Comic-Con 2007
Popular Indie Film Event Returns for Seventh Big Year!
Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival Strikes Back! Comic-Con once again presents four full days of the finest in independent genre films. The Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival returns as a juried event, complete with awards and prizes to be given out on Sunday, July 29. The Festival showcases the very best in genre filmmaking, featuring both feature-length and short films in seven categories: Action/Adventure, Animation, Comics-oriented, Documentary (pop culture-oriented), Horror/Suspense, Humor/Parody, and Science Fiction/Fantasy. 2006 saw close to sixty entries screened over the four-day event, in Room 26AB, devoted solely to the Film Festival. This year’s Festival also includes the return of the Comic-Con Film School. This popular series of seminars will take place each of the four days and focus on valuable information for the indie filmmaker, newbie and pro alike. Both Sean Rourke and Valerie Perez will once again head up the daily discussions. A brief look at the schedule shows that Thursday will be devoted to pre-production and production, part one, and Friday will be production part 2 and post-production. Saturday will cover directing, and working with actors and a crew, while Sunday will be a unique day with a discussion of the future of Internet content.
2007 Film Festival Judges Named Collins
Jane
Rourke
Max Allan Collins wrote the New York Times-bestselling graphic novel Road to Perdition, the basis of the Tom Hanks film, and prose sequels Road to Purgatory and Road to Paradise, as well as the graphic novel follow-up Road to Perdition 2: On the Road. His comics credits include a long stint writing the Dick Tracy comic strip and his own innovative Eisner-nominated crime comic book, Ms. Tree (co-created by artist Terry Beatty). His Nathan Heller thrillers are multiple Shamus winners and his CSI novels (Pocket Books) USA Today bestsellers. He and wife Barbara (as “Barbara Allan”) recently authored Antiques Roadkill, first of a new series. As an indie filmmaker, Collins adapted Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life from his Edgar-nominated play and his films Mommy, Real Time, Mommy’s Day and Shades of Noir have been collected as the “Black Box” by Troma. His current mystery, A Killing in Comics, utilizes comic-book elements in a prose novel. Thomas Jane has a solid raft of film and major TV credits to his name and has worked with some of the international film industry’s most acclaimed directors including Frank Darabont, Renny Harlin, Paul Thomas Anderson, John Madden, Terrence Malick, John Duigan and John Woo. Notable appearances include Boogie Nights, The Thin Red Line, 61* The Sweetest Thing, Dreamcatcher and Stander, but Jane’s role as the lead in The Punisher is the one that brought him most acclaim. More recently, he has starred in John Madden’s Killshot, Frank Darabont’s The Mist and The Tripper, which is directed by his brother-in-law David Arquette. Jane’s next project is a reprisal of his role as Frank Castle in The Punisher 2. Sean Rourke has worked as an editor in the Visual FX world for ten years. His credits include such films as The Legend of Zorro, Road to Perdition, Red Planet, The Time Machine, and Freddy vs. Jason. He is also a veteran filmmaker of the CCI: IFF, and is heading-up the Comic-Con Film School for its fourth year in a row. Check www.comic-con.org for a complete schedule of films screening in this year’s Festival, as we get closer to the event.
20 Max Allan Collins photo by Bamford Studios