Heartland Film Partners with International Mobil Film Festival

By Heartland Film (http://heartlandfilm.org/heartland-film-partners-with-international-mobile-film-festival/)


As the Heartland Film Festival continues to showcase films from around the world, we are pleased to be associated with film events who showcase new technology. We are particularly interested in ways that allow talented filmmakers the opportunity to present their talent in innovative ways such as Founder/Creator of S. Botello Productions™, Susy Botello, who now hosts the International Mobil Film Festival™.

Susan Botello created the International Mobile Film Festival brand with a mission to open the world of film and video to everyone who had access to mobile phones/smartphones. Age, income limitations and other hindrances which traditionally affect film and video productions of new filmmakers were removed.

Ms. Botello’s quest began in 2009 with the intention of creating as close to a traditional film festival as possible with the only difference being that anyone would qualify if they only used a phone. The film festival would take place in San Diego and invite filmmakers to present their films on the big screen, walk the red carpet, network with each other and receive recognition for their accomplishments. That quest is now history.


SBP: International Mobile Film Festival in San Diego from S. Botello Productions™ on Vimeo.


In 2012, thanks to alumni instructors in the Media Communications department at Grossmont College, a three-year sponsorship was approved to hold the annual International Mobil Film Festival™. The commemorative film festival took place during the last weekend in April 2012. MFF2012 received a total of eight films. One of the filmmakers traveled to San Diego from Macedonia in support of their film.

Last year’s film festival was held in San Diego and received numerous mobile film submissions from around the world. “This past year, we had a filmmaker from Indonesia who created a fundraising campaign to make the trip possible,” commented Botello. “I continue to be impressed with the dedication and commitment to mobile filmmaking from filmmakers from around the world.”

This year’s sixth annual International Mobile Film Festival™ in San Diego had filmmakers attending from Australia, Chile, Germany and Canada who took part in a Q&A panel, a Mobile Film School (non-accredited) workshop presentation and a red carpet awards ceremony. IMFF also introduced a separate Mobile Feature Film competition in addition to the traditional Mobile Short Film competition. This year’s smartphone film festival award winners featured Mickey Harrison, an 82-year-old filmmaker who received the Golden Award and Amanda Miranda June Mullings, an 11-year-old girl who received an honorary award for her stop-motion film.

To expand the mobile film festival, S. Botello Productions™ launched the Mobile Film School, an unaccredited film school for smartphone filmmaking, which holds workshops in San Diego for people of all ages. Additional growth has been Ms. Botello’s Global Mobile Film Awards™ (GMFA) to increase awareness of smartphone filmmaking to the industry and public. GMFA founding members are SF3 SmartFone Flick Fest from Australia and Heartland Film Festival from Indianapolis. GMFA is an online awards program.

“President of Heartland Film, Craig Prater, has been involved as a judge in some of our film festivals since 2014 and his awe at the quality of the films and the skills and talents of mobile filmmakers has been encouraging to me,” commented Botello. “I realize that there are probably many traditional film festivals, which may now welcome smartphone filmmakers more than ever before. GMFA was developed from a need to bring all filmmakers, mobile film festivals and traditional film festivals together in order to enrich the film and video industry. The time to celebrate and bring the smartphone filmmaker to the mainstream is now.”

The 7th Annual International Mobil Film Festival™ in San Diego will take place in San Diego during the last weekend of April 2018 and will include other mobile film festivals including the SF3 Smartfone Flick Fest in Sydney, Australia.