LA Film Prize Announces Top 20 Finalists for $50K Prize

The Louisiana Film Prize held a party Tuesday night at the Robinson Film Center to announce the Top 20 Finalists for their annual $50,000 first prize. Tickets for the upcoming film festival are now on-sale at www.lafilmprize.com.

Tuesday night's event was well attended.  Many local and out-of-town film-makers were on hand to hear if their film was nominated as a Top 20 selection.  LA Film Prize director Gregory Kallenberg presided as master of ceremonies.  The Robinson Film Center's Executive Director Alexander Kent brought Kallenberg to the podium with a well-crafted introduction that summarized the experiences of the film-makers who submitted to LA Film Prize.

The staff at LA Film Prize bills the film festival as the "coolest film festival on the planet," and they held true to that notion as every person attending the Top 20 Announcement Party was given a LA Film Prize shot-glass.  Of course, those glasses were used as film-makers celebrated their selections to Top 20.

Many of the LA Film Prize partners and sponsors were on hand to participate in last night's festivities.  The entire party was also broadcast live on YouTube, so out-of-town film-makers could participate in the anticipation of the Top 20 announcements.

You can find a list of the Top 20 selections here, including where the film-makers involved hail from.

Since the LA Film Prize's inception, three years ago, an estimated $5 million has been infused into the area.  There were a record 105 submission this year from film-makers all over the country.

The LA Film Prize is unique in that it offers a $50,000 first prize for a short film.  The only real stipulation is that the film be shot in Northwest Louisiana.

The actual LA Film Prize film festival is coming up October 9-12 and will take place at theaters in the downtown area.  If you attend the festival, you actually get to be part of the voting process to determine the winner.  Tickets can be purchased at LAfilmprize.com!

KTAL 6 was at the Top 20 announcement party and filed the story below.

The Shreveport Times also filed a story on the Top 20 announcement party here.