ORIGINALLY POSTED 4/28/06! Very seldom does a film festival make a huge splash in its debut year. Then again, most film festivals aren’t being hosted by the King of All Media, Howard Stern. In his attempts to further democratize entertainment as we know it, Stern announced a film festival in late February 2006. The rules were simple: keep the films 5 minutes or less, make them Stern-related in some way and you’ve got until April 11th to get them in.
The insanity grew from there, as Stern fans everywhere began shooting their mini-masterpieces. The staff of the Howard Stern Show got into the game as well, with everyone from Artie Lange to Howard himself entering a submission. Those that weren’t into making films began calling the show for free tickets, offering everything from first person gang-bang accounts to offers to allow Sal the Stockbroker to skull-f**k their eye socket (really, we’re not making this up). In the end over 2,000 submissions came in, and only 9 fan finalists were chosen. Those 9 finalists are competing tonight for a $15,000 cash first place prize.
Now if you’re not one of the lucky 9 filmmakers, or you didn’t get your hand on one of the 600 tickets to the event, your life isn’t over. Howard TV On Demand is going to replay the festival Friday night. If you can’t attend the festival and don’t have InDemand, Film Threat has a special treat for you:
Out of the over 2,000 submissions, a number of the rejected films have found themselves online. Out of respect to the rejected filmmakers, and as a way of showing our support for all things Howard Stern, we’ve collected a bunch of those shorts here for you to watch. Sure, they didn’t make the festival, but does that mean they aren’t worth watching? Well, that’s for you to decide.
In honor of Howard Stern’s debut film festival, Film Threat presents a collection of the rejected.
>>>Begin watching the short films in part two of HOWARD STERN’S FILM FESTIVAL REJECTS>>>
