With less than two months to go until the Fargo Film Festival’s regular entry deadline expires, moviemakers from all over the United States and the rest of the world are reminded to send in your submissions. The 2008 Fargo Film Festival is already shaping up to become the biggest and best year yet, and movies in categories from animation to documentary feature arrive daily to enter the competition. For complete submission information, click the Fargo Film Festival’s SUBMISSIONS tab on main pages of the website. Printable entry forms are available on that page. The Fargo Film Festival looks forward to seeing your movies.

Lace up your bowling shoes and visit the Fargo Theatre on November 2 at midnight for a special screening of “The Big Lebowski.”  Part of the Fargo Theatre’s Midnight Movie Series, “The Big Lebowski” is a must whether you’ve never seen it or have seen it three hundred times.   The Dude, Walter, Donny, Jesus, Maude, Bunny and the rest of the gang will be waiting for you.

The Fargo Film Festival would like to encourage you to attend Silent Movie Night at the Fargo Theatre on Friday, October 26 and Saturday, October 27. Shows begin at 7:30pm and will feature a special tribute to veterans. Tickets are available for $10 in advance at the Fargo Theatre and at all Hornbacher’s locations, and $12 at the door.

The show will feature the Fargo Theatre Big Band and Fargo Theatre Singers under the direction of Dr. David Ferreira. The American Theatre Organ Society presents a 35mm print of Harold Lloyd in “The Freshman” on the giant silver screen with a live original score performed by Lance E. Johnson at the console of the mighty Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ.

One of Harold Lloyd’s best feature-length comedies, “The Freshman” features the bespectacled regular guy as Harold Lamb, a naïve young man who heads off to college believing campus life will be just as it is depicted in the movies. Harold soon discovers, however, that real life isn’t all that much like the pictures, and he quickly becomes the laughing stock of the university. Determined to prove himself, Harold tries out for the football team, but he serves as water boy and rides the pine until he finally gets a chance to redeem himself at the big game.

On Thursday, October 18, 2007, the Fargo Theatre will host an evening titled “A Tribute to Bill Snyder Films.”  This special event will celebrate the lives and work of Bill Snyder and Norm Selberg, who were both instrumental in the development of commercial moviemaking in the state of North Dakota.  With archival imagery provided by Harold “Rusty” Casselton and John McDonough, the night will be an audio, visual, and participatory remembrance you will not forget.  Doors open at 6pm, and a special toast will be held at 6:30pm.  The tribute itself begins at 7pm.  This unique event is free and open to the public.  All are welcome to attend.

The popular 2-Minute Movie Contest will return to the Fargo Film Festival in 2008. Contestants are allowed to enter up to two movies per person. In addition to being played at the main venue during the closing night showcase, the first, second, and third place winners will earn prizes. In order to be eligible for the competition, moviemakers must have copyright clearance for all audio and visual elements in their entries. As always, movies must be no longer than two minutes, including any credits. Moviemakers must title their entries. The deadline to enter the 2-Minute Movie Contest is February 22, 2008. No walk-in entries are allowed.

The Fargo-Moorhead Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has given its 2007 Heartland Pride Award to the Fargo Film Festival. One of three major honors bestowed by the FMCVB each year, the Heartland Pride Award is given to the individual or organization that has made a significant effort to bring a major convention, conference, meeting, or special event to Fargo-Moorhead that occurred during the past year.

The FMCVB noted that the Fargo Film Festival has blossomed into “near-national prominence” with a wide variety of titles from many states and countries shown on the big screen. Additionally, the FMCVB suggested that with continued hard work, the Fargo Film Festival could become a “must-do” festival for moviemakers. We are thrilled to be awarded this honor and look forward to years of great festival programming yet to come.

This year, the Fargo Film Festival cover shot contest has been expanded to include all kinds of art. As long as the contestant provides a “reasonably recognizable” interpretation of the Fargo Theatre’s iconic marquee, entries may be originated in any medium. For detailed information, visit the Fargo Film Festival website, and continue to check out this blog. Entries will be accepted through December 31, 2007 and individuals may submit up to three designs.

Bill Snyder, one of North Dakota’s most prolific and successful moviemakers, died last week at the age of 90. A great friend and supporter of the Fargo Film Festival, Bill’s passion and enthusiasm for moviemaking inspired several generations of local writers, producers, and directors.

The Fargo Film Festival has given the Bill Snyder Award to films of outstanding achievement in documentary filmmaking since the inaugural year of the festival. Bill was a regular attendee of the festival, sharing his wisdom and experiences with a large cross-section of audience members.

Snyder worked on more than 800 films, most of which were educational, commercial, or industrial. When WDAY transitioned into television in 1953, Snyder was its first director of film and photography. Snyder opened his own studio in 1958, and although it was not the first film studio in Fargo or North Dakota, it was the longest-lived, surviving for forty years before being absorbed into Media Productions in February of 1998. Bill was the studio’s primary director of photography from its inception through his retirement in 1983.

Bill’s studio is notable for the amount of film and video it produced in the four decades of its operation: almost four million feet of 16mm and 35mm film and ten-thousand hours of video tape were in its archives by 1998. All the contents of this vast library were donated to the North Dakota State Historical Society in Bismarck.

The Fargo Film Festival will miss Bill, and would like to express its heartfelt gratitude for his friendship.

With submissions officially open for the 2008 Fargo Film Festival, moviemakers of all stripes are cordially invited to enter their work for consideration. Movies are beginning to arrive with regularity, and categories including Narrative Feature, Narrative Short, and Animation/Experimental are already represented by official entries. In addition, the comprehensive website overhaul continues, and the 2005 archive now has images for most of its titles. If you are a moviemaker who has had work shown in the Fargo Film Festival, we would love to hear from you. In addition to finding out what you have been making, we are trying to build a comprehensive gallery that contains an image from each and every movie that has played in the Fargo Film Festival.

The Fargo Film Festival Committee reconvened last week to begin plans in earnest for the 2008 festival. The website redesign was unveiled and other ideas were discussed to help make the upcoming festival the strongest of our years so far. Since the last blog update, work continues on the archive section of the website, located under the MOVIES tab. While all seven years of the festival now show alphabetical listings of their programs, 2006 and 2007 feature images.