In the spotlight today is the 6th Annual Footcandle Film Festival taking place in Hickory, North Carolina located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The festival was started and is managed by the Footcandle Film Society, a non-profit group with over 600 members that began independent film screenings in 2008. The home for the festival is the historic Hickory Community Theater in downtown Hickory.
The festival features an opening night event where short film selections are screened in two blocks for a large audience, with a reception in-between. Full-length narrative and documentary features are screened throughout the five days of the festival, culminating in a closing awards ceremony and dinner on Sunday evening.
This is a single-location festival, meaning that all screenings take place in the Hickory Community Theatre which holds 325 people. In 2019, over 3,000 total tickets were sold for the various screenings and events.
The Footcandle Film Festival awards a total of $6,000 USD in prizes for Best Narrative Feature, Best Documentary Feature, Best Narrative Short, Best Documentary Short, Audience Favorite Feature & Audience Favorite Short, and first and second place winners in a scriptwriting competition. Filmmakers that have films or scripts selected for the festival are provided free hotel accommodations, a travel stipend and an all-access pass for the entire festival weekend (includes opening night reception, closing night awards dinner, and complimentary tickets to film screenings).
Come be a part of this unique celebration of independent cinema and submit your work now!
