The Pop Up Film Festival (PUFF) is a venue that diverges from the seemingly dominant goal of showing the 'best of the best' films. We're all about showing films that are good enough. They tell a unique story, capture the imagination and talk to us in ways that are just far enough outside the mainstream to wake us up.
As the Covid 19 pandemic continues to impact people, we will be mindful of events and scheduling. Please keep in mind that are proposed schedules for screenings are fluid at best.
PUFF is all about community support, so the venue will change to whatever facility is available and looking for exposure. Our first festival was held in a coffee shop owned by a young couple that is trying to make their way in the world, so we give them a chance to increase traffic and highlight their unique product line of organic coffee and tea. We usually hold a PUFF once a month. Festival times will be around 90 to 120 minutes, so we' focus on short films. Ones that are under 20 minutes.
And, speaking of community support, we're not in this for money, fame, ego or bragging rights. We're doing this for fun. With that in mind there are no charges for submitting films, no charges for attending the festival and no processes for eliciting outside financial support. Just a couple of folks with a really big screen and projector that travels well.
Well, you're probably asking yourself "Self, will my film fit with PUFF?" That's a great question. We live in a small town 50 miles west of the middle of nowhere in Western Montana. It just so happens it's something of a small resort community and it also happens to be on a Native American Reservation. We have two seasons, winter and backhoe season. With that said, there's a really wide variety of personalities, beliefs and tastes that come and go. We're hoping that your film will challenge us, entertain us, amuse us or twist our brains just a bit. Try not to have too much violence, gore, laugh tracks, sexually explicit or abusive/divisive content and we'll be just fine. Creativity is king for PUFF. SciFi is great as are parodies, satires, nature romps or social/societal explorations of existential angst. And, please don't plaster us with dozens of submissions. I you submit more than two films we'll just move on to other film makers.
Since we're a no budget operation prizes are sorta not workable in a traditional sense. What we can offer you is feedback. PUFF will not have a panel of judges that screens and rates the films for awards. We're going to leave feedback up to the audience. Each attendee will get a form with ratings that will be a little different than other festivals. Instead of 1st, 2nd, 3rd we'll have a categories something like...
- That really made me think
- I laughed so hard milk squirted out my nose
- Well, now that was weird
- EA Poe would have loved that
- ...I think you get the picture...
The feedback will be qualitative with things like 'what I really liked' or ' ouch, that hurt'. Feedback will change by festival depending upon the content we get. Written feedback about your film will only be sent to you, provided you give us your email address. And, we won't share your email with anyone else. We won't share feedback with other film makers. And, this will happen every month as films are screened, so no EOY ceremony.