Come have a fun summer evening out with IFC - and we'll treat you to a great indie film! The IFC Free Film Fest is coming this summer to 10 cities across the US: Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, Memphis, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, Boston and Washington DC. The tour kicks off July 10 in Comcast's hometown of Philadelphia. The tour will take place for three consecutive days in each city, with a different film each night, open to the public at no cost.
Join us for uncut screenings of these three films - the Coen Brothers cult hit, "Raising Arizona"; the family-friendly fairy tale classic "The Princess Bride"; as well as the unconventionally humorous "Napoleon Dynamite". All films will be shown on a 40' x 20' inflatable air screen constructed specifically by IFC for the tour - a state-of-the-art outdoor video system. The films will begin at dusk, following a variety of pre-show activities, including musical entertainment.
Each venue will also have activities on site, including:
The IFC Media Lab Lounge, presented by Scion - Free and open to the public, the IFC Media Lab Lounge is an on-site venue showcasing short films from top local filmmakers who have submitted shorts to IFC's online user-generated program at www.ifc.com/medialab. Event-goers who visit the Lounge can enter to win a new HD camera.
The Comcastic Test Drive - Attendees will be able to get a first-hand look at the integrated Comcastic experience, including Comcast's Triple Play of digital cable, digital voice and high-speed Internet services.
This section will start after first week of the tour. Thank you IFC
Combining influences from Tex Avery cartoons to Sam Raimi horror movies to 1940s B-movies, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen followed up the stylish film noir of their debut, Blood Simple (1984), with this frantic screwball comedy. H.I. "Hi" McDonnough (Nicholas Cage) is a philosophical but slightly dim career criminal who has been arrested so often that he gets to know "Ed," short for Edwina (Holly Hunter), the officer who takes his mug shots. Hi takes a shine to Ed and promises to go straight if she marries him. She accepts, and they move to the Arizona desert, where Hi holds down a factory job and blissfully watches the sunsets with Ed. The couple decides that they want a child and discover that, as Hi puts it, "Ed's womb was a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase." Ed goes into a severe depression until she sees an item in the news: Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson), owner of a chain of unpainted furniture stores, has become the father of quintuplets, and he and his wife joke that they now have more children than they know what to do with. In what seems like a perfect "helps you, helps me" situation, Hi and Ed kidnap one of the Arizona infants, figuring that they'll have a baby and the Arizonas will have less of a burden.
Based on William Goldman's novel of the same name, The Princess Bride is staged as a book read by grandfather (Peter Falk) to his ill grandson (Fred Savage). Falk's character assures a romance-weary Savage that the book has much more to deliver than a simpering love story, including but not limited to fencing, fighting, torture, death, true love, giants, and pirates. Indeed, The Princess Bride offers a tongue-in-cheek fairy tale depicting stable boy-turned-pirate Westley's journey to rescue Buttercup (Robin Wright), his true love, away from the evil prince (Chris Sarandon), whom she had agreed to marry five years after learning of what she had believed to be news of Westley's death. With help from Prince Humperdinck's disgruntled former employee Miracle Max (Billy Crystal), swordsman Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), and a very large man named Fezzik (Andre the Giant), the star-crossed lovers are reunited.
The directorial debut of filmmaker Jared Hess, who also co-wrote the screenplay, Napoleon Dynamite is a quirky, offbeat comedy set in the small Idaho town of Preston. Jon Heder stars in the titular role, a carrot-topped oddball with a decidedly eccentric family that includes his llama-loving, dune-buggy enthusiast grandmother. The story centers on the local high school's race for class president. Using some nontraditional means, Napoleon is determined to help his pal Pedro (Efrem Ramirez) run a winning campaign and defeat popular girl Summer (Haylie Duff). Also starring The Drew Carey Show's Diedrich Bader, Napoleon Dynamite premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.
Members of the press - please visit our press resource center for more information.
The IFC Free Film Fest is proud to be partnering with Kid Flicks, a non-profit organization that donates children's videos to hospitals. We will be collecting DVDs (appropriate for children or teens) at each event to be donated to a local children's hospital. If you cannot attend our events, but would still like to send DVDs to be donated, please log on to www.kidflicks.org
ABOUT KID FLICKS:
Marni and Berni Barta founded Kids Flicks in 2002, collecting new and used videos and DVD's to donate to Pediatrics departments of various hospitals. The teenaged sisters came up with the idea for Kids Flicks when they were doing some "spring cleaning" and realized they had a large number of children's videos that they had either outgrown or no longer watched. They had a young friend who had been treated for Leukemia and they knew that when she was in the hospital she spent many hours watching movies to help distract her and pass the time, so they donated their videos to the Pediatric Oncology Center where their friend was treated.
Their donation was met with such enthusiam by hospital staff (they were told that movies are the "first thing kids ask for when they are in the hospital"), that they decided to collect as many videos and DVD's as they could so that they could donate them to the Pediatrics departments of other hospitals.
They began writing solicitation letters to family, friends, and movie studios asking them for movie donations. They also conduct annual collection drives at their former elementary and nursery school, their middle and high schools, at their religious school and through their Pediatrician's office. The sisters spend many hours per week receiving or picking up donations, working to sort the movies, and drive to the hospitals where they donate the movies. As the donations get further away, the sisters arrange to ship the movies instead.
As of June 2007, Kid Flicks has donated 23,300 movies to 233 different hospitals throughout the United States.
KID FLICKS LOCATIONS:
Kid Flicks Hospital
Temple University Children's Medical Center
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite
Holtz Children's Hospital
Baptist Memorial Hospital (Pediatric Department)
San Francisco General Hospital (Pediatric Department)
Georgetown University Hospital (Pediatric Department)
Behind the Screen at the IFC Free Film Fest
Watch each week for a new video about our visit to each city on the tour.
