This year's festival features 30 stunning short films and one magnificent feature film that all prove you don’t need big bucks to make a sweet movie. Working in formats from digital video to 35mm, the hilo filmmakers create funny shorts, animated experimentals, hard-hitting documentaries and wondrous movies that defy description. The subjects covered in the films range from competitive table-setting to Shaquille O’Neal’s Irish ancestry with films about ninjas, crossing the street and losin...

What is the hilo film festival? Or Why $40 million can kill a good idea.Originally organized in 1997 by the San Francisco production company and comedy collective Killing My Lobster the hi/lo film festival has evolved into a major West Coast showcase for independent low-budget film makers. The fest runs in the Haight’s historic Red Vic Movie House and Oakland’s pizza & pub Parkway Theater for three nights of shorts, docs, narratives, experimentals and animations. Now in its seventh year, t...

The Slamdance Film Festival announced its winners tonight in 10 categories at the Slamdance Sparky Award ceremonies at Snow Park Lodge in Deer Valley. "Over the years the Park City Slamdance screenings have become a place for the industry to discover new talent," says Slamdance director Peter Baxter. "Salt Lake City has become increasingly important from a public perspective. This year we expanded into the Madstone Theatres to double our Salt Lake offerings." The "Sparkies" were followed by a pa...

Slamdance will screen 19 feature films 7 documentaries and 21 shortsFEATURE FILMS SCREENING IN COMPETITION: DEAR PILLOW - (USA, 85 min., Narrative, 2003). WORLD PREMIERE A 17-year-old supermarket bag boy finds a mentor in a porno magazine writer and soon he is enmeshed in some very adult situations. Directed by Bryan Poyser. www.dearpillow.com GOLDFISH GAME - (Belgium, 105 min., Narrative, 2002) US PREMIERE In this modern day fable about an extended family that comes together at a castle in the ...