Kevin Carpenter, president of the West Virginia Filmmakers Film Festival, has issued a call for entries for the 2008 festival to be held the first weekend of October, Oct. 3-5,  in Sutton at the Landmark Studio for the Arts. This festival is open to any film that is by a WV filmmaker or about WV. The catagories are - Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, Narrative Short, Documentary Short, Animation, Two Minute Horror Competition, Student. The entry fee is $20.00. The deadline is September 1, 2008. You can contact him at - Kevin Carpenter, Director
WV Filmmakers Film Festival, kevincarpenter1@gmail.com  (304) 545-3043, 92 South Stonewall St., Sutton, WV 26601.

WV Filmmaker of the Year Award, created uniquely each year by Sutton artist Bill Hopen.

The WV Filmmakers Film Festival was co-founded in February 2001. A second version took place in October 2001. Every October the festival has honored WV’s own filmmakers. For several years the WV Film Office has sponsored the WV Filmmaker of the Year Award. Last year’s winner was WVSU film professor Steve Gilliland. Previous winners were - Gerry Milnes, 2006, B.J. Gudmundsson, 2005, Ray Schmitt, 2004, and Daniel Boyd, 2003.

Many WV films first received honors at this event before winning national and international awards including  Brad Stalnaker’s “The Griffin and the Minor Canon” which latter was chosen as the best local PBS production in the country. Recent films such as “The Last Campaign” by Wayne Ewing which won the award as best feature documentary was chosen by DocFest to tour the U.S. WV native Morgan Spurlock was a special guest several years ago, receiving The Pinnacle Award, for his work in promoting WV filmmaking. Cabinet Secretary Kay Goodwin, whose family has connections to Sutton, has provided financial support for the film festival for several years.

The WVFFF is the ONLY organization in WV to screen the restored copies of WV’s two greatest feature films - “The Night of the Hunter” and “Matewan.”

First WV Filmmaker of the Year Daniel Boyd on the steps of the Landmark Studio

Chad Meador, director of “Method in the Mountains,” at the 2007 WVFFF

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