Festival Data:

• Established: 1961
• Genre: General
• Attendance: 25000
• Media Attendance: 500
• Accredited Industry Attendance: 500
• Total Number of Films Submitted: 4500
• Total Number of Films Screened: 164
• Total Screenings: 120
• # of Shorts Screened: 104
• # of Features Screened: 60

• Competitive
• Retrospective
• Online Festival
• Students Section
• Has Panels
• Has Seminars
• Workshops

Festival Website:

Festival Description:

WorldFest was founded 49 years ago as Cinema Arts, an International Film Society in August, 1961. WorldFest became the third competitive international film festival in North America, following San Francisco and New York. WorldFest is the oldest Independent Film & Video Festival in the World. It evolved into a competitive International Film Festival in April, 1968. It was founded by award-winning producer/director Hunter Todd to present a quality film festival for the Independent filmmakers. The mission/vision statement of WorldFest is to recognize and honor outstanding creative excellence in film & video, to validate brilliant abilities and to promote cultural tourism for Houston, to develop film production in the region and to add to the rich cultural fabric of the city of Houston. All members of the WorldFest staff are filmmakers.

WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival (now it’s 41st year!) continues with its totally dedicated Independent Film screening format for the upcoming April 16- 25, 2009. WorldFest will screen just 55-60 feature film premieres, with a complete and absolute emphasis on the American and International Independent feature films and with a continuing annual spotlight on an individual country and its films. WorldFest also offers competition in TV Production, Documentary, Corporate & Business Films, Student & Experimental, TV Commercials, Film & Video Production, Music Videos, New Media (Interactive & Web Sites), Screenplays, Print and Radio.

In addition to honoring a different country each year, WorldFest will continue with its annual Short Film Showcase, a special review of 100+ new short and student films...from the festival that discovered Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ang Lee, John Lee Hancock, Randall Kleiser, Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Robert Townsend, The Coen Brothers, Brian de Palma, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone and David Lynch with their very first awards. WorldFest has emerged as the oldest film festival management in the world, with the same continuous director for 49 consecutive years.

By having a small, highly selective schedule of new Indie Short & Feature films, the festival can help the film gain reviews and a distributor, rather than merely act as a preview platform for an upcoming release from a large US distributor.

Film Submissions:

• Accepts direct submissions
• Submission formats: VHS, Beta-SP, 35mm, DVD, Other
• Call for Entry: http:/ / www.worldfest.org/ PAGES/ entry.htm