History
From thought-provoking documentaries and films in competition to indies and experimental feature-length films, the following is a brief list of some of the films and special events that have played at the Kansas International Film Festival in recent years.
2007 Audience Award Winners
The votes are in and counted. We have the winners!
The Kansas International Film Festival is proud to announce the winners of our Audience Award. All competition films are voted on by our audiences. Films are divided between Narrative and Documentary and compete in their respective categories. After seeing a film, audience members are given the opportunity to cast their vote on a four-point rating system to gague how much they liked the film. After the festival is over, a board representative tallies the ballots and scores each film. The winning film in each category will receive a week-long run at the Glenwood Arts Theatre in Overland Park, KS.
Best Documentary - The Edge of Eden: Living with Grizzlies
The grizzly bear is considered by many to be the most dangerous animal in the world. But there is one man, Canadian Charlie Russell, who thinks differently. He believes that grizzlies are misunderstood animals and that our fear of them is not only unnecessary but driving them to extinction. His beliefs have taken him to Russia where he has been raising orphaned grizzly bear cubs for the past ten years in the wilderness of the Southern Kamchatka peninsula. Becoming their surrogate mother he struggles to keep his cubs alive and teach them everything they need to survive a life in the wild. But will it be enough?
Best Narrative - Midnight Clear
For five people spread across a Southwest town, Christmas Eve is the loneliest time of the year. A middle aged man, jobless and recently evicted, and an old woman estranged from her family, contemplate suicide; a church youth pastor takes his teens for a night of bad caroling to shut-ins; a young mother and her son visit her brain-damaged husband on the anniversary of his car accident; and on the outskirts of town, a gas station owner spends the slow day bored and depressed. As the night progresses, they randomly cross paths, and in unique and subtle ways, change each other's lives forever.
Congratulations to directors Jeff Turner (The Edge of Eden: Living with Grizzlies) and Dallas Jenkins (Midnight Clear).
2006 Award Winners
The Kansas International Film Festival Winners will have their theatrical run on March 2nd, 2007. Help us support the Independent Filmmakers around the country as we gear up for 2007.
Best Documentary: Hand of God
Like last year's Twist of Fate, Joe Cultrera's Hand of God follows an individual -- the filmmaker's brother -- coming to terms with and seeking justice for sexual abuse suffered from a priest decades earlier. Where Twist had verite immediacy and punishing emotional impact, Hand is cerebral, even experimental in approach. Yet it's finally just as forceful, especially as an indictment of the Catholic Church covering up for its own. This film well deserves consideration by festivals, small distributors and adventuresome broadcasters.
Best Feature: Mojave Phone Booth
In the middle of the Mojave desert, rests an abandoned phone booth, riddled with bullet holes, graffiti, its windows broken, but otherwise functioning. Its identity was born on the internet, and for years travellers would make the trek down a lonely dirt road and camp next to the booth, in the hopes that it might suddenly ring, and they could connect with a stranger (often from another country) on the other end of the line. This is the story of four disparate people whose lives intersect with this mystical outpost. With themes of love, death, the mystery of the universe, and the phenomenon of inter-connectivity, Mojave Phone Booth pitches us deep into the lives and psyches of these working class people in Las Vegas.
Past Films Screened at KIFF
Barbara Hammer – Documentary filmmaker presented two
of her films, History Lessons and Resisting Paradise.
G – Special appearances by Producer Charles Drew
Jr. and actor Jillian Lindsey.
Jeffrey Phelps' Special Ed, Shannon Young's Razor
Eaters, Rusty Nails' Highway Robbery, Neil dela
Llana's Cavite, Sidney King's Pearl Diver and
so many more.
Primer – 2004 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize Winner.
Code 46 – critically acclaimed Michael Winterbottom film
starring Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton.
Festival Express – Documentary starring Janis Joplin, The
Grateful Dead, The Band and more.
The Sundance Channel Film Series sponsored by Human Rights Watch.
What The Bleep Do You Know?
James Ellroy Presents Bizarre Bazaar
Think! Film Series – thought provoking documentaries including
Origins of AIDS, War Takes, Ruthie and Connie, Mojados, The Naked Feminist, Voices
of Women and Border Bandits.
Filmmaker forum with Chris Gore of FilmThreat.com and IFC's
Film Fanatic.
The Bread, My Sweet – Special appearances by Actor Scott
Baio and Filmmakers Melissa Martin and Adrienne Wehr.
The Secret Lives of Dentists – Starring Campbell Scott,
Hope Davis and Denis Leary.
13 Conversations About 1 Thing – Feature Film direct from
the Sundance Film Festival, guest appearance by Director Jill Sprecher.
Kubrick: A Life In Pictures – Documentary on Stanley Kubrick,
part of a special retrospective.
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys – Starring Kieran Culkin
and Jodie Foster.
Senorita Extravidia – Winner of the Sundance Grand Jury
Prize in Documentary.
Alloy Orchestra – World Premiere, Phantom of the Opera.
Performed live scores for silent films Nosferatu, The Lost World, Speedy, Metropolis
and Blackmail.
30 Year Anniversary Tribute to Women Make Movies – Special
appearance by WMM, Executive Director, Debra Zimmerman.
CSA: Confederate States of America – First screening of
critically acclaimed film by local filmmaker, Kevin Willmott. CSA went on to be
shown at Sundance and has now been sold for distribution.
Charlie: The Art and Life of Charles Chaplin – Documentary
by filmmaker Richard Schickel, closing film for 2003 Cannes Film Festival.
Silence – World Premiere, special appearance by Actors,
Tony Todd and Daveigh Chase, Producer Dennis Fallon and Director Tom Whitus.
Kansas Connection from L.A. – Series of films from L.A.
Filmmakers who have ties to Kansas.
And Many, Many More!
Past festival information
2006 - Schedule & Film
Descriptions
2005 - Film Descriptions
2004 - KIFF Festival Guide
2003 - H2H Festival Guide