Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
April 8, 2016<br />
Dear Friends of the Festival,<br />
As we roll-out our 49th edition of WorldFest, we take a look back on the many<br />
wonderful years of discovery and excitement! The festival has mellowed, matured and evolved<br />
over time from the days of 16mm, 35mm to tapes, to DVDs, BluRay, DCPs and now even jump/<br />
USB drives…All along the way, we have followed our mission of “Validating Excellence” and<br />
recognizing “A good story well told.”<br />
We are delighted to offer two very special Panoramas. The 11th Annual Panorama Italia supported<br />
by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Los Angeles. The Second Annual Panorama<br />
China is officially younger (though WorldFest has been showing films from mainland China<br />
since its Virgin Islands years) but now much enhanced with a cornucopia of offerings!<br />
As we prepare for our banner 50th year, we look forward to celebrating with some of our dear<br />
alumni such as Randal Kleiser, John Lee Hancock, David Winning, Ang Lee and many others who<br />
plan to re-join us for another amazing WorldFest experience!<br />
The “Discoveries” along the way are such a litany of creative minds and we thank them<br />
for sharing their voices, visions and dreams with us. John Badham, John Boorman, Martin Brest,<br />
The Coen Brothers, Brian de Palma, Jonathan Demme, John Frankenheimer, William Greaves,<br />
Hal Hartley, Agnieszka Holland , George Lucas, David Lynch, Paul Mazursky, Roberto Rodriguez,<br />
Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, John Sayles, Wilson Hugh, Leslie Linka Glatter, Robert<br />
Townsend, Will Vinton, Peter Weir, Jane Campion, Deepa Mehta and many more.<br />
We so appreciate our dedicated Board of Advisors, Core Staff, Interns and Volunteers<br />
of the 2016 Team Worldfest who have labored long hours and under challenging conditions to<br />
produce a great program. We also thank our Houston Film Society, the key professional teams<br />
at AMC, Lopez Negrete Communicatons, DoubleTree Hotel, Boxer Property as well as The Houston<br />
Arts Alliance. We love Houston’s superb Consular Corps. and vibrant cultural organizations<br />
as well as The Brown Foundation in support of our Master/Class Seminars Scholarships Program.<br />
Film festivals mean an abundance of different things to many people. A film festival is discovery,<br />
excitement, and opportunity! We get to meet amazingly creative artists from all over the world<br />
and share the vision they have brought to life. Thirty-seven nations are represented this year and<br />
we received a record number of entries from 74 nations. We continue with our Signature event of<br />
Closing Day Film Festival Regatta & NASA Rocket Park Excursion for the filmmakers, too.<br />
Come and join us to experience films that reach us on profound levels, moving us to tears, to<br />
laughter and beyond. Some entertain us, some challenge us, some broaden our vistas to the<br />
world helping us to learn of remote cultures and emerging perspectives. Some go on to great<br />
success and acclaim while others due to the vagaries of the world of distribution may never be<br />
seen again. Please enjoy these amazing ‘moving pictures’ and these unique and special moments<br />
in time. Each one of these films of the festival are hand-picked with care and diligence and<br />
we hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we do…!<br />
Warmest Regards,<br />
J. Hunter Todd Kathleen Haney<br />
Chairman and Founding Director<br />
Program and Artistic Director<br />
th<br />
30 49 WorldFest Houston
Change language