Doorpost Film Project Announces 2009 Finalists

The Doorpost Film Project, recently named one of MovieMaker‘s 25 Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, has selected its 10 finalists from hundreds of submissions. The finalists proved excellence in moviemaking by illustrating one of five topics with their shorts: Freedom, redemption, joy, forgiveness or humility. The top 10 include everything from comedies to dramas and come from rookie moviemakers to students to seasoned veterans alike.

Now comes the interesting part. By making the top 10, each moviemaker will now get the opportunity to create a new film of 20 minutes or less with the $30,000 budget that Doorpost provides each of them. There is no choice of topic for the championship round, as each film must be based on one word: Hope. Maybe they should just make films about how much they hope that their films place first, second or third, as the cash prizes for each are $100,000, $35,000 and $25,000, respectively. (And no, that’s not a typo. All those zeroes are correct.) The directors will have about three months to create their masterpiece, and the final round of voting will take place September 1-16.

The 2009 top ten finalists are as shown:
Bountiful Beauty – Director Nathan Cox and producer Shani Haller
La Pluma – Director Greg Kwedar
The Embalmer – Director Michael Regalbuto
Escape – Director Evan Sussman
Timing – Director John Des Roches
Biggest Weakness – Director Bradley Jackson
John Gray – Directors Dan Baker and Chris Pollack and producer Paul Skidmore
The Messenger – Director Brent McCorkle
Mojave Philosophy – Director Tom Wozny and producer Sandy Hockenbery
Liv – Director Joshua Weigel

To find out more about the Doorpost Film Project or this year’s top 10 finalists, please visit www.thedoorpost.com.