Houston, Texas - Mar 27, 2008

"FORGET SUNDANCE! WorldFest is one of the best conceived festival productions on the planet!" ~ Craig Outhier, film critic, Phoenix press; Tempe Times.

The 41st Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival continues its totally dedicated Independent Film screening format for the upcoming April 11-20, 2008 unspooling. WorldFest will screen just 52 feature film premieres, with a total and complete emphasis on the American and International Independent Feature films and with a continuing annual spotlight on 75 award-winning Intl. Short films and Documentary films.

For the 41st WorldFest, all screenings will be at the AMC Studio 30 at Dunvale. Complete Film schedule and ticket information are now on our WorldFest website (http://www.worldfest.org)

This year WorldFest is streaming Trailers and clips of all Feature and Short Films on its website - www.worldfest.org.

Anyone can visit our website and click on the Short or Feature Film that they want to view, and it will stream via the very high band-width of WorldFest.
The WorldFest Remi Award Winners from the past festivals have now been viewed by more than one million people all over the world.

The Opening Night WorldFest Premiere is BEFORE THE RAINS, directed by India director Santosh Sivan and presented by Executive Producer, Houstonian Ashok Rao.
This epic film is set in 1937 in Kerala, India on the lush tea and spice plantation of a British planter and his plans for expansion features Rahul Bose, Leopold Benedict, Linus Roach, Nandita Das and Jennifer Ehle. The Director and several cast members are expected to attend.

The Closing Night Film is ROMAN DE GARE, a French comedic drama directed by Claude Lelouch starring Fannie Ardant as a popular mystery writer who goes to the vineyards in Burgundy to research her next pulp fiction.

For its 41st festival WorldFest is presenting 10 World Premieres with all directors attending;
B.O.H.I.C.A. ~ DJ Paul, USA-Drama
Dubble (Doppio) ~ Eric Alexander, Italy- Comedy
Film Camp ~ Garret Maynard, USA-Kids Comedy
The Fragility of Seconds ~ Matthew Stephen Tompkins & Julio Cedillo, Texas/Mexico-Drama
Geeta in Paradise ~ Benny Mathews, USA- Comedy
Magazine Gap Road ~ Nicholas Chin, Hong Kong- Drama
Ray of Sunshine ~ Jennifer Tadlock,USA- Forensic Drama
The Road to Partition (featurette) ~ Alan Mendelsohn Pakistan/ Canada/India-Documentary
Swamp Devil ~ David Winning, Canada- Horror/Mystery
The Journey: The Greek American Dream ~ Maria Iliou, USA/Greece-Documentary

In addition, WorldFest is premiering 42 additional feature films and 75 Short Films, including many with Houston and Texas connections with most of their directors in attendance as well plus many of the producers, writers and actors too.

An American in China ~ Ron Berrett, China / USA- Comedy
Arabian Nights ~ Paul Kieffer, Luxembourg- Drama
The Blissful ~ Sergey Strusovsky, Russia- Drama
Chamame ~ Cosima Lange, Germany/Argentina- Documentary
Coyote Funeral ~ Jason May & Phelps Harmon, USA- Drama
Death Game ~ Menahem Golan, Belarusse - Action Drama
Eduart ~ Angeliki Antoniou, Greece- Drama
The Émigré ~ Istvan Darday, Hungary- Drama
The Errand of Angels ~ Christian Vuissa, USA/Austria- Drama
Flight of the Navigator ~ Randal Kleiser, USA- Family SCI-FI
Float ~ Calvin Simmons, USA-Comedy
Four Wings & A Prayer ~ Nick de Pencier, Canada- Documentary
Greetings from the Shore ~ Greg Chwerchak, USA- Drama
Hotel Very Welcome ~ Sonja Heiss, Germany - Docu- drama
Immensity of Justice ~ Wieslaw Saniewski, Poland- Drama
Iska's Journey ~ Csaba Bollok, Hungary- Drama
Kings ~ Tom Collins, Ireland-Drama
Labou ~ Greg Aronowitz, USA-Kids Adventure
Mahek ~ Kranti Kanade, India-Kids Comedy
Maui Boyz ~ Carsten Maaz, USA/ Germany- Documentary
The Metro Sexual ~ Adam Kaufman, USA- Comedy
Mother Toyoko ~ Masamoto Sakurai, Japan- Docu- drama
The Nuremberg Epilogue ~ Jerry Antczak, Poland- Docu-drama
One Night (Una Notte) ~Toni D'Angelo, Italy- Drama
Perfect Sport ~ Anthony O'Brien, USA-Coming of Age - Drama
Daily Planet: India Unleashed (featurette) ~ Anne Marie Varner, Canada/India-Documentary
Saving Luna ~ Suzanne Chisholm & Michael Parfit, Canada-Documentary
Slam ~ Jonathan Lim, China-Kids Action
Sounds ~ Ryan Humphries, USA-Comedy
The Stone Angel ~ Kari Skogland, Canada/UK- Drama
Svani ~ Soso & Badri Jatchvliani , Republic of Georgia- Drama
The Ante ~ Max Perrier, Canada-Mystery
They Wait ~ Ernie Barbarash, Canada- Fantasy
This Beautiful City ~ Ed Gass-Donnelly, Canada- Drama
Tressette ~ Drazen Zarkovic & Pavo Marinkovic, Croatia-Drama
True Love ~ Henry Barrial, USA-Drama
When Autumn Sunlight Comes (Khi Nang Thu Ve) ~ Bui Trung Hai, Vietnam-Drama
White Angel ~ Mahsun Kirmizigul, Turkey- Drama
With One Voice ~ Xavier de Lauzanne, France - Documentary
 

For its 41st Festival, WorldFest is once again honoring Italy, with a pair of old favorites plus two newly and Independently-made films from Italy, along with their directors, in person.

These films include:
PANORAMA ITALIA - WORLDFEST HONORS ITALY FOR 2008
Bread and Tulips (Pane e Tulipane) ~ Silvio Soldini,Italy-Comedy
Night of the Shooting Star (La Notte di San Lorenzo) ~ Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, Italy
Retrospective /Drama
Dubble (Doppio) ~ Eric Alexander, Italy- Comedy
One Night (Una Notte) ~ Toni D'Angelo, Italy- Drama
L'Oro Rosso (The Red Gold) ~ Short Film

WorldFest Artistic and Program Director, Kathleen Haney, affirms that, "WorldFest continues its focus on a quality selection of individual films to maintain a smaller, yet effective program rather than an overly large and unwieldy slate of 150-300 films shown in too many venues. In consideration of both our festival audiences and the independent filmmakers, we feel that a solid high-quality program of no more than 60 features is optimum in a ten-day festival with nine screening slots (on three theater screens) per day."
Haney continued, "Our mantra is 'A good story, well told' as our classic approach to film selection. We have special sidebars of International Visions Section, Children/Family Film Section plus Remi Award winning Documentaries. All of our films are totally Indie productions, and each film is well represented by their filmmakers, who attend to personally introduce their films!"
WorldFest will continue with its annual Short Film Showcase, a very special review of 75 new short and student films...from the festival that gave first honors to Spielberg, Lucas, Oliver Stone, Ang Lee, David Lynch, the Coen Bros. among many others! No other festival has such a "discovery" track record. WorldFest has emerged as the oldest film festival management in the world with the same director, continuously for 41+ consecutive years. A few other festivals are older, but have had as many as ten different directors.
Most USA film festivals today have evolved into publicity platforms for major studio distributors.
WorldFest showcases the true independent film, offering a fiercely dedicated special venue for directors searching for an independent forum for their works. WorldFest continues with a focused emphasis on new, premiering films that are seeking a distributor. The Festival also screens DVD video via the Barco R20 Digital DLP Projection and Wagner Media with Plus8Digital, major sponsors of the festival, in addition to 35mm film.

WorldFest-Houston is presented by - The Houston Film Society, HP, Eastman Kodak, The Houston Chronicle, Chron.com, Boxer Property Group, The Houston Arts Alliance, The National Endowment for The Arts, Texas Commission for the Arts, Phonoscope, Inc., Barefoot Sparkling Wines, Redwood Creek Vineyards, San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna Waters, The Houston Film Commission, The Renaissance & Marriott Hotels, NASA, Space Center- Houston, The Houston Yacht Club, Royal Carriages Limousines, The Wellness Center, Wagner Media, The Homestead Resort and many others.

Learn more about WorldFest...

About WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival

The 108-page WorldFest program book is distributed to every major film festival in the world and to every known major distributor in the world. This detailed film catalogue has become an invaluable reference document for film acquisition and film review. WorldFest traces its actual beginnings to August 1961, when it began screening foreign & art films as Cinema Arts, an international film society. It became a competitive international film festival seven years later, in April 1968, and has been in continuous operation ever since. It is one of the original three film festivals in North America, with San Francisco and New York as the first two venues. Now there are over 900 USA film festivals of various levels and quality, most being non-competitive screening events! It is perhaps the longest-running film festival in the world operating under the same director.

The 41st Annual WorldFest also offers international competition in 12 major categories, including TV production, TV commercials, unproduced Screenplays & Teleplays, Experimental, Student, Documentary, Business & Industry, New Media and Music Videos. WorldFest is the largest film & video competition in the world, with more than 4,300 total category entries received in 2008. There are almost 200 sub- categories for competition, allowing each film to compete in its own genre.

WorldFest is Fiercely Independent!

For more information on the 41st Annual 2008 WorldFest-Houston, Call: 1-713-965-9955 or fax: 1-713-965-9960 or email: info@worldfest.org The complete Info kit with ticket purchase forms is on our website: www.worldfest.org "Before there was Sundance or SXSW, Toronto or Tribeca, there was WorldFest!"