The Wild & Scenic Film Festival is now touring around the country. Worse Than Poop! plays tonight in El Segundo, CA, and on April 10 in Staunton, Virginia.
UNAFF Screening, Panel... and Award!
Last week, Worse Than Poop! won the Grand Jury Award for Best Short Film at the United Nations Association Film Festival. We are so honored!
Vanessa and Elliot take home the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film at the 2015 UNAFF.
Held for the past 18 years at Stanford University, the UNAFF seeks to draw attention to the UN's Millenium Development Goals and, going forward, the UN's new Sustainable Development Goals.
Elliot answers a question from the audience at the 2015 UNAFF.
Our film was scheduled on the last day of the festival, in a section addressing climate change. The other films included DamNation and Antarctic Edge, and afterwards Elliot and I sat on a panel and answered audience questions with filmmakers Matt Stoeker and Dena Seidel.
Screening at CMS Vatavaran
Elliot and Naveen head into the 2015 CMS Vatavaran Festival at the New Delhi Convention Centre
CMS India is a non-profit think tank that runs the annual CMS Vatavaran Festival. They invited us to India to screen Worse Than Poop! at the festival, which was held in the New Delhi Convention Centre. We were put up a block away at the YMCA Tourist Hotel.
India is 11.5 time zones away from California - about as far away as you can get. As long as we spent time outside, we were ok - but on the day of our screening we spent most of our time inside darkened rooms watching movies. I don't recommend this approach to getting over jet-lag, or to enjoying an otherwise lovely film festival.
Other than the terrible jet-lag, we had a great time. The film was well received, and Elliot is getting very good at public speaking. (We even avoided getting Delhi-belly!)
Trying to stay warm in the super-chilly screening room at CMS Vatavaran
Elliot answers a question at the CMS Vatavaran screening of Worse Than Poop!
Film festivals galore...
The festival season is heating up. Worse Than Poop! is an official selection at eight film festivals, on every continent except Australia/Oceania, and is under consideration by several more. The next screening will be in New Delhi, at the CMS Vatavaran Environmental Festival - and Elliot and I are going to be there!
Last night I participated in a televised group interview with Jasmina Bojic of the United Nations Association Film Festival and three other participating filmmakers. (My segment on the show starts about 18 minutes in.)
UNA Forum, hosted by Jasmina Bojic, Film Critic/UNAFF Festival Director (seated at right) with (l to r): ADAM SCHELLENBERG/Far From Home ABBY GINZBERG/Soft Vengeance, CHRISTOPHER BEAVER/Racing to Zero, VANESSA WARHEIT/Worse Than Poop!
Worse Than Poop! will be screening on closing night of the 2015 UNAFF, October 25, and I will be participating in a panel discussion afterwards on climate change. Elliot will also be there to answer questions.
Also scheduled for October is a screening at Planet in Focus in Toronto. So I made up some movie posters! This is what they look like:
Festivals Around the World
I'm delighted to report that Worse Than Poop! will soon be screening at two more festivals, on two more continents!
On March 27 and 28, the South African Eco Film Festival will screen the film as part of Small Seeds Hold Great Potential and Be The Change film programs, in Capetown, South Africa.
By the end of the year, SEFF will have visited Slavonski Brod, Koprivnica, Zadar, Šibenik, Tribunj, Brodarica, Murter, Zagreb, Pula, Rijeka, as well as the Green Fest in Belgrade, Serbia, Barents Ecology Film Festival in Russia and Rover Film Festival in Ukraina.
In June, it will play in the Sisak Eco Film Festival, a festival that travels - by bike! - to cities throughout Eastern Europe.
I've submitted to many other festivals, and will post here with results as we hear back...