Focusing on Facial Hair

Every other year, men from all over the world gather to compete at the World Beard and Moustache Championships. The next edition is scheduled to be held in Trondheim, Norway in the spring of 2011, hosted by the Norwegian Moustache Club.

The Benefits of Having Almost Famous Helpers

The Florida tandem of Matt Mamula and Jason Kovacsev have enjoyed a unique advantage when working the film festival circuit red carpet. The stars of their short documentary Just About Famous, shot at the 2009 edition of the Sunburst Convention, can all pass for A-list level celebrities.

USC Grad Still Going for Broke

In Hawaii, as in Hollywood, the spark for a successful directing career can often involve a split-second moment of impulsive risk-taking. In the case of James Sereno, a 1991 USC Film School graduate who had moved back to his native land to transition from producing to directing commercials, the moment occurred in an ad agency hallway.

The Apocalypse of the 'Adulte' Virus

If you can imagine the basic premise of Lord of the Flies expanded to a worldwide, futuristic level, then you have a sense of Pursuing Nostalgia, a 30-minute short film premiering Sunday, November 14th in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Made by young brothers Alex and Elisha Watrous, it presents a world where all post-puberty residents have been mysteriously wiped out by a plague that began in the winter of 2010, leaving only, circa 2023, a bunch of now older, orphaned survivors.

A 'Herzogian' Sibling Saga

This afternoon's U.S. premiere at AFI Fest of Two Gates of Sleep, the first feature-length effort by writer-director Alistair Banks Griffin, has set the bar extremely high for the event's “Young Americans” sidebar. Even though there are scarcely 100 words of dialog in the whole thing, beginning with the invective “shit”, it is a minimalist masterpiece destined to challenge and entrance audiences once it finds a distributor.