The East Lansing Film Festival - ELFF

The Summer ELFF 48/5 Film Contest takes place June 26 - 28, 2009

Dust off your cameras, gather your friends and get ready to create a five-minute film in just 48 hours. Challenge yourself, your creativity, your ability to work well with others under pressure, all without much sleep. Then have your end product shown to an audience, in the running for cash prizes and get the chance to be screened at the 13th annual East Lansing Film Festival now scheduled for Fall of 2010.

The 48/5 Film Contest is taking place the weekend of June 26 - 28 from 6pm on Friday until 6pm on Sunday.

At the East Lansing Film Festival 48/5 Film Contest, filmmakers will come together to write, shoot, edit, and premiere an original five-minute film in a mere 48 hours.  To add to the challenge, participants will be given at the start of the contest specific elements: a genre, a prop, a location and a line of dialogue.  They must incorporate these elements into their finished film to be eligible for an award.

We now hold a whopping three 48/5 Film Contests, one in the fall, spring and now, summer.  Last fall’s contest drew an exciting bunch of talented teams, including amateurs, professionals, students, families and local film fanatics. Teams raced against time, fought sleep deprivation and used their own creative genius to successfully complete their 5-minute piece by the Sunday evening deadline. This year we’re pulling out all the stops to bring another weekend of high-octane filmmaking to the community.

The contest will begin with the distribution of elements, rules and regulations at 6:00 pm on Friday, June 26 at Beggar’s Banquet, 218 Abbot Road, East Lansing, MI. Doors will open at 5:00pm and all teams must be registered no later than 5:45 pm. Unregistered late teams will be disqualified.  Pre-registration is strongly encouraged.

Completed films must be handed in on Sunday, June 28 by 6pm (and not a minute later) at Beggar’s Banquet. The finished projects will be shown on Monday, June 29 at 7:00pm at the East Lansing Hannah Community Center theater, 819 Abbot Road, East Lansing.  Prizes will be awarded for the top three films as decided by a panel of qualified judges drawn from the area. The public, friends and family are invited to enjoy these creative shorts. There is no charge.

• First Prize: $100
• Second Prize: $50
• Third prize: $25

For pre-registration information, entry forms and the official rules, please read How To Enter the 48/5 Film Competition
Entry forms and fees should be sent to:

ELFF 48/5 Film Contest
210 Abbot Road, #48, East Lansing, MI 48823

Entry fees are as follows:
$50 through Wednesday, June 24, $75 on or after June 25, 2009

The top three films will be screened at the 13th Annual East Lansing Film Festival that has been moved to the Fall of 2010.

For additional information contact:
Susan Woods, or call 517-980-5802 or 336-9014.

The 48/5 Film Contest is generously sponsored by Cheeney Media Concepts 2.

The East Lansing Film Festival (ELFF) is the largest and most diverse film festival in Michigan to screen independent and foreign feature, documentary, short and students films from around the world. The ELFF was created in 1997 in cooperation with the City of East Lansing and Michigan State University. Since then, ELFF has been dedicated to bringing quality foreign and independent films to the state of Michigan in order to expose our audience to diverse cultures, ideas, and creative works.

Stay tuned - more films to be posted as soon as we schedule them.