REEL LOCAL: INFEST FESTIVAL

LOCATION | KEVIN BRIGHT SCREENING ROOM, PARAMOUNT BUILDING. 559 WASHINGTON ST.
ADMISSION | FREE
TIME | 5.12.11 12:30 PM

One of the biggest secrets of the film industry is that a movie with a twenty-billion dollar budget, international distribution plan, and a poster that’s been focus grouped so much that witnesses find it’s become fused to their souls doesn’t make a film any better than what’s being produced around the corner.

Not to be a jerk about it but, have you ever, even once, actually seen local film?

InFEST is a free festival of short to medium-short films and a few full-length previews produced by Emerson College’s Greth Productions, which brings together both students and local filmmakers. Read the festival lineup on their blog―they’re all so indie that I can’t recognize them, but a few have trailers and InFEST promises they’re all united under a banner of wonderfully weird and unexpected. Here’s a creepy still from Meat Me in Plainville:

The first program begins sharply at 12:30 and the second at 2:30, and the Kevin Bright screening room is pretty close to downtown, so you can grab some snacks if you get tired of just watching, but you won’t―I only said that because people are oddly wary of independent films. If you give them a chance, I’d be surprised if you didn’t walk away remembering at least one or two gems that leave an even more lasting impression than Thor.