The seventh annual Patriot News Artsfest Film Festival, presented each year by FilmSpeak.com and Moviate, will once again prove to delight the crowds with invited guest filmmakers, unique local and international films, and many film-related activities from May 28 to May 30, 2005. Once again, films will be adjudicated by a panel of local filmmakers and film experts, awarding films for excellence in the categories of documentary, animation, experimental, and narrative. Audiences will once again vote for the festival’s “Audience Award.”

Highlights of the festival include a special screening of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China with filmmaker David Redmon, who will speak about the making of his film and show additional unseen footage from his travels. The film shows the inequities of globalization by following cheaply-made Chinese beads as they travel to the United States for Mardi Gras festivities. Also featured this year will be filmmakers Mark Eaton and John Swarr, creators of the X-Dance Film Festival favorite Joe Kid on a Stingray: The History of BMX. The filmmakers will speak to audiences after the screening and a BMX bike will be raffled off.

The ArtsFest Film Festival is one of the few festivals in the country to feature a screening in an IMAX theater. This year the large screen and high-powered sound system of the Whitaker Center’s IMAX theater will be used for a special screening of Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the 1978 musical film considered to be so bad that it’s good, and featuring a cast that includes the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, Steve Martin, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, and narration by George Burns.

The festival’s ever-popular “Midnight Madness” film, screened at the Midtown Cinema, will be John Waters’ 1981 cult favorite Polyester, shown in “Odorama,” where each audience member will receive an “Odorama” scratch-and-sniff card and can “smell” the scenes of the film when prompted.

As always, this year’s festival will feature several “Local Filmmakers Spotlights” where the latest projects from the region’s wealth of talented filmmakers will be presented, providing an opportunity for local filmmakers to network and collaborate. A special session on how to make films in Central Pennsylvania will allow local filmmakers to share their experiences and educate new filmmakers seeking to film in Central Pennsylvania.

All films will be screened at the Whitaker Center’s “Stage Two” with two exceptions:

IMAX screening will be in the Whitaker’s Select Medical IMAX Theater
“Midnight Madness” screening will be screened at the Midtown Cinema