The Heartland Film Festival takes place from Oct 15-24 in Indianapolis. The festival is devoted to Truly Moving Pictures and its mission is to celebrate life-affirming films.

It was started 18 years ago and continues to grow in prestige. A few years ago the winning film, August Rush, starred Robin Williams. Last year marked the first time a major studio had its North American premiere in Indianapolis with the film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. The movie tells the story of the Holocaust from the perspective of a German boy who doesn’t realize Jews in a nearby concentration camp are prisoners. This year, Heartland received a near-record 605 submissions and accepted 87. The festival will award $100,000 to the dramatic feature winner-the largest cash prize of any film festival in the world.

While Heartland Film Festival won’t have any gratuitously violent or sexual movies; it will not shy away from some uncomfortable and challenging topics. For example, one of its selected films, “Precious”, is a Tyler Perry movie about an obese inner-city teenager facing her second pregnancy, trying to escape a hostile, abusive mother. Precious has already received a lot of Oscar buzz and was a hit at Sundance.

Another film in the festival that has received positive feedback is “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale.” It stars Richard Gere and is based on the true story of a college professor’s bond with an abandoned dog.

For more information about Heartland Film Festival, you can visit www.heartlandfilmfestival.org

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.