“The Feel Good Film Festival is a non-profit film showcase encouraging the development, production, and distribution of short or feature length films with happy endings, that make audiences laugh, and that capture the beauty of our world. The winning projects will be entertaining, optimistic, humorous, or heartwarming and leave the audience feeling good.”
So reads the mission statement wonderfully developed by the founders of the 4-year old Feel Good Film Festival (FGFF) which will be held in Los Angeles, August 12-14, at the American Cinematheque. It’s a theme (and name) that the LFC thought they’d had the market on in 2010 when we, through the request of local friends and film followers, were asked to host a series of films that, quite simply, made people feel GOOD. I believe it was around this same time in 2010, actually, as the bitter winter was beating down on New England and the headlines were as dour and depressing as the weather forecasts. We began to brainstorm about which films in our brain archives would fit this description and also put the word out for suggestions. Our final film list, not surprisingly, mostly included films of the 50s, 60s, and 80s. Unfortunately, cost finally took down the project, but it will forever remain on our community event to-do list.
Unlike the community feel good film fest we wanted to host, the FGFF program consists of newly created features, film shorts, and student films submitted annually by filmmakers the world over.
For their fantastic theme and what we feel is a pretty great humanitarian mission, the Feel Good Film Festival earns our admiration. If you are a filmmaker who wishes to showcase a “feel good film,” the FGFF is currently accepting submissions for their 2011 fest. And if you’re in the LA area this August, we hope you’ll make this great film fest a part of your Tinseltown plans.
Visit the Feel Good Film Festival at www.fgff.org.
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