Information reguarding the 2009 Rhode Island International Film Festival.

Now in its 13th year, the Rhode Island International Film Festival™, (RIIFF) will take place August 4-9, 2009. In its brief life span, the Festival has become a leading juried competition showcase for international independent filmmakers and their work. In 2008, RIIFF screened 289 cinematic works in seven days to large and appreciative crowds. These films were submitted from over 53 countries, and 32 states in the United States.

The Festival presented 58 World Premieres and 41 US/North American Premieres. Following months of adjudication and review, RIIFF films were selected from over 3,000 international submissions. The Festival had 12 sell-outs and is recognized within the industry as the largest festival in New England.

What sets RIIFF apart is that the Festival is one of only five broadly focused, independent festivals in New England accepting works of any type (dramatic, documentary, experimental, animation), on any subject matter, and in any genre. In 2002, RIIFF was notified by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) that it had elected to recognize the Rhode Island International Film Festival as a qualifying festival for the Short Films category for the Annual Academy Awards. With more than 7,000 film festivals worldwide, only 63 have this recognition.

The Rhode Island International Film Festival, takes place in the historic cities of Providence as well as satellite locations throughout the state; including Kingston, Newport, Narragansett, Barrington, Cranston and Westerly. The dynamic nature of Rhode Island offers excellent screening facilities, strong community support, and unlimited growth potential. Visit http://www.film-festival.org/ for more details!

Also, Film Arcade.net recently recieved a couple of trailers of films that will be playing at the 2009 Rhode Island International Film Festival.



Jim Thorpe, The World's Greatest Athlete
Directed by Tom Weidlinger
(2009, 86 min. U S A)

Jim Thorpe, The World’s Greatest Athlete is a biography of the Native American athlete who became a sports icon in the first half of the 20th centu ry. Beginning with Thorpe’s boyhood in Indian territory it chronicles his rise to athletic stardom at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, winning two gold medals at the 1912 Summer Olympics, his fall from grace in the eyes of the amateur athletic establishment, and his rebound in professional baseball and football. Thorpe retired from pro sports at age 41 just before the stock market crash of ’29. He worked as a construction laborer before getting work in Hollywood as a bit part player. He became a representative for Indian extras in Hollywood, fighting for equal pay for Native Americans in the movies. In the 1940s he crisscrossed the nation as a public speaker advocating for Indian self-determination.

Jim Thorpe, The World’s Greatest Athlete is the first feature length documentary to be made about the man. It appeals to sports buffs as well as those interested in Native American issues, especially the tension between assimilation into white society and forging a separate Indian identity in the 20th century.




Fruit Fly
Directed by H.P. Mendoza
(2008, 94 min. U S A)

Bethesda, a Filipina performance artist, moves into a San Francisco artist commune in the hopes of moving her one woman show to a big city. Along with the numerous friends she makes in the art community, she also finds clues to the whereabouts of her biological mother, lessons in humility, and the startling realization that she just might be a fag-hag. All told through 14 original musical numbers written by H.P. Mendoza (Colma: The Musical).



Fish out of Water
Directed by Ky Dickens
(2009, 60 min. U S A)

In “Fish out of Water”, a young lesbian’s rejection by her Christian peers propels her to consult America’s premier theologians in a dissection and debunking of the seven Bible verses used to condemn homosexuality and justify discrimination.