World's Strangest Film Festivals

There are tons of deadlines approaching to enter next year’s slate of film festivals, both around the U.S. and around the world. I’m thinking about entering my upcoming web series in some of them, and prospects are looking good for getting in somewhere. I mean, there are festivals themed around basically every topic or special interest you can think of nowadays:

Blue Film Festival of Akron (Akron)
All films must have the color blue in them to qualify. Films without any blue are heavily discouraged from wasting their entry fee — they won’t be getting in. Oddly, at least one film without the color blue in it slips by the judges every year.

‘SplosionCon (Monterey)
Films in which stuff explodes good: a retrospective on the cinema of Michael Bay. Anyone who can lend us a copy of one of Michael Bay’s films may enter.

Big Visions, Little Screens (Lugano, Switzerland)
Only the best YouTube videos play to packed theaters, in the size they were meant to be seen: MacBook.

Colsumbu Limf Estiflav (Columbus)
Originally exclusively for dyslexics, purists grumble that this festival sold out in 2007, when it opened its doors to everyday dysorthographics.

Rushmore Film Festival (Seattle)
Films that are “Rushmore” (Anderson, 1998).

El Dorado Film Festival (2° 19’ 15” S / 78° 7’ 9” W -ish)
Held deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle. Rumored to have a high caliber of competition, although no one’s ever reported having a good experience here, or ever reported back at all in any way.

Ouch, That Hurt! Fest (Las Vegas)
All movies must prominently feature the line “Ouch, that hurt!” Can be said in passing.

TrainFest (Iowa City)
Not films about trains — tool safety training films. Special preference given to miter saw training films. Grand jury prize, special audience award, best actor, and best screenplay last year were all awarded to “Training Film for the 10-inch DeWalt Double-Bevel Sliding Compound Miter Saw (2007 Model)”; judges are crossing their fingers for something similar this year.

Porn Video Festival (Virtual)
Just porn. Private screenings at your house. No official website, location, or criteria.

SplatterHate Conference (Hartford)
An illuminating survey of the dialectic between a unified aesthetic worldview and the protofeminist symbology of seeing your own still-beating heart slowly teased from your ripped-open thoracic cavity.

FlmFst2k9j/k (Your Mom)
Only accepts movies whose screenplays were written on Twitter. May not be over 140 frames (~6 seconds) long.

ClichéFest (Kansas City)
All films must end with the line, “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

Alicia Silverstone Retrospective (Chicago)
A look back on both memorable films she’s done since 1995.

NO BEES 2010 (Indianapolis)
Any subject matter EXCEPT bees. Past years have featured coming-of-age, horror, family, foreign, sci-fi, and documentary genres, among others. Again, we cannot emphasize enough, NO BEES. Note: Don’t be alarmed if a swarm of bees, angered by the loss of their queen and hungry for revenge, enters the theater, as in previous years.