In the Spotlight today is the 4th Annual PollyGrind Underground Film Festival of Las Vegas, a celebration designed to embrace independently produced and non-distributed films that might be considered a bit "off-kilter." Horror, true crime, gore, science-fiction, fantasy, exploitation, underground, art house, cult, experimental, documentary, found footage, erotic, and creepy-campy shorts and feature projects are the life's blood of PollyGrind-and every year, the party gets a little weirder and weirder. Past festival events have included concerts, burlesque and art shows, and even and a zombie-filled red carpet and cupcake eating contest.
PollyGrind winners have gone home with distribution contracts, thousands of dollars in software prizes, and equipment from Sony, Red Giant, Glidecam, and Final Draft. Better yet, they've delivered a rush of adrenaline right into the hearts of their respective careers: Jen and Sylvia Soska's debut film, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, picked up numerous PollyGrind awards before signing to IFC Midnight; Calvin Lee Reeder snagged a PollyGrind Best Director Trophy before premiering The Rambler at this year's Sundance Film Festival; and Albert Pyun's Road to Hell, now with Lionsgate, enjoyed record-setting PollyGrind attendance and is being converted into 3-D and IMAX Digital for a national theatrical run. This year's winners will receive distribution and consultation from Wild Eye Releasing (Showgirls 2, Mold, The Disco Exorcist).
"PollyGrind really is a celebration of independent films," says director Greg Lamberson, whose film, Slime City Massacre, won the 2010 PollyGrind Grand Jury Prize. "That's what festivals should be about: exposing people to films that might [otherwise] escape their radar, not scheduling the same stuff that will be in multiplexes a few months later. I'm proud to have screened at a new festival that has its priorities straight." Unfolding against a Las Vegas landscape that revels in the bold, the exciting, and the avant garde, PollyGrind has single-handedly redefined what to expect during the film festival experience.
PollyGrind winners have gone home with distribution contracts, thousands of dollars in software prizes, and equipment from Sony, Red Giant, Glidecam, and Final Draft. Better yet, they've delivered a rush of adrenaline right into the hearts of their respective careers: Jen and Sylvia Soska's debut film, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, picked up numerous PollyGrind awards before signing to IFC Midnight; Calvin Lee Reeder snagged a PollyGrind Best Director Trophy before premiering The Rambler at this year's Sundance Film Festival; and Albert Pyun's Road to Hell, now with Lionsgate, enjoyed record-setting PollyGrind attendance and is being converted into 3-D and IMAX Digital for a national theatrical run. This year's winners will receive distribution and consultation from Wild Eye Releasing (Showgirls 2, Mold, The Disco Exorcist).
"PollyGrind really is a celebration of independent films," says director Greg Lamberson, whose film, Slime City Massacre, won the 2010 PollyGrind Grand Jury Prize. "That's what festivals should be about: exposing people to films that might [otherwise] escape their radar, not scheduling the same stuff that will be in multiplexes a few months later. I'm proud to have screened at a new festival that has its priorities straight." Unfolding against a Las Vegas landscape that revels in the bold, the exciting, and the avant garde, PollyGrind has single-handedly redefined what to expect during the film festival experience.
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