PollyGrind Film Festival of Las Vegas to world premiere 18 films in October

LAS VEGAS - Sept. 15, 2013 - PRLog -- Slime City Massacre’s Greg Lamberson and The Bunny Game’s Adam Rehmeier have both said that there aren’t too many film festivals they care about these days. But PollyGrind isn’t your average film festival and both award-winning alumni will have their latest projects screen at the event in Las Vegas this October.

Festival founder and director Chad Clinton Freeman recently announced the official lineup for PollyGrind IV: A New Hope. After a record-breaking 777 entries, more than 100 films from 13 countries will screen, with filmmakers ranging in age from 11 to 67 years old.

Eighteen features will have world premieres, including Rehmeier’s Jonas, which is playing throughout the event, October 9-13, in six verses.

Rehmeier’s The Bunny Game won PollyGrind’s top award, dubbed the Biggest Baddest Mother, in 2011.

“We aren’t planning on doing many festivals for the film, but yours is one I really wanted the film to be shown at,” said Rehmeier, who released Jonas online for free at www.jonasmovie.com on September 11. “Your programming is eclectic and fantastic!”

Lamberson’s Dry Bones, which he co-directed with Michael O'Hear, gets a west coast and film festival premiere at PollyGrind on Oct. 11.

Slime City Massacre won the festival’s top prize in 2010.

"When I submitted Slime City Massacre to Chad, PollyGrind was a start-up and I didn't know what to expect,” Lamberson said. “Then I saw the first schedule and realized he had a real vision for the programming. We took home two awards, which was great, but what impressed me was Chad's promotion of the festival and its films.”

“I'm a programmer too, and I see the logic in his choices and the passion in his schedule,” continued Lamberson, co-founder of Buffalo Screams, now known as Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival. “Ticket sales are important, but a film program as an aesthetic is just as important. When I finished Dry Bones, I made a list of four festivals that I gave a rat's ass about screening at, and PollyGrind was at the top.”

Other world premieres at the event this year include To Jennifer, 13/13/13, Slaughterhouse Bride, House of Forbidden Secrets, Buried In Flesh, Desolate, Darkest Days, American Girls, Sweet Leaf, Diet of Sex, The Minstrel Killer, The Synthetic Man, The Yellow Bellies, Sacrifice: In the Name of Goddess Gadhimai, Tricks, Eye of the Bennu and Legend of the Hillbilly Butcher.

“I love that the number of world premieres grows each year when PollyGrind doesn’t even focus on that,” Freeman said. “We had five world premieres in 2010, seven in 2011 and 13 last year. This year we have 18. That tells me that filmmakers understand, respect and trust PollyGrind.”

Benny Loves Killing, A Measure of the Sin, Nightmare Box, Desolate, I Am Death, Little F’er, The Cohasset Snuff Film, Leave It on the Track, What I Love About Concrete, Boys Cry, Blood Soaked, Truth or Dare, The Commune, Billy Club, Barbazul, China White Serpentine, Beast: A Monster Among Men, Savage Witches, Locomotive, Purgatorium, Cheeseballs and Coyote round out the festival’s feature film lineup.

“There’s a mix of everything in there this year,” Freeman said. “PollyGrind has always been about bringing arthouse and grindhouse together and I think this year the diversity really shines through. On display there will be drama, dramedy, horror, thriller, true crime, documentary, fantasy, experiemtal, sci-fi and more with sex, blood, snuff, Nazis, a blackface killer, cults, religion, ritualistic sacrifice, roller derby, zombies and then some on display. Lines will be blurred, boundaries will be pushed and questions are sure to be raised with this curated trip through the best outsider cinema of today.”

Ten of the films are from repeat PollyGrind filmmakers. Besides Rehmeier and Lamberson, James Cullen Bressack, Rob Grant, Julian Grant, Mitchel A. Jones, John R. Hand, Eric Stanze and Tom Martino all have films screening.

Bressack, who world premiered Hate Crime last year, gets the 2013 festival started on Ocober 9 with a Special Asylum Showcase of 13/13/13. His found footage film To Jennifer, the first feature shot and edited on the iPhone, follows. On a side note, the screening of Gordon Bressack’s short film Keeper makes the Bressacks the first father and son duo to ever have projects at PollyGrind.

Rob Grant (Mon Ami) world premieres his experimental sci-fi thriller Desolate on October 10. Julian Grant (F-load of Scotch Tape) world premieres his crime thriller Sweet Leaf on October 11.

Hand (Scars of Youth) world premieres his latest oddball arthouse project The Synthetic Man, while Jones (After the Dawn) has the Nevada Premiere of Boys Cry, a relevant story of high school bullying that just won a NAFCA African Oscar, both on Oct. 12.

Stanze (Ratline) celebrates the tenth anniversary of China White Serpentine, which he co-directed with Robin Garrels with a Special Underrated Gem Showcase on Oct. 13, and Martino (Race War) has a west coast premiere of his latest horror comedy Cheeseballs during PollyGrind’s Encore Weekend, which runs Oct. 25-26.

Filmmakers screening for the first time at the event include the likes of Todd Sheets (House of Forbidden Secrets), Adam Ahlbrandt (Buried In Flesh: An Adam Ahlbrandt Double Feature featuring The Cemetery and Cross Bearer), Jon Keeyes (Nightmare Box), Travis Miller (Purgatorium), Mike Muscal (Little F’er), Ben Woodiwiss (Benny Loves Killing), Jeff Wedding (A Measure of the Sin), Paul Orehovec (I Am Death), Edward Payson (The Cohasset Snuff Film), Eric Pereira (American Girls), Elisabeth Fies (The Commune), Amy Hesketh (Barbazul) and the duo of Clara Pais and Daniel Fawcett (Savage Witches).

Jessica Cameron brings her directorial debut Truth or Dare to the festival after winning best cameo for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in last year’s The Black Dahlia Haunting. She is also featured in three other films - American Girls, 13/13/13, and To Jennifer.

An international film festival steeped in artistic freedom, PollyGrind celebrates individuality, diversity, creativity, and empowerment by showcasing the work of filmmakers with defiantly independent visions.

Ashley Lonardo is the festival’s youngest filmmaker. She was 11 when she directed Madlo Show, a comedic variety webseries, with her 13-year-old sister Jessica. Opal Dockery, 67, is the oldest filmmaker of PollyGrind. The first-time filmmaker’s short documentary looks at discrimination and the injustice of women’s rights to be topless in public. Additionally, more than 25 percent of the works being shown were helmed by women.

For more information on PollyGrind, please visit http://www.PollyGrind.com or http://www.Facebook.com/PollyGrind.