Crazy8s Film Festival

The Crazy8s Film Festival is back for its 11th year in Vancouver. The festival challenges local filmmakers to write, direct, edit, and produce short films in 8 days using a budget of $800 and 60 minutes of HD tape.

Last Sunday at the Pitch Registration event, 115 teams signed up and they will now they have until January 15th to submit a 5-minute video pitch of their film idea. The teams responsible for what will be selected as the top 40 ideas will be invited back to pitch in person January 29th and 30th.

The field will then get narrowed down to 12 teams and after another round of jury selections, 6 teams will go into production on their film ideas, shooting and editing between March 18th and 26th.

To wrap up the Crazy8s festival, there will be a gala screening of the 6 finalist films at the Vogue Theatre March 27, 2010.

The films that come out of the Crazy8s festival go far, having been screened at over 150 international festivals with the filmmakers securing international distribution deals and licensing deals for TV or online. “There is nothing like Crazy8s anywhere else in Canada,” says event producer Erik Paulsson. “We are developing a reputation for producing some of the strongest short films coming out of this country. This has led to a significant number of our alumni going on to make their first feature films.”

You can follow their updates on Twitter or Facebook and stay tuned over the next few months to see how the teams’ pitches, ideas, and creations all come together.