Heartland Film Festival 2009 : Home

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Featured Films

Check out these featured films playing at the festival.

Closing Night Event - Phoebe in Wonderland

Special Events

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Daniel Barnz’s Phoebe in Wonderland is the fantastical tale of Phoebe (ELLE FANNING), a young girl who longs to be in the school production of Alice in Wonderland. After her peculiar drama teacher Miss Dodger (PATRICIA CLARKSON) casts her, Phoebe struggles to control her behavior so her Principal (CAMPBELL SCOTT) will allow her to continue being in the play. As Phoebe’s stress mounts, her behavior grows worse, creating intense pressure on her parents Hillary and Peter (FELICITY HUFFMAN and BILL PULLMAN). Hillary, who already feels a failure in both her personal and professional life, desperately tries to understand and help her daughter. But this connection proves elusive as Phoebe begins retreating to an imaginary fantasy world peopled by characters from Alice in Wonderland, a world which grows increasingly disturbing and treacherous. As Alice observes to the Caterpillar, “It is very confusing being so many different sizes in a day,” and in the end both Hillary and Phoebe (under Miss Dodger’s tutelage) must try to navigate the strange, painful, exhilarating transformation from chrysalis to butterfly. Visit the Box Office to purchase your screening and special event tickets today!

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Pray the Devil Back to Hell

Crystal Heart Award Winners/Documentary Features

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Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the gripping account of a group of brave women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades-long civil war. The women's historic achievement finds its voice in a narrative that intersperses interviews, archival images and scenes of present-day Liberia together to recount the memories of a few of the women who were there. In 2003, Liberia was a country devastated by decades of political dislocation, humanitarian crisis, and street-to-street urban warfare. Charles Taylor, then President of Liberia, had emptied the country's pockets as creatively as any dictator in memory. His ascent to power led to the deaths of thousands of people and a nation in complete ruin. Out of the wreckage, Christian and Muslim women throughout the country began to organize and band together in an effort to bring an end to the fighting. More than 2,000 risked their lives by traveling to Taylor's Esecutive Mansion and stood before him demanding he take a seat at the peace table. Heartland Content Key: AT (Contains Adult Themes, not suitable for children); SV (Contains scenes of Strong Violence) Visit the Box Office to purchase your screening and special event tickets today!

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show details Audience Buzz

The audience buzz provides you with details on the films people are looking forward to and talking about. For more buzz, click here.

Highest Rated Films

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Grande Drip

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Weathered

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Most Visited Films

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Seven Minutes in Heaven

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Opening Night Event - Hachi: A Dog's Tale

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Most Scheduled Films

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Welcome

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Seven Minutes in Heaven

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Fun facts from the Festival

Bobby and Kevin Downes, producers of the Official Selection Dramatic Feature Like Dandelion Dust, first heard about author Karen Kingsbury’s work through their wives, who heard Karen speak at a women’s retreat.

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Their wives pushed them to make a movie based on one of Karen’s novels and they eventually decided on Like Dandelion Dust. Karen has written 40 novels and has sold around 15 million copies of her books!

Bobby and Kevin, introducing the film at one of the screenings earlier in the week, said they are hoping to release the film nationally in either March or September of 2010 and are hoping to adapt more of Karen’s novels for the big screen in the future!

Posted: Oct. 24, 2009 at 2:49PM by Digital Marketing Coordinator

Festival trivia for the day!

Did you know that Mark St. Germain, director of My Dog, asked people he knew to be in his film about celebrities and their dogs? The film features segments with stars like Richard Gere, Glenn Close and Greg Louganis talking about their relationships with their dogs.

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Mark St. Germain, in a Q&A session conducted by cell phone with Jeff Sparks after yesterday’s screening, said that he was also a contributing writer for this year’s Opening Night Event film Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (which just happened to feature Richard Gere!)

Posted: Oct. 23, 2009 at 11:47AM by Digital Marketing Coordinator

Daily trivia from the Heartland Film Festival

My Name is Jerry is one of the only feature length films to be entirely funded by a university. It took director Morgan Mead two years to convince Ball State University to fund the film, but once it got going they shot the film in only 21 days!

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They bought in only a couple of professionals from the movie industry for the filming. A crew of about 60 students filled out the rest of the production staff. They had to go through a two week boot camp prior to filming!

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Morgan, alongside story-creator Andrew Janoch, created the film as a showcase for actor Doug Jones. They wanted to develop a role and a film to showcase his actual face (Doug has appeared in most of his films under heavy plastic makeup, such as when he played The Silver Surfer in F4: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Abe Sapien in Hellboy and Hellyboy 2: The Golden Army.) Doug has stated that he is eternally grateful to Morgan for the opportunity!