Within the last month, major blockbusters such as “Man of Steel” and “World War Z” have hit the summer box office. While Hollywood dumps millions of dollars into special effects and highly paid actors, the Utah Arts Festival puts its own spin on the summertime movie phenomena by showcasing the Fear No Film Festival, a short film festival that screened films relevant to the Salt Lake City arts culture.
Topher Horman has organized the Fear No Film Festival for the last eight years. A mass communication graduate from the U, he sifts through hundreds of films each year to organize the event.
“I get films from all across the world … We start them through a filtering process, whittle down [the selected] films and put them together in a fun way.” Horman said. “We don’t cluster them according to theme or genre. I like to cluster them according to the feeling elicited initially.”
The theme this year was “Origin,” as in where did the films derive from emotionally — like love or fear. The film showings were tied together by featuring an array of local talent.
“Utah is such a film-savvy state. We have two of the top film festivals in the world right here — Sundance and Slam Dance — and because of that, as a Utah native, it’s really hard to get into one of those festivals. There wasn’t a natural home for the best of the best of Utah produced films,” Horman said.
As a whole, audiences tend to give independent films a bad rap, because they don’t fit popular Hollywood categories, such as romantic comedy or horror. However, the independent film world, as in most artistic ventures, is usually where the most interesting and moving work takes place. So much can be gained from taking a break from big budget movies to see what film is capable of. Fear No Film did just that.
At Fear No Film, the festival rolled out several genres worth mentioning. For instance, “Weekend Away,” filmed in New York, is about a young woman working to clear the memories of a bad relationship.
From love stories to the great outdoors, “A Grand Canyon Winter Adventure” showcases a spectacular hike into the winter scenery of the Grand Canyon.
Fear No Film offered other genres as well. “We All Fall Down” is an horror film set in Canada that confirms the old saying “You can never go home again.”
There was also “Judas,” An uncompromising movie that depicts the ravages of heroin addiction in Salt Lake City.