Starting with its 51st continuous showing, a new home has been selected for the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival: Memorial City’s Cinemark Theatre! The Cinemark Memorial City Theatre is a state-of-the-art complex with 16 auditoriums featuring Luxury Lounger seating. Cinemark Luxury Loungers are electric-powered, plush, oversize lounge chairs with footrests and cup holders. All auditoriums have 4K digital projection powered by Barco projectors and enhanced sound systems that will enable guests to hear the movies as the filmmakers intended.
WorldFest is the largest film and video competition in the world in terms of number of actual category entries, with more than 4,300 category entries received in 2017. WorldFest is also the film festival with the longest continuous management in the world with Executive Director, J. Hunter Todd at the helm for 51 consecutive years. WorldFest began in August 1961, as an International Film Society, screening Independent, foreign & art films. It became an officially competitive International Film Festival seven years later, in April 1968, and has been in continuous operation ever since. It is one of the original three film festivals in North America, with San Francisco and New York as the first two events. Following WorldFest were Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Seattle, Sundance and SXSW, Toronto and Tribeca. Festival Chairman Hunter Todd stated: “We are tremendously excited about this major move forward for our 51st WorldFest. Both Cinemark Theatres and Memorial City Mall itself will provide superb facilities, and a wonderful theater staff and exceptional convenience to an outstanding new demographic for our festival. We look forward to showing our festival goers the luxury of this theater and to another 50 years with our new festival partners, Memorial City Mall & Cinemark Theatres.” WorldFest Artistic and Program Director, Kathleen Haney also stated: “We are looking forward to this wonderful new partnership with Cinemark, both for our international filmmakers and our Houston audiences. They will now enjoy a luxurious cinema feel combined with the caring and professional staff at the Cinemark 16 at Memorial City Mall.” Haney continued, “WorldFest will continue to bring the best independent international films along with their directors to Houston and now to Memorial City! This move marks an exciting shift for WorldFest to include sight, sound and feel in our festival for the ultimate cinematic experience.”
The 51st Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival will present two ongoing Panoramas: The 13th Annual Panorama Italia, co-sponsored by The Italian Cultural Institute and The Italian Consulate in Houston as well as the 4th Annual Panorama China, a comprehensive survey of modern Chinese cinema from both independent and major studios from China. WorldFest will also continue the annual Short Film Showcase, a special review of more than 100 new and award winning shorts and student films, from the festival that gave first top honors to Spielberg, Lucas, The Coen Brothers, Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Spike Lee, Gavin Hood, John Lee Hancock, Michael Cimino, Steven Poster, Oliver Stone, Ang Lee, Atom Egoyan and David Lynch among many others. More than 1,000 International filmmakers from 74 countries are expected to attend during the ten-day festival. WorldFest-Houston is sponsored by Memorial City Mall, Cinemark Theatres, Boxer Property, Lopez Negrete Communications, the State of Texas, the City of Houston, Eastman Kodak, the Texas Film Commission, Arcodoro Ristorante, Masterpiece International, The Universal Film & Festival Organization (UFFO), Cottonwood Financial, the Brown Foundation, InkTip, Avis/Budget and the Houston Arts Alliance (HAA). Dates for the 51st Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival are April 20-29, 2018. Entry Kit and Entry Forms are available on the festival’s secure website: https://www.worldfest.org ~ For additional VIP Pass and Ticket information, call 713-965-9955 or e-mail - attend@worldfest.org. Our Special New Year's Gift to late entries: Go to www.filmfreeway.com and use WorldFest Discount Code WFH51LATE to avoid the Late Fees by Jan 31! |
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WorldFest was founded over 50 years ago as an International Film Society in August, 1961. WorldFest became the third competitive international film festival in North America, following San Francisco and New York. WorldFest is the oldest Independent Film & Video Festival in the World. It evolved into a competitive International Film Festival in April, 1968. It was founded by award-winning producer/director Hunter Todd to present a quality film festival for the Independent filmmakers. Hunter Todd has been honored with more than 115 international awards for creative excellence in film production, and he has been the producer, director, writer and/or cameraman on more than 300 motion picture and video productions. The mission/vision statement of WorldFest is to recognize and honor outstanding creative excellence in film & video, to validate brilliant abilities and to promote cultural tourism for Houston, to develop film production in the region and to add to the rich cultural fabric of the city of Houston. All members of the WorldFest staff are filmmakers.
WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival (now it’s 50th year!) continues with its totally dedicated Independent Film screening format for the upcoming April 21-30, 2017 unspooling at the flagship AMC Studio 30 Dunvale Theaters. WorldFest will screen just 55-60 feature film premieres, with a complete and absolute emphasis on the American and International Independent feature films and with a continuing annual spotlight on an individual country and its films. WorldFest also offers competition in TV Production, Documentary, Corporate & Business Films, Student & Experimental, TV Commercials, Film & Video Production, Music Videos, New Media (Interactive, Web Sites & 3D Productions), Screenplays, Print and Radio.
The late, great Chuck Jones, with his wife Marian, Kathleen Haney and Hunter Todd.
WorldFest is one of the oldest and largest film & video competitions in the world, with more than 4,500 category entries received from 37 countries in 2006. Actually WorldFest is 12 Major film & video competitions in one event, unlike Cannes, Sundance and Toronto, which are just 2 competitions for shorts and features only. Because of our 12 major competitions and the 200+ sub-categories, WorldFest does give a lot of awards, but they are both earned and deserved. No awards are given in any category unless the scores from the juries are high enough to place for honors. Overall only 15-20% of the total category entries actually win an award at WorldFest. However, everyone attending the Grand Awards Gala wins an award, as we only invite the actual winners, which makes for a delightful and enjoyable evening, since there are no disappointed “nominees” that do not win anything. Those that do not win an award are informed by email or letters prior to the festival.
WorldFest Artistic and Program Director Kathleen Haney stated, “We feel that it is impossible to properly emphasize individual films when the festival screening schedule is too large. We must consider both our festival audience and our independent filmmakers. A huge slate of 150-300 films cannot possibly do justice to each individual film. Further, it is impossible to see more than 50-60 films (with four shows a day) in a ten-day festival, so it is foolish to program more than that.” Haney continued, “We will concentrate on only the very best, selecting new American & Foreign Independent films that truly deserve a premiere at WorldFest. By doing so, we can concentrate on the films and their filmmakers and enable our faithful audience the opportunity to see each and every film!” All 35mm films and Digital entries are screened at the AMC Studio 30 Dunvale Theatre, 2949 Dunvale Road, WorldFest – the Indie Film Festival for the New Millennium!
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