Written, produced, and starring Mike Kopera, directed by Steve Kopera, and produced by Matt & John Kopera, My Friend Peter is a heartwarming and funny 11-minute short about a man and his monkey puppet. It also received one of the best audience reactions I’d ever seen in six years of Brainwash. Though we are a drive-in festival, a lot of our patrons sit outside their cars, so we are able to hear their reactions… and they were big.

To choose the Audience Choice Award, we handed out ballots as people entered the venue. Members of the audience each wrote down their ratings of each of the movies (0-5 stars), and we tallied them up this week.

My Friend Peter won decisively with an average rating of 4 2/3, but several other movies were also extremely well-received by our audience, including The Lost Samurai, 5 Minutes Each, Spirit of the Bluebird, and Earthship, which all averaged ratings of four stars or more.

1st Prize: Clean is Good by Carlos Matiella
2nd Grand Prize: Earthship by David Wilson
3rd prize: Coming Soon by Raji Barbir
4th prize: 5 Minutes Each by Vojin Vasovic
5th prize: The Lost Samurai by Yuta Okamura
Executive Consultant Award: Dave Reda for My Undeadly and Horror of Our Love
Audience Choice: My Friend Peter by Mike Kopera

Congrats to our award winners and to all our moviemakers!

When? September 3, 9, and 10, 2011, after dark.

Where? Mandela Village Arts Center, 1357 5th St., Oakland.

We are kicking off the 17th annual festival on September 3rd at 8 pm with movies and food trucks (Taco Oaxaco will be there)! On September 9th and 10th, we will have food vendors (Taco Oaxaco both nights, Guerrilla Grub on Saturday), music (Ben on fiddle and banjo on Friday, and a selection from DJ Steve Mobia on Saturday), starting at 7 pm, and will start each unique 90 minute show of short movies at 9 pm. See you there!

Festival Lineup (larger version or printable PDF)

The movies shown at the Brainwash Movie Festival are a great mix of original humor, experimental art movies, innovative animation, and short live-action stories with high production values. The moviemakers are unique and skillful storytellers, and the movies themselves pack a real punch into anywhere from 5 to 18 minutes.

This year, we will feature a love story set in a post-global warming dystopia, a science-fiction period piece set in 1972, a six-minute Japanese historical epic comedy, and many more. Check out descriptions of all the movies here.

Tickets are $12 per person per night at the gate, but you can buy discount advance tickets today at TicketWeb!

Speaking of which, we were really glad to get a chance to meet and talk to the moviemakers who came to the festival: Mark Poisella, writer and director of the feature “Dynamite Swine”; Jason Rose (director) and Leslie Rose (producer) of “Viola Concerto”; Matthew McKenna, who directed “Signatures”; Josh Self and Orlando Rivera, co-directors and writers of “Goodnight Harvey”; and Karl Schweitzer and Tony Turino, cast and crew of “Horror of Our Love”.

Congratulations again to all of our moviemakers and award winners! See you next year, if not sooner!

• 1st prize: With Anchovies… Without Mamma by Thomas Justino
• 2nd Grand Prize: Way To Go, Christine! by Mark Thimijian
• 3rd prize: Goodnight, Harvey by Josh Self and Orlando Rivera II (IFYW)
• 4th prize: The Horror of Our Love: A Short Film by Dave Reda (Elftwin Films)
• 5th prize: Signatures by Matthew McKenna
• 6th prize: What Alex Understands by Sebastian Jones

Congratulations!

A few random things as we approach festival time:

• We’ve updated the program page with short descriptions of the movies and where the moviemakers are from.
• We got a nice little blurb on KCBS’ website and another very good writeup in the East Bay Express.
• If you want a t-shirt to commemorate this year’s festival, you can buy one here via CafePress.

The show will be August 7th, 13th, and 14th at the Mandela Village Arts Center, 1357 5th St., in Oakland, 9 pm each night, $10 each. Find out more about the festival!

We are proud to announce the 2009 winning movies, and the Audience Choice Survey! Take it if you came to the show…