, this movie will be painful for you. So just go ahead and walk out. And that’s all I can tell you of the plot. I’ll just tell you it’s weird, it’s original (although I could name a half dozen movies that employ some part of the twist, I haven’t seen it handled quite like this), it’s funny, and it’s exciting. It keeps you guessing, and just when you think you know the next twist, something even stranger happens.
CQ Happy Hour at Billy Berk’s on June 12!
Posted by Cynthia Corral
- We love Billy Berk’s!
The Cinequest Happy Hour location has been changed for this week to Billy Berk’s!! This news was met with a lot of excitement as Cinequesters LOVE the Billy Berk’s menu. So come on down to 99 South First Street on Friday to enjoy some great Happy Hour prices including $4 beers and $5 appetizers. And check out the appetizer menu:
BBQ Pork Sliders
BBQ Pork Quesadillas
Calamari
Cheesey Garlic, Tomato & Basil Flat Bread
Mango Guacamole and Chips
Sweet Potato Fries (YUM)
French Fries
Assorted Sausage and Mustard Plate
Buffalo Chicken Wings
Chipotle Cheddar Potato Skins
For $20 you could eat hearty and leave happy, having spent a lot of time with some really fun people. Hey, for $10 you will STILL have a great time and leave full. What better deal is there on a Friday evening? Remember, you don’t need a ticket or an invitation, just come on down to Billy Berk’s this Friday, June 12 between 4:30 and 7pm. If you don’t find us, we will find you!
Don’t forget, you also get to vote for Cinequest Maverick Spirit Award if you come on Friday, or on Facebook, or Twitter. The nominees are as follows:
Drew Barrymore (actor/prod: Donnie Darko, Never Been Kissed)
Tim Burton (dir: Ed Wood, Beetlejuice)
Bruce Campbell (actor: Evil Dead, Bubba Ho-Tep)
Don Cheadle (actor: Hotel Rwanda, Ocean’s Eleven)
Ethan & Joel Coen (dirs: No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski)
John Cusack (actor: High Fidelity, Grosse Pointe Blank)
Johnny Depp (actor: Pirates of the Caribbean, Sweeney Todd)
Phillip Seymour Hoffman (actor: Charlie Wilson’s War, Capote)
Sean Penn (actor: Dead Man Walking, Milk)
Natalie Portman (actor: V for Vendetta, Garden State)
We hope to see you there!
CQ Happy Hour: The Loft – More success and Special Announcements!
Posted by Cynthia Corral
We had another really great time at CQ Happy Hour last night. Friendships made last week were cemented this week, and more new friendships were made again. One thing for sure, Cinequest 20 will no longer have audiences comprised of nameless familiar faces; the Camera Theaters will instead be packed with best friends!
I arrived at The Loft by 5pm and the $5 plates of fried calamari and onion strings were already being passed around. Drinks were flowing, both alcoholic and non. And once again the Cinequest team had found a way for us to mingle and meet each other.
Cinequest's Stephanie Le and Dashiel Pare-Mayer
This was the night that the Top Ten nominees for Audience Choice Cinequest Maverick were going to be announced. We were all given bingo cards with a cinema trivia question in each square. The trick was that we were not allowed to answer them ourselves; we had to find someone else who knew the answer. Then they filled in the box and signed their name. As soon as you had achieved a trivia Bingo you brought it to one of the Cinequest family and received a prize! There were Cinequest T-shirts given out and all sorts of Peet’s Coffee products. As awkward as these games can be at other parties, once again the friendliness of Cinequest fans, friends and family came through and even the shyest attendees were able to easily get answers and meet someone new.
There is something about the Cinequest family that is so relaxing, charming and fun, it just makes it impossible to feel like an outsider at an event like this. Maybe you have attended the Opening and Closing Night parties where the venues are packed full of strangers looking for the free food and alcohol and you can’t hear yourself speak. Those parties are not the easiest places to meet someone or even have a conversation. These Happy Hours are the opposite. They are held in smaller areas, are more intimate in nature and more raucously fun at the same time. It is virtually impossible to feel like a stranger for more than two minutes. The purpose of these Happy Hours is for everyone to get to know each other, to get rid of the “stranger factor” inherent in sitting in a dark theater. And the Cinequest team has set these events up perfectly to do so. As many steps up the festival evolutionary ladder I felt Cinequest climbed at CQFF19, they are just leaping up that ladder this year.
What I am trying to say is: You really should come to a Cinequest Happy Hour.
Jason and Chris never have any fun
And now on to the announcements!
As I said, we were given Trivia Bingo Cards to help clue us in to the Top Ten nominees for Cinequest Maverick. I have to say that I was pleased with the results. Without further ado, in alpabetical order the Top Ten are:
***drum roll***
I, for one, am really pleased with these nominees. I think it would be very exciting to have any of these people attend the Cinequest Film Festival, and I think they would bring many new people to the festival to see them. In June we get to vote for the one nominee we want to invite. It will not be an easy task to pick just one, that is for sure. We will let you know how to vote just as soon as we know.
The next Cinequest Happy Hour will be June 12 at A Perfect Finish at 55 S. First Street in San Jose. There will surely be more exciting times to be had. We definitely hope you will join us.
Tags: cinequest, CQ Happy Hour, the loft.
Cinequest Happy Hour this Friday!
Posted by Cynthia Corral
Attention Cinequesters, we finally have another Cinequest Happy Hour scheduled!
Come to Mezcal at 25 W. San Fernando on this Friday (May 15) from 4:30-7pm and keep the Cinequest fun going all year round!
Remember, these Happy Hours are for everyone, you don’t have to work for Cinequest, or be a volunteer, or a filmmaker. You don’t need a pass or a ticket or an invitation. You just have to love Cinequest. In fact, if you have never been to Cinequest but you love movies, this is also the place for you! So come enjoy a drink downtown after work on Friday, and have a great time mixing with some of the most awesome film lovers on the planet.
And don’t forget:
Cinequest Opportunity #1 for the month of May:
Help choose the Cinequest Maverick artist for CQ20.
What have you thought about previous Maverick award winners? Now is your chance to help choose who YOU believe should be honored. Simply email your suggestions for Cinequest Maverick 2010 to publicity@cinequest.org. In the email, be sure to let them know why you would want that person to receive the award, and what makes them a Maverick in the film industry. Next month they will post the top three choices for a second round of voting. The winner of that round will receive an invitation to Cinequest 20.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the winner will be able to attend, only that they will receive the invitation. But Cinequest has pulled in some pretty huge talents over the years. So put on your thinking caps and think about who you would like to see at the festival next year. Send in your suggestions to publicity@cinequest.org and automatically become a part of the Cinequest volunteer community!
Cinequest 20 has already begun!
Posted by Cynthia Corral
Cinequest has been growing in leaps and bounds in the last year. At CQ 2009 there was great support for local bloggers and independent contests, and there was a greater sense of a festival community for those who were using Twitter. It was a non-stop party for two weeks and none of us wanted it to end.
CQ19 ended less than two months ago but the Cinequest team is already hard at work trying to climb another ring on the fun ladder. The year leading up to CQ20 is going to be filled with more interactive opportunities to get involved. First there are the many Happy Hours they are hosting this year at various locations in San Jose. If you follow Cinequest on Facebook or Twitter you will be notified as to where and when the next Cinequest Happy Hour will be held. There is definitely a fun time to be had with fellow film buffs, with or without alcohol.
But there is even more to be excited about this year. To prepare for the twentieth anniversary of Cinequest in 2010 the team is asking us all to speak up and let our voices be heard. Every month they will have a new situation for us to comment on and in turn allow us to have a say in how our beloved festival shapes up.
Cinequest Opportunity #1 for the month of May:
Help choose the Cinequest Maverick artist for CQ20.
What have you thought about previous Maverick award winners? Did you agree with the chosen few? Had you ever heard of John Schlesinger? Did you wonder why Arnold Schwarzenegger received the award? Well now is your chance to help choose who YOU believe should be honored. Simply email your suggestions for Cinequest Maverick 2010 to publicity@cinequest.org. In the email, be sure to let them know why you would want that person to receive the award, and what makes them a Maverick in the film industry. Next month they will post the top three choices for a second round of voting. The winner of that round will receive an invitation to Cinequest 20.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the winner will be able to attend, only that they will receive the invitation. But Cinequest has pulled in some pretty huge talents over the years. So put on your thinking caps and think about who you would like to see at the festival next year. Send in your suggestions to publicity@cinequest.org and become a part of the Cinequest volunteer community!
Who has the traveling festival pass???
Posted by Jason Wiener
Well, I know the pass-it-on pass experiment was going along well as of Friday morning, when Stacy had it and let me take a quick glance at the comments before she passed it on. But the final step–find me at the closing party and return it to me–failed!
I’m assuming whoever has it just missed me. It was crowded, I was drunk, they were (I assume) drunk, etc. Or maybe they couldn’t go to the after party because they had to work early in the morning. Whatever the reason, if you have my pass, please e-mail me at puppymeat(at)gmail(dot)com and let me know how I can retrieve it from you!
Hopefully this will eventually be a success. Lessons for next year (if I do it again): I have to find a way to keep tabs on it better (RFID chip, anyone?) and have a way to get the comments online before the festival ends. I still like the notebook as a physical artifact of the experiment, but some easier way to e-mail or text message comments? The first time I saw the pass with a few pages of notes, I was tempted to tear out the pages and post them ASAP. Then I decided it would be better for whoever gets the pass next to be able to read what others have written. I hope I don’t regret that decision. Maybe I need to get a portable scanner?
Upon Reflection: Cinequest 19
Posted by according2stacy
Missing Cinequest already! I guess there’s no better time to reflect on what I’ve seen. I combined docs and features, and within each group everything is listed in the order I viewed them, not by preference. If you want (slightly) more detail, check out my reviews on Twitter. I met a lot of kind and interesting people during the fest – volunteers, filmmakers, and pass-holders (many who were unable to escape my constant “so, what’s your favorite so far?” probing). Thanks, it was a fun ride!
Fantastic:
Night Train – i can still feel the atmosphere of this one
Historias Extraordinarias – a great ride
Gotta Dance (based on 1st 30min) – induces perma-grin
The Investigator – loved the humor
All About Dad – funny, touching, fun to watch with the local community
Lightbulb – probably the most mainstream of what I saw, and i loved it
Johnny Mad Dog – devastating, perhaps the best of the fest
Very Good:
Bitter & Twisted – hadn’t planned to see it, was a pleasant surprise
The Man Who Loved Yngve – nice story told w/ the soundtrack of my youth
Rock Paper Scissors – well done, i love gaining insight to the absurd
Good:
Garrison Keillor – was entertained but never sure where it was going
Salute – well-told, insightful
The Photograph – a bit slow to develop but eventually charms
Tandoori Love – a bit uneven but enjoyable, made me hungry 
Crude Independence – stayed interested in the town and story throughout
Just OK:
Living In Emergency – very interested in topic but doc was a bit disjointed
Layover – nicely filmed, strong actress, but hated everything else about it
The Tour – not sure why, just not my style I guess, maybe fest burnout
Raging Grannies – interesting topic but doc just OK, great Q&A though
Ready, OK? – child role could have been more believable and better acted
The Real Stinkers:
Killer Poet – what is this, cable TV? pass the remote
Song of the Southern Seas – wanted to like it, possible victim of fest burnout
Day of Light – don’t get me started on this one, i might never stop
Regrets (Wish I Had Seen):
For My Father – based on great feedback (and an audience award winner)
Dancers – based on great feedback
Canary (along w/ the Q&As) – damn, I chose two stinkers over this 
Necessities of Life – based on great feedback
… and maybe The Skeptic, Finnish Tango, The Last Lullaby
THANKS EVERYONE. SEE YOU NEXT YEAR.