Well, it’s that time of year again—the time when the voting opens up for the annual Star Wars Fan Film Awards Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge (I still like the old name better). If you wanna cast your ballot for the Audience Choice Award, vote by July 10; winners will be announced at the San Diego Comic Con on July 24, and will walk away with trophies and bragging rights, but not $2,000 like the old days (lame). Reportedly, there’s been some weirdness where the site wasn’t working properly for voting on all films, but they say it’s been resolved.
Run as a co-venture between Atomfilms and Lucasfilm, the contest’s awards were first handed out in 2002, but only documentaries and parodies were allowed to enter. In 2007, dramatic fan films were finally allowed into the running; ironically, now that Atomfilms has been bought and relaunched by Comedy Central, the Challenge appears to be the only place on the Atomfilms website that you can actually find dramatic short films. One almost has to wonder if they’re going to remove dramatic flicks from the running again next year.
Anyway, if you’re really into Star Wars fan flicks, there’s some interesting flicks running among the 41 choices (yes, 41—great that they had so much to choose from, but it’s kind of a drag to try and sit through them all). Some of the movies have been around a while; for instance, I wrote extensively about Ryan Vs. Dorkman 2 over a year ago, and Contract of Evil has been a staple of bootleg fan film DVDs sold at conventions for years. Others that have been around for at least a few months (as best I can recall), include Landspeeder Mayhem, Catching Up with Darth Maul and The Ultimate Fan Film.
While it’s a boon to the fan film community—indeed, it’s the most high-profile annual event there is for fan productions—the Challenge still attracts controversy, and I’ll cover that a bit later in the week. In the meantime, if you love Star Wars fan flicks, go vote.
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