Author: festreviews

Today’s FilmFreeway Festival Deadline: Toronto DOCUMENTARY Film Festival

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DEADLINE TODAY: Submit to the Festival via FilmFreeway:

IN-PERSON screenings and HYBRID Festival Mode: Entering its 9th year, the Toronto Documentary Festival now gives filmmakers 5 tiers to showcase and promote their film. (All accepted films get all five tiers).

1) Screening #1: Where you will obtain your audience feedback video.

2) Screening #2: (optional) virtual festival (48-hour promotional showcase) on the film festival streaming service.

3) Screening #3 at a sold-out public screening at the Carlton Cinemas in Toronto OR the LA LIVE Regal Cinemas in downtown Los Angeles. (note: 3rd screening only for short films and also not guaranteed for the guaranteed submission option.)

4) Podcast interview at WILDsound Radio on ITunes

5) Blog interview promoting you and your film.

The first film festival screening gives you our award-winning audience feedback videos made for the short & feature films.

Since 2016, the FEEDBACK Film Festival has been showcasing the best of documentary short films. We now will be showcasing a documentary film festival every month in the heart of downtown Toronto at the Carlton Cinemas.

Turning 82 Today: Robert DeNiro

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It’s important not to indicate. People don’t try to show their feelings, they try to hide them.


I don’t like to watch my own movies–I fall asleep in my own movies.

Don’t talk it [shooting a scene] away, do it!

Some people say that drama is easy, and comedy is hard. Not true. I’ve been making comedies the last couple of years, and it’s nice. When you make a drama, you spend all day beating a guy to death with a hammer, or what have you. Or you have to take a bite out of somebody’s face. On the other hand, with a comedy, you yell at Billy Crystal for an hour, and you go home.

[interview in Chicago Sun Times, 1/8/98] I think Hollywood has a class system. The actors are like the inmates, but the truth is they’re running the asylum. You’ve got to look at the whole studio structure.
There’s these guys. We call them suits. They have the power to okay a film. They’re like your parents, going, “We have the money”. But at the same time they say to us actors, “We love you. We can’t do without you”. You know, I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen the suits run the asylum. I think I can do it as good or even better. Let me try it. That’s why I have TriBeCa.

Turning 31 Today: Taissa Farmiga

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[on playing the strong-willed, feisty Violet in American Horror Story (2011)] The horror aspect, the scary parts, are easy for me. I mean I can get into that pretty easy, because I get scared. You have to
invest yourself in these characters.


I was hoping, actually, that being on the other side of the camera in a scary movie, see how it’s filmed and maybe you won’t be as scared next time you watch one… didn’t really work out! Because I know it’s fake, but I just get so into it.

I get scared easily, so I’m not one for just sitting down with a bowl of popcorn and watching horror stories. But, I mean, I’m learning more. Maybe one day I’d like to be able to watch them.

You film a movie and you don’t get to see it until about a year later. When you watch it, you just know that you were a different person then than you are now, and you know that you’ve grown. It’s nice to know that you can take those experiences and learn from them, and incorporate them into the next one.

It’s always a little awkward on your first day on set when you have a making-out scene. You just have to let yourself go.

Turning 34 Today: Austin Butler

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QUOTES:

[talking about the coolest celebrities he ever met] I’ve met so many cool people! Samuel L. Jackson was such a nice guy. I’ve loved watching him since I was little, so it was really great to get to talk to him. Also, Andy Richter, Kevin Nealon and Tim Meadows. I would love to work with Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.


The people who support me are so great! They all say such nice things that make me feel really great. I love it when people compliment me on the way I act, because it is not an easy thing, and there is so much
criticism out there.

Turning 65 Today: Sean Penn

festreviews Happy Birthday

I think it’s really important to be able to feel your own life, and I had felt so numbed by what had been a kind of surreal saturation of what was going on in the Middle East and what it was going to mean, particularly relative to my kids’ future and things like that.


Your life is what you bring to any story. This is a life craft. It’s “How do you feel? Who are you? What do you have to say?” The horror of the Academy Awards is what the press does leading up to it, to make it a popular TV show. Where they’ll actually make it like it’s an arm- wrestling event between two actors. That becomes very petty, and that’s something that’s embarrassing to follow up with accepting the invitation to the party.

I’ve always operated under the notion that audiences don’t always know when they’re being lied to, but that they always know when they’re being told the truth. If there are what I think are unsung truths to be talked about in a film, through a character, through a story, and that dominates the piece, that’s the key for me. I think the biggest thing is to not participate in the damaging, lying cinema.

I don’t consider myself specifically political, you know? I think of working as an actor as being a human thing. The concerns I have that fall into politics are human concerns.

Happy Birthday Helen McCrory (1968-2021)

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QUOTES:

Theatre is liberating because it only works if it’s truthful, That’s what it requires. That’s not true of film: the camera does lie. You can be moved by a performance on set, but when you see it on screen, it does nothing. Yet there will be someone you simply didn’t notice on set that on screen: bam!


I was lucky to learn early in life that you need money for food and shelter, but there’s no ambition in having money in the bank for the sake of it!

I’m a very positive person. My grandmother taught me that happiness is both a skill and a decision, and you are responsible for the outcome. I feel as though my life is bathed in golden sunlight. And the really
wonderful thing is that I know it.

Today’s Submittable Deadlines: August 16, 2025

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Today’s Writing Festival Deadlines: https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit

COMEDY Poetry Festival – FREE

https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/300709/comedy-poetry-contest

1pg. ROMANCE SCREENPLAY Contest (everyone wins)
https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/331506/1pg-romance-screenplay-contest-everyone-wins

1pg. DYSTOPIAN SHORT STORY Contest (everyone wins)
https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/331450/1pg-dystopian-short-story-contest-everyone-wins

HISTORICAL STAGE PLAY Writing Contest (get play performed by professional actors)
https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/331397/historical-stage-play-writing-contest-get-play-performed-by-professional-actors

DYSTOPIAN Screenplay Festival
https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/322253/dystopian-screenplay-festival

EXPERIMENTAL Short Story Contest 6000-8000 words (everyone wins)
https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/314834/experimental-short-story-contest-6000-8000-words-everyone-wins

EXPERIMENTAL Short Story Contest 4000-6000 words (everyone wins)
https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/314833/experimental-short-story-contest-4000-6000-words-everyone-wins

EXPERIMENTAL Short Story Contest 2000-4000 words (everyone wins)
https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/314832/experimental-short-story-contest-2000-4000-words-everyone-wins

EXPERIMENTAL Short Story Contest 0-2000 words (everyone wins)
https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/314831/experimental-short-story-contest-0-2000-words-everyone-wins

PARANORMAL Novel Video Transcript Reading

https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/314668/paranormal-novel-video-transcript-reading

PARANORMAL 1st Chapter Novel Festival
https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/314664/paranormal-1st-chapter-novel-festival

PARANORMAL Full Novel Festival
https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/314663/paranormal-full-novel-festival

Bookshelves with books for children. Educational library with literature for preschoolers and kids. Reading and studying. Fairy Tales, Encyclopedias and Dictionary. Cartoon flat vector illustration


Watch Today’s FREE Film Festival: FANTASY Shorts Festival

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Watch the festival NOW for the next 48 hours by signing up for the FREE 3-DAY trial using the link, or go to http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch today’s Festival: https://www.wildsound.ca/events/fantasy-shorts-festival

The Nest, 7min., Spain
Directed by Ignacio Rodó
It’s the first night he’s bringing someone home. But they must be quiet.

https://www.instagram.com/ignacio.rodo

Ekorts, 6min., Austria
Directed by John Whitehand, Julia Hulle, Alexander Bachmayer
Daniel finds himself locked in a deserted buliding, no way out. Something is going on, but he can’t explain it.

https://reisenbauer-film.com/ekorts

Liquid Love, 15min., USA
Directed by Dave McGrath
It’s New Year’s Eve, Jillian is about to make a monumental resolution. She is giving up one of her two favorite things: Wine or Coffee. As she struggles to make up her mind, Wine and Coffee try to convince her that the other should be the one to go. When Jillian is ready to leave for the party, she announces her decision.

Today’s Writing Deadlines: August 16, 2025

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EXPERIMENTAL Short Story Festival (everyone wins):

EXPERIMENTAL Short Story Festival (automatic acceptance) – Deadline July 16th

Accept only stories that fit into the experimental genre. An experimental story is a narrative that challenges traditional storytelling conventions and explores new concepts and representations of the world. Experimental stories often use innovative language, non-traditional narrative structures, and metafiction to create unconventional and complex stories.

Submit your short story to the festival, and we will automatically have it performed by a professional actor and turned into a promotional video for yourself.

DYSTOPIAN Screenplay Festival:

DYSTOPIAN Screenplay Festival – Deadline August 16th

This festival has a guaranteed 4-tier set up for each accepted script. (No matter what, all screenplays submitted receive FULL FEEDBACK on their work.)
1) Full Feedback on your script
2) Actors performance video reading of your script
3) Blog interview promotion.
4) Podcast interview on the Film Festival ITunes show.

PARANORMAL Novel Festival:

PARANORMAL Novel Festival (3 ways to submit) – Deadline July 16th

FEMALE Feedback Film & Screenplay Festival:

Today’s Podcast: EP. 1564: Poet Randall Taylor (THE BEAUTIFUL SCAR)

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Watch the poetry movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lbp1qFcH2o

www.instagram.com/realsilentdream

What is the theme of your poem?
The theme of “The Beautiful Scar” is learning to find the beauty in the humanity we often rob ourselves of when we feel like the world is rejecting us.

What motivated you to write this poem?
During the first year of the MFA program at UNR-Lake Tahoe, I was away at our winter residency, and I was so encapsulated by my colleagues’ vulnerability and the power they gave to their truth of the hardships they experienced in their own lives. One of them told me that my writing was already at that level but what held me back was withholding my own truth to protect those I was writing about. This poem was the turning point for me to be more honest and vulnerable, not just with my audience, but with myself. It was a difficult process to grasp and write through but for the first time in my 25 years [at the time] of life, I finally felt free.

How long have you been writing poetry?
I was a slow-learner as a kid, so I caught on to reading and writing at a later age than my siblings did, but I began creative writing through free-writing in 1st grade when I was six years old. I began learning how to write poetry at eight years old and began writing my own poems at twelve years old, so I’ve been writing for about twenty-two years with seventeen years to this day of writing poetry and it’s a blessing I always remind myself to be grateful for.

Subscribe to the podcast:

https://www.instagram.com/wildsoundpod/

https://www.facebook.com/wildsoundpod