Author: festreviews

Movie Review: The Rich Kid Rules (Ep. 1: 362 Rules of a High School Dropout)

festreviews Movie Review

Synopsis:

A new kind of coming-of-age crime drama series with horses, dance, a dysfunctional family, and an upstairs/downstairs romance with a reverse Cinderella story twist.

Project Links

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 Website

Review by Victoria Angelique:

The pilot episode for a new teen drama series, RICH KID RULES, follows the clichéd forbidden love story of teenagers with the twist of the mafia added in to lead the suspension in what will be the continued storyline throughout the narrative. Typically love stories follow a wealthy boy meets a poor girl and they fall in love. This story twists it when Frankie begins working at the stables on Sandy’s property. They have an instant attraction, but neither of their mothers approves of this budding relationship. 

Frankie and Sandy are complete opposites in personality. She’s a bit out of touch with the real world, clearly sheltered from the reality that soon comes crashing down on her when her mother is arrested by the FBI and she learns that her family is intertwined with what appears to be the mafia. Apparently their wealth didn’t come from raising horses as she was led to believe, but through organized crime. She speaks in a very formal manner, whereas Frankie speaks in a casual way. Frankie is protective of Sandy. He’s been raised to be the perfect gentleman, unaware of how to protect his friend from a world that he knows nothing about as he’s forced to make a choice to stand by their new relationship or disappoint his mother by quitting his job on the ranch as he leaves Sandy to fend for herself. 

Many questions are left unanswered by the end of the first episode. Sandy isn’t sure who she can trust, because even her own mother and psychologist, Dr. Engel turned out to be involved with organized crime. Sandy and Frankie question if there is anyone left that hasn’t hidden their identities as they must make deals with the devil in order to save her mother from a lifetime in prison. 

This series has potential through suspense with the added bonus of romance. It’s an innocent love that will have to stand the test of time to see if it can endure the hardships of a cruel world as Frankie and Sandy immerse themselves into the world of organized crime.

New Film on the Platform: the other land / l’altra terra, 13min., Italy, Drama/Environmental

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Watch Film: https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/watch-the-other-land

Sofia, the young owner of an important avant-garde farm in Salento, recalls during an interview how it all began with the scent of bread that her peasant grandparents made with their own hands and offered her when she went to visit them as a child. A simple gesture of love that remained in her heart and that changed her life forever.

https://www.instagram.com/danielepignatelli_/

Director: Daniele Pignatelli

Writer: Manlio Castagna

Stars: Alessandra CarrilloStefania CiccarelliBeatrice Pignatelli

Today’s Podcast: Filmmaker Moriah Doepken (COOP)

festreviews PODCASTS

COOP, 19min., USA
Directed by Moriah Doepken
After sustaining a bad injury, a stubborn retired sheriff must learn to talk with his estranged son as they build a fence together, or risk losing the relationship.

Get to know the filmmaker:

What motivated you to make this film?

I love Western films and one day had the idea of “What happens to the sheriff of the town after he’s retired and the town no longer needs him?” And working with the brilliant writer Jeffrey Hein, we expanded this idea into what you see now. We both loved the idea of a man stuck in the past and whose toxic masculinity could be the basis of a lot of problems for him in a more modern world.

What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking about your film in the feedback video?

I loved seeing people take all sorts of interpretations away with them after watching it, because what x, y, and z may represent to me comes across totally differently for each viewer, which is so cool. And I want there to be discourse on if the characters made the right choice or what the coop itself represents!

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

https://www.facebook.com/wildsoundpod

Watch Today’s Film Festival: WILDsound THRILLER/DRAMA Shorts Festival

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Watch film: https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/wildsound-thriller-drama-festival-march-2025

See the fill lineup of films:

They, 15min., Iran
Directed by Seyed Morteza Sabzeghaba
Group of Dezfoulion people leaving the city so sadly dressed of war to return to their families, at this time jets attack them.

https://www.instagram.com/ms.sabzeghaba

STATUE, 9min., Iraq
Directed by Brwa Kamil Atar
After killing his father, he tries to restore life to his mother, but thinking about his age

LA DER DES DER, 8min., France
Directed by Patrice Guillain
«If the last surviving soldier of the first World War wanted to get rid of the terrible burden that kept him alive … his name would be Simon Rosenberg.»

IN CORPUS, 3min,. Spain
Directed by Ignacio Rodó
A man is surprised by the arrival of a meteorite in his room.

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

NOT THE CLOWNS, 11min., Germany
Directed by Marcel Flock
After the autistic young actress Cassie fails an audition because she can’t show fear, Cassie seeks solace with her autistic younger brother Dave, who is a movie geek. Together with her current boyfriend Levi, they watch the horror movie “Not the Clowns”, which soon shifts the boundaries between dream and reality for Cassie

https://www.instagram.com/marcel.flock15/

New Film on the Platform: TAEKKYON REIGN, 1min., Dance/Music

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Watch Film: https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/watch-taekkyon-reign

aekkyeon Reign is a non-verbal music video showcasing the different forms of the South Korean Traditional martial art of Taekkyon fused with a dub-step music.

Author:

Artist/Bands:

Ik Taekkyon Group

Pink & Black Dance Team

Brennan Cleveland

Valerie Piche

Today’s Writing Contest Deadlines: March 21, 2025

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Deadline March 21st – YOUNG ADULT Short Story Contest (everyone wins)

Deadline March 21st – YOUNG ADULT Short Story Contest (everyone wins)

Deadline March 21st – POLITICAL Poetry Contest (Free)

https://wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/300720/political-poetry-contest

TRAVEL Novel Festival (3 options to submit) – Deadline March 21st

TRAVEL Novel Festival (3 options to submit) – Deadline March 21st

ACTION/ADVENTURE Screenplay Festival: Deadline March 21st

ACTION/ADVENTURE Screenplay Festival – Deadline Today

March 2025 Experimental/Dance/Music Festival Testimonials – 192 FIVE Star Reviews!

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Deadline Today to Submit to the Festival via FilmFreeway:

Great Festival. A must for experimental indie art.

We had a great time participating in the festival. Excellent organization and friendly atmosphere.

Thank you so much Experimental, Dance & Music Film Festival for selecting us. This was our first submission and we are so happy we did. There are so many opportunities for exposure if you are selected into the festival. Very professional, and helpful in setting future filmmakers on the right path to discovery. We had such a great experience working with you. We were overjoyed to find out we won Best Performance. That wouldn’t have been possible without the opportunity they gave us by sharing our film with multiple audiences. Thank you again, we will be submitting again in the future!

This was my first time submitting to this festival, and I was just so pleasantly surprised and excited of the professionalism, the communication, and also the feedback and opportunities! HIGHLY recommend hands down.

Really thrilled to had participate to this amazing festival and won Best Direction with my film The Art of Competition. The experience in general with this festival was amazing, you can see that they really take the time and effort to make an amazing festival. They give you great feedbacks and options to promote your film. Thank you again !

It has been an incredible pleasure to work with the Experimental Dance and Music Film Festival on our debut film, “Prohairesis” which was selected as Best Dance Film 2024. This festival excels at all the details of taking a film into the world, from videotaped reviews, a printed interview and being featured on their exclusive podcast. The experience working with them has been absolutely first rate!! We highly recommend submitting to this festival.

Today’s Podcast: Filmmaker Joy Shannon (ROCK ISLAND PRISON 1864)

festreviews PODCASTS

Rock Island Prison 1864, 7min,. USA

Directed by Joy Shannon

Guarding Confederate POWS in a Civil War prison, a runaway slave now Union soldier, desperately fights for power, or faces returning to slavery.

https://www.rockislandprison.com/

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-rock-island-prison

Subscribe to the podcast:

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Watch Today’s Festival: WILDsound Experimental Festival – March 21/22 event

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Watch Film: https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/wildsound-experimental-march-2025

Go to the Daily Film Festival Platform http://www.wildsound.ca and sign up for the free 3 day trial to watch a new and original festival every single day.

Go to the festival page directly and watch dozens of films:
https://www.wildsound.ca/todays-film-festival/

See the full lineup of films:

THE RAVIN’, 6min,. USA
Directed by Ron Ford
A sequel to Poe’s The Raven, in verse, in which the narrator grows to question the validity of the bird’s symbolic pretensions. Stop motion puppet animation.

Making Emmie Smile, 5min., USA
Directed by Abby Vo, John Vo, Ken Yoffe, Ellen Weisberg
In “Making Emmie Smile,” family members attempt to make the child happy by offering her different material things, only to succeed in getting the child to smile by offering personal attention. The basic them of “Making Emmie Smile” is the importance of fulfilling your child’s emotional needs.

https://facepaint.online/
https://www.facebook.com/facepaintkenellen
https://www.instagram.com/facepaintnonprofit/

Voices – Vortex, 5min., Chile
Directed by Adrián Ríos Ortíz
The protagonist walks through the city towards her apartment, hearing in the distance the sound and voices of a social protest in the city. When she gets home, she turns on the television, and to her surprise, images of the band VORTEX begin to appear as if in a virtual reality, in which she herself is the singer, acting as her “other self.”

https://www.instagram.com/vortexmusicproject



TORNADO, 5min., USA
Directed by Majid Farzolahi
A big spaceship comes to Earth and creates a massive tornado to destroy everything.

https://www.instagram.com/majidfarzolahi

New Film on the Platform: THE SHOW MUST GO ON, 6min., USA, Documentary

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Watch Film: https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/watch-the-show-must-go-on-film

Is art “essential”? This is a story of how a multi-disciplinary artist of Chinese and Indian descent in New York survived the pandemic and attempts to “return to normal” when the world is now anything but.

Directed by Fahim Hamid

Director Statement
Is art essential? This film is a meditation on the value of art in the midst of the global COVID outbreak and lockdowns, as well a personal story of a multicultural, multidisciplinary artist.