Brainwash Movie Festival: Drive-in Bike-in Walk-in Film Festival in Oakland, California

The Brainwash 2017 Festival Continues: Announcing the Winners!

And enter for our 2018 Festival!

The 23rd Annual Winners AND 2013 Audience Choice Awards!

Announcing The 23rd Annual Brainwash Drive/In-Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Festival Winners:

The First Prize Award winner: Where Have The Flowers Gone – Sin-Hong Chan

2^nd Grand Prize: Bien Mal à Qui!? – Daniel Jenny

Third Prize Award: The Blue Jet – Lawrence Lam

Fourth Prize: Solved – Michael Bartolomeo

Fifth: What Price Freedom: The History of Apocalypse Cartoons – Dean Packis

The Audience Choice AND Best Feature Film Awards: Jackson Bolt – a’Ali de Sousa

AND, FINALLY, The 19th Annual Brainwash Drive/In-Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Audience Choice Winners:

It’s a tie! Between two great movies from our past, 2013, show – (Pls. scroll down and click “Older Posts” on the bottom left for a list of our 2013 shows & other Award Winners) –

Mirror Lies – Adam Rosenberg

AND

Delusional – Jeremy Scripter

Posted on April 3, 2018 at 3:46 pm by Shelby Toland, filed under Award Winners, Brainwash Movies, Top of Brain

“How to Make it in Filmmaking”

Like Gideon Verite, How to Make it in Filmmaking is a movie that will be shown at Brainwash about… well, filmmaking.

There are, however, many differences. How to Make it in Filmmaking (check out the movie site here) is a 59-minute documentary by Shanna Maurizi about a real movie director, while Gideon Verite is a fanciful 19-minute short about a guy who plays a guy who plays a movie director.

The subject of How to Make it in Filmmaking, director Ari Taub, spent ten years making a period-accurate war movie in three languages, on a shoestring budget (or less), in order to get noticed by Hollywood. Shanna’s presentation of Ari’s guerrilla filmmaking style really resonated with us, since we are a kind of guerrilla film festival ourselves. We’re showing Shanna’s movie this Saturday night, 9/3, on the opening night of the festival.

Here’s a trailer:

Speaking of guerrilla filmmaking, prior to that, we are showing the pilot episode of “Big Weird Time,” a show about a certain drive-in bike-in walk-in movie festival and the short films that are featured in it. It is a curiosity that arguably should never have seen the light of day. (Luckily, we filmed it and are showing it at night, so no problem there.) It is also an extremely good excuse to show a couple of our favorites from the 2010 festival, Goodnight Harvey (3rd prize in 2010) and The Horror of Our Love (4th prize). Don’t miss it – buy tickets today!

Posted on August 28, 2011 at 10:11 pm by Jason Gohlke, filed under Big Weird Time, Brainwash Movies, Our moviemakers, The Festival, Trailers

Gideon Verite: one of many great shorts for 2011

The heart of Brainwash is the movies we show. That’s why we call ourselves the world’s only drive-in bike-in walk-in MOVIE festival.

One of this year’s shorts, Gideon Verite by Raquel Cedar, is in the classic Brainwash style. In an absurdist style somewhat reminiscent of Being John Malkovich, Gideon Verite creates an eccentric and theatrical universe where, in the words of the director,

“… the MGM lion is human, the cinematographer a musical conductor of lights, gaffers and grips carry film equipment on their backs like ants, producers wear black leather and are employed by the Mafia, and editing is done sitting on the floor buried in a pile of footage.”

It’s a lot of fun and it anchors our second night, September 9th. Check out the trailer here, then come see it and a whole host of other entertaining movies by up-and-coming moviemakers — buy tickets today!

Posted on August 26, 2011 at 4:48 pm by Jason Gohlke, filed under Brainwash Movies, Our moviemakers, The Festival

Tags for this entry: Gideon Verite, Raquel Cedar

The festival is coming!

Here comes the Brainwash Drive-in Bike-in Walk-in Movie Festival!

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!

Posted on August 17, 2011 at 1:59 am by Jason Gohlke, filed under The Festival, Top of Brain

Trailer/teaser for 2011

Hey, look… here’s a weird preliminary trailer for 2011!

Share and enjoy!

Posted on August 16, 2011 at 11:26 pm by Jason Gohlke, filed under Brainwash Movies, The Festival, Trailers

Tags for this entry: teaser

The Audience Choice Award goes to…

We are happy to announce that the 2010 Brainwash Drive-in Bike-in Walk-in Movie Festival Audience Choice Award goes to — among several very strong contenders — “Morgue: A Love Story With Guts,” directed by Donald McQuade and written by Anthony Pizzo! Both of them came up from Southern California to see the 21 shorts we showed at the final weekend of the festival. Our congratulations, and thanks to them for submitting their movie and for coming up!

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!

Posted on August 30, 2010 at 5:30 pm by Jason Gohlke, filed under Award Winners, Our moviemakers, The Festival, Top of Brain

2010’s Winners (minus one)!

Thanks again to all who came to the festival and all of the moviemakers! Here are the first six awards — some time in the next couple days we’ll tally up the totals of the many ballots you submitted and award the Audience Choice Award!

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!

Posted on August 15, 2010 at 4:55 am by Jason Gohlke, filed under Award Winners, Our moviemakers, The Festival, Top of Brain

The final night!

Hi folks — tonight is the final night of the 16th Annual Brainwash Drive-in Bike-in Walk-in Movie Festival! Hope to see you there for some great movies and our always entertaining awards ceremony!

Posted on August 14, 2010 at 2:10 pm by Jason Gohlke, filed under Brainwash Movies

A little about Opening Night: August 7th!

Opening night is TONIGHT! (Buy your tickets on TicketWeb here — and just for fun, why not RSVP on Facebook?)

We’re screening a full-length feature called “Dynamite Swine” (facebook) by Mark Poisella, a rollicking action movie/buddy flick/poker movie that defies description but just works. This is the second year in a row we’ve opened with a feature film, and you seriously won’t see anything like this anywhere else.

We are preceding it with one of the best shorts I’ve ever seen (and I don’t say that lightly), “With Anchovies… Without Mamma” (facebook, trailer, website) an amazing mockumentary (by Brooklyn’s Thomas Justino) about pizza and revenge.

The moviemakers describe it as “an investigative look at love, loss, pizza and the depth of circumstance.” Whatever that means, it is incredibly tight — the acting and script are terrific, it’s hilariously funny, and it keeps you entertained until the only thing left in the box is a grease stain and that little plastic table. Want mustaches? It’s got mustaches, and people who sound like they’re from Jersey.

Anyway, I’m just babbling now, but you’ll really enjoy opening night TONIGHT, Saturday, August 7th. Don’t forget, it’s the Brainwash *Drive-in Bike-in Walk-in* Movie Festival, so you can come in on two wheels or four — or, just use the very convenient West Oakland BART station (less than a block away).

Buy tickets at TicketWeb and RSVP on Facebook.

Posted on August 7, 2010 at 11:09 am by Jason Gohlke, filed under Brainwash Movies, Our moviemakers, The Festival, Trailers

Tags for this entry: Dynamite Swine, Mark Poisella, Opening Night, Thomas Justino, With Anchovies... Without Mamma

Some weird footage we found

We were shooting footage for our trailer and something weird happened:

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.

Posted on August 4, 2010 at 12:49 am by Jason Gohlke, filed under Brainwash Movies, The Festival, Top of Brain, Trailers

Tags for this entry: a directive from Shelby Toland

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