The 11th annual Big Island Film Festival will screen 58 films through May 30 at the Fairmont Orchid and The Shops at Mauna Lani.
Each year, the festival, which is a celebration of narrative film making, takes place along the Kohala Coast, featuring independent shorts and feature-length films from diverse background and genres.
Michael Gross, who is known as Steven Keaton, Michael J. Fox’s TV dad in “Family Ties,” stars in the new feature “Last Call at Murray’s,” which will show on the Sunday night of the festival. Gross will attend the festival in person, following a salute and reception in his honor.
Bellamy Young, who plays the ambitious First Lady on “Scandal,” will also be honored at BIFF with a salute and reception on Saturday.
Feature films will be screened at the Fairmont Orchid’s Plantation Estate, where a no-host bar and snacks will be available. On Saturday, “Winter’s Dream,” a futuristic sci-fi drama pairs with “Plan Z,” a gripping trip through the zombie apocalypse, with a soundtrack by artists like Rhianna, the Black Eyed Peas, and more. The Friday lineup includes a hilarious defense of family leave, “The Bad Mother,” and a multi-level love story, “Throuple,” filmed on the Big Island. On Sunday, “The Closer” is an intense drama about super high stakes real estate during the boom and bust of Brooklyn’s subprime meltdown.
“I am so impressed with the quality of films this year,” said Executive Director Leo Sears. “Picking the official selections was very difficult. The features are excellent, and the shorts are so good that we added an extra film block so we could show six more. Many of the daytime movies are good enough to be shown in the prime Festival Venue, but we only have so much space. This is a great selection that any movie lover will enjoy and we hope everybody will come and support indie films with us.”
The five-day schedule includes free Opening Night and family films at The Shops at Mauna Lani, daytime movies and screenings under the stars at Plantation Estate, special events, screenwriting workshops, an Awards Brunch, and more.
A limited number of ballots will be given to audience members during each screening. Votes are tallied at the end of the festival to determine the audience-choice Feature and Short to be screened at Best of the Fest on Monday, May 30. An exciting closing night event, Best of the Fest will kick off with a Hawaiian music concert and two ways to give back: a silent auction for Fisher House at Tripler Army Medical Center, and a portion of each ticket sold donated to Hawai‘i Island Food Basket.
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