Red Rock Film Festival 2008

A tragic operatic love story of a lonely bank teller, told as a heavily stylized 1950s studio musical. Waiting patiently at till number 2, our hero yearns for his true love to reveal herself. A chorus of eight bank employees and customers accompany our Hero as he prepares for his first encounter with the perfect girl, all the while singing and dancing to a variety of musical genres, including doo-wap, waltz, and a big band show tune. When the woman of his dreams finally arrives, his reaction is both comical and disastrous.

The story of a neglectful father and his estranged son set at the end of World War II. It is 1945 Germany. A Nazi soldier returns home to his childhood farm with the intent of convincing his father to retreat with him to Berlin. Old feelings rise to the surface, and suspicions grow until the son discovers that his father has been harboring a family of Jews. With the Russians en route, they both must decide how far they are willing to go for their cause. Will their long buried love for each other emerge, or in their bitterness will they cling to their ideals?

After spending the first ten years of her life in a Catholic orphanage, the young and fiery Awet excitedly learns that she is soon to be reunited with her family. But her hopes for a normal life are dashed when her father, a fanatical supporter of the Eritrean Liberation Front, places Awet directly into the military forces' hands. At first willing to join the fight, she soon realizes that their enemies are just as human as she, and Awet makes a solemn vow never to kill... Labeled a traitor by the group's commander, the young Awet nevertheless courageously stands by her convictions and fights the violence in the disarming way that only a child could.

In 2006, Governor Rick Perry of Texas fast-tracked an initiative that would give a private enterprise, TXU, authority to produce 11 new coal plants, all using antiquated technology that would lead to disastrous results in terms of air quality. This was not embraced by all Texans, especially those concerned by the increase of resulting pollutants.A coalition of mayors statewide worked tirelessly to commence a battle for clean air. The movement was bipartisan, and included Republican representatives, ranchers, farmers, and ordinary people. Resulting from the pressure, a proposal has been made by private investors to take control of TXU and reduce the amount of new plants from 10 to 3. The change in corporate strategy and reduction of potential pollutants is a victory for the coalition and Texans alike.

The Red Rock Film Festival shares the best of the Shorts and Features from the recent acclaimed film festival including the winning shorts of 2008, clips from features, plus a few shorts from the festival's official selections and finalists.

FOREVER PLAID is a musical comedy revue interspersed with witty and insightful banter about the love of music, and growing up, and “making one’s mark.” It is also about the everyday courage we need to face life, warts and all, kind of a swinging American version of “Happy Days” meets “The Full Monty” meets Tony Bennett (but more of that, later) chock full of all those “retro” songs that are cool again (e.g. Gwen Stefani’s, “If I were a Rich Man” and similar songs by Pink, Mariah Carey and Justin Timberlake). As Peter Allen once sang, everything old is new again. The current worldwide total box office gross: $265,000,000 and rising. The show has played non-stop, worldwide for nearly twenty years. THE PLAY: The story is a simple one of four young men struggling to “make it” as a swing & standards “close harmony” group in those pre-Beatles, pre-“grassy knoll” days of our Perry Como innocence. So what’s the problem? They’re dead! Wiped out by a bus full of Catholic school girls while the lads were driving in their now iconic red ’54 Mercury convertible to their first real gig (at the “Fuselounge” in a local Pennsylvania airport). The schoolgirls, by the by, were okay. But a second opportunity is now heaven sent to the FOUR PLAIDS. They’ve been returned to Earth nearly 50 years later to put on the show they never performed in life. There are problems of course, not least of which is that they are dead, the ultimate fish-out-of-water. And then there are the more prosaic challenges, like remembering lyrics and moves that they haven’t sung or danced in over 40 years, and a nosebleed, and worse. As the PLAIDS mount the stage, a disembodied voice, heavenly in cadence, tells us about astral planes and harmonics and, in general, lays down the stakes. There is a perfect harmonic chord, buried in the song “Love is a Many Splendored Thing,” a chord the PLAIDS never fully hit in life, and they are needed here on Earth to hit it now, in death. Nerves are raw, mistakes are made, but bit-by-bit, with confidence growing, they attack with increasing gusto the celestial musical opportunity they’ve been given, for each one of the four to achieve the happy resolution of his redemptive arc, and for the quartet to reach the perfect chord and achieve perfect harmony. This harmonic chord is finally found and sung. It resonates with the harmony we all want, in our lives and in our worldview, all across America and around the world. It is the epicenter of the “feel good” explosion that is FOREVER PLAID. It is meant to be a lesson to us all. Our movie version is set in a fiercely trendy, post-now club, designed by multiple Tony and Obie winner, Neil Jampolis, and peopled by glamorous extras with a ferocious fashion sense (and not a few celebs who love the show, or have been in it, and want to be among the extras seated at the tables). Our celestial MC is David Hyde-Pierce. And so, the PLAIDS intimidated by the club, and weirded-out that they “have bodies again,” begin to put on their show, haltingly and error prone at first, as in the play, but then increasingly better, tighter, and more wonderfully and harmonically complex as their confidence grows. And with their confidence comes cool, real cool, the kind of cool that all men want to be and all women want to be with, hot-sexy-cool. Also, the “audience volunteer,” always a highlight of the musical play, will be a surprise actress to be revealed at our red carpet media and celebrity event live before our studio audience. Add some CGI, too. There’ll be the typical starbursts and glissandos and whatnot, but we’ll also be “breaking out” of the play from time so time, so that when the Plaids talk about rehearsing in their basement, we are suddenly in the basement rehearsing with them! And when they talk about the gas station where Perry Como’s limo broke down, we’re suddenly at a dreamy nighttime fantasy of a small town gas station as they sing their Como medley. At the climax the PLAIDS have become the cool characters they first set out to be nearly 50 years ago. They’ve also come to realize what this night is all about. They’ve learned of the perfect harmonic chord. They know it’s in “Love is a Many Splendored Thing,” the very next number. Now they confront the Heavenly Figure, but they know in their hearts why it’s needed. And they feel sure they can hit it. But do they want to? If they hit this chord they will have finished their mission on Earth and they will have to return to heaven. The Heavenly Figure impatiently awaits the drama of their decision… They sing, of course, and the moment will thrill us to our bones, the way it’s been thrilling theatre audiences for two decades.

Four orphaned wolf pups… A man facing a lonely future…and the act of kindness that saved them all. It is a story that will touch your heart. Big city attorney Jim Crawford (Michael Flynn) had won most of the battles in his life, but he couldn’t win the battle against his wife’s illness. Devastated and alone, he is left to face a lonely future. But suddenly, an unexpected twist of fate (or perhaps even an angel) leads Jim to discover four orphaned wolf pups who face certain death unless he takes them in. Unprepared for the task, but unwilling to see them suffer, he takes them into his care and keeping. It is a daunting task with unintended…sometimes hilarious consequences.

A thousand-mile bike ride from Portland, Oregon to Salt Lake City, Utah to draw attention to endangered wildlands in the Western United States. Along the way, riders rode through seven threatened areas and discussed the issues of each place with representatives from grassroots groups seeking to keep them wild.

After a three generation land feud, two enemies, played by Adam Johnson and Larry Bagby (Walk the Line), come face to face in a rotting forest and immediately become pinned underneath a fallen, dead tree. Slowly throughout the night they begin to reconcile and decide to end their quarrel.