Horror, sci-fi, underground, and documentary filmmakers from around the country descend on Eau Claire, Wisconsin this weekend for the inaugural MidWest WeirdFest. Taking place March 3-5, at the Micon Cinemas in downtown Eau Claire, the film festival is a cinematic celebration of all things fantastic, frightening, offbeat, and just plain weird.
“The immediate interaction between filmmakers and audiences is one of the great joys of attending a film festival,” says festival director Dean Bertram. “Not only do audience members get to see the latest in cutting edge cinema, they also have the opportunity to speak directly with the films' creators. It's a unique and immersive filmgoing experience.”
Some of MidWest WeirdFest's feature filmmaker guests include:
Director duo Louie Gibson and Joe Dietsch, with producer Joe Toronto: Hollywood based filmmakers attending the festival to represent their high-octane and terrifying horror film HAPPY HUNTING, the tale of an alcoholic drifter caught up in the murderous games of a brutal desert community.
Daniel Schneidkraut and Raymond P. Whalen: the director and subject (respectively) of the hilarious and confronting documentary VORE KING. The film chronicles the Wisconsin-based Whalen's life as America's number one creator and purveyor of “Vore” pornography.
Dakota Laden: Minneapolis-based enfant terrible of documentary and horror filmmaking. Dakota directed and produced the real life horror film/documentary TRAIL TO TERROR when he was just nineteen.
Bryna Smith: Lead actress and visual effects artist of the madcap NEIL STRYKER AND THE TYRANT OF TIME, one of the hottest sci-fi films currently touring the world's festival circuit.
The festival also has some very special virtual guests. Skyping all the way from Wakaliwood (Uganda's answer to Hollywood) will be BAD BLACK's cult action director Nabwana Isaac Godfrey Geoffrey and writer Alan Hofmanis– who will remotely direct the festival's audience in a brief scene, giving everyone in attendance the chance to be a Ugandan action star!
Filmmakers representing their short films at the festival include:
Paul von Stoetzel (IN THE KITCHEN WITH...), Danny Villanueva Jr. (DON'T CRY, PAPA), Benjamin Capps (IT GROWS DARK), and UW-Eau Claire graduate Andrew Swant, who has a number of short films in the festival's A NIGHT AT THE SEAHORSE shorts block that was curated by Swant and The Found Footage Festival's Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher.
Biographies of each of the above filmmakers can be read here.
Raymond P. Whalen the subject of the fest's closing night documentary film VORE KING directs a "La Vore Girl" in one of his underground fetish films.