Rated 'E' for everybody

Noon Moon seeking entries for April 29 film festival

MOSES LAKE — Cecil B. DeMille wannabes, get ready to do some close-ups.

The Noon Moon Coffeehouse and Dessert Bar, located at 121 W. Third Ave., will be holding a film festival come April 29, and is actively seeking entries.

Noon Moon owner Greg Strickland said the idea sprang forth when one of the establishment's performing musicians made the suggestion.

"He was playing one night, and along with selling CDs, he was also selling a copy of his movie," Strickland recalled. "I bought a copy, went home, watched it and thought, 'Hey, we could do this here.'"

He called the musician back to schedule his next musical performance, and also suggested showing the film. The idea for a film festival came next.

"There's a fair number of local people that are doing it, and don't have an outlet for it," Strickland said.

"I'm a filmmaker and it's a local effort," said area filmmaker Kathy Kiefer of the festival. "So I think it's a great opportunity for any other filmmaker out there to have their work seen by other people."

Originally, the festival was going to be limited to DVD format only, but Strickland now thinks that those restrictions would be loosened to VHS or mini-DVD.

The festival will last approximately three hours, beginning with short films lasting one to seven or eight minutes, and show the longer films as the festival proceeds, Strickland said.

So far, Strickland said that, through Kiefer, an Ellensburg film club is looking to enter material, as well as some other people with similar interests.

"It'll be interesting to see what we have come in, and I know we'll have a full night, because it's pretty easy to fill three hours with stuff," he said, adding that he's hoping to get entries from local kids who might be doing animation on their own computers. "All formats are open, in terms of creativity, whatever you're doing."

"I think the whole Basin seems to be going through kind of a resurgence in interest in art," Kiefer said, pointing at the Soap Lake Art Museum and Moses Lake Museum and Art Center as examples. "People are converging on the creative energy in the Basin, bringing it to the forefront and valuing creativity. Greg sees that the film festival will continue to do that. It's valuable because it really allows the collective creative voice in the county to have a venue to be heard, seen and understood."

Strickland said his preference would be to see what artistic endeavors are happening locally. Content-wise, he said he is looking for things that could be shown at 7 p.m. on television.

"We're all ages, family-friendly," he said. "I know that may limit some of what we're doing, but I don't want the audience to be too shocked, because we appeal to a pretty broad audience."

Sooner is better for making submissions, although Strickland said the deadline will probably be around April 1.

For the Noon Moon, the festival is another avenue to bring art in, in addition to the music and the art on the coffeehouse's walls.

"(We're trying to) open it up, have it be kind of an artistic center for people who are coming up with creative stuff," Strickland said. "The neat thing is the word's really gotten out, especially on the art side."