Category: Festival News

We were honored to hear from FilmFreeway last month that SOFF was recognized as one of the Top 100 Best Reviewed Festivals for the month of June.  When we got the same honor for July we were even more delighted!

Dear Sherman Oaks Film Festival,

Congratulations! Your festival has ranked as one of the Top 100 Best Reviewed Festivals on FilmFreeway for the month of July!

According to reviews from real FilmFreeway users, your festival ranks in the top 1.5% of more than 8,000 film festivals and creative contests around the world. No doubt, this ranking is a testament to the countless hours of hard work and care that you and your staff have devoted to creating such a wonderful event.

We’re especially proud to be partnered with amazing events like yours that help independent film continue to thrive.

Click here to download your Top 100 Badge!

Share this great news!
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Congratulations again and thank you!

Your friends at FilmFreeway

We just got this honor from FilmFreeway and we could not be more proud!

Dear Sherman Oaks Film Festival,

Congratulations! Your festival has ranked as one of the Top 100 Best Reviewed Festivals on FilmFreeway for the month of June!

According to reviews from real FilmFreeway users, your festival ranks in the top 1.5% of more than 8,000 film festivals and creative contests around the world. No doubt, this ranking is a testament to the countless hours of hard work and care that you and your staff have devoted to creating such a wonderful event.

We’re especially proud to be partnered with amazing events like yours that help independent film continue to thrive.

Click here to download your Top 100 Badge!

Share this great news!
Share on Twitter Share on Twitter

Congratulations again and thank you!

Your friends at FilmFreeway

November 9 Photo Album – Click Image To See All Photos

Day One of SOFF 2018 featured 13 films: Cinema Sweethearts – Kap – The Concourse – The Running Man of Pasadena – Stuck – They Fall Fast – A Side Of Fries – Allerton – Circles – Your Call is Important to Us – Accidents – I Got This – Curtains

November 10 Photo Album – Click Image To See All Photos

Day Two of SOFF 2018 featured 9 films and our Screenplay awards ceremony! The films shown this day included: Broken Lullaby -Because We Can – Hold Your Peace – Puppet Life 2: Human Dating – SOFF Screenwriters – Jonah – Soapy Medium – Life After – The Creeping Ritual – Long Lost

November 11 Photo Album – Click Image To See All Photos

Day three of SOFF 2018 featured 13 films including: Get it Together – Never Enough – – Mime Doesn’t Pay – Nevertheless, She Persisted – I Am An Artist – Heart Strung – Our Reality – If Only! – Nadine – One Dark Night – Rotsy – Chirp, Buzz, & Other Sensations – Chasing Sunshine

Every Q&A from the Sherman Oaks Film Festival 2018 screenings can be found in an album on our Vimeo account.  Click the image below to check them out.

The juries deliberated and debated… and finally decided.  Sincerely, all 36 films that screened at the Sherman Oaks Film Festival this year were great.  Being an Official Selection at SOFF truly means something.  We do not select films based on recognizable actors, social media followings, or large local fanbases.  We select the films based solely on quality and we could not be more proud of the quality of this year’s Official Selections.

But film festival protocol demands that we give out awards.  This year we expanded the awards by adding the Filmmakers Awards to the Grand Jury Prizes and Audience Award Winners.  The Filmmakers Awards are given in the Narrative Short category and are selected by the Filmmakers Board, a panel of fifteen filmmakers whose films have been Official Selections in previous festivals.

Click here to see the full list of SOFF 2018 award winners!

Grand Jury Prize Winners

Audience Award Winners

Filmmakers Award Winners

Programmer’s Prize Winners

The 2018 Sherman Oaks Film Festival will be held from Friday, November 9 to Sunday, November 11.

Click here for Showtimes and Tickets

All screenings are at The Whitefire Theatre
13500 Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423

Click here to learn about the Films

Click here to learn about the Screenplays

The Sherman Oaks Film Festival is proud to announce a new sponsor:  Art Dimensions Online leases and sells fine contemporary art by well-known and emerging artists. Art Dimensions’ artwork has appeared in many feature films and television shows, including Ocean’s Thirteen, How I Met Your Mother, and Two Broke Girls. Art Dimensions works with different time frames and budgets to provide fabulous artwork for film, print, and commercial projects.

The Production Designer of the film that receives the award for Best Art Direction will win a complementary one week rental of an art piece for their next production. The artwork for this prize will be chosen from a selection of pieces provided by Art Dimensions Online.

SOFF has been giving awards to filmmakers for the last few years, but last week we were delighted to be on the other side and win an award.

The Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce held a vote and the winner of the the Golden Oaks Award for “Ground Breaker” was the Sherman Oaks Film Festival!  Besides a nifty plaque, we got Certificates of Recognition from the City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, California State Assembly, and our congressman from the U.S. House of Representatives.

Festival programmer Jeff Howard went to accept the award.

Last year, Grand Jury Prize winner for feature film was Stay, a great movie that programmer Jeff Howard said reminded him of Soderbergh’s early work.

Stay is going the self-distribution route and is on Indiegogo right now.  The producers are offering a “Secret Perk” for those anyone associated with SOFF.  Click here for the Stay SOFF secret perk.

Your friends at SOFF believe in our alumni and you all know we’ve made an effort to create a community of filmmakers around this festival.  We wanted to share this “secret perk” with you all, just in case some of you want to help out a fellow filmmaker.