The Dam Short Film Festival is a film festival held annually in Boulder City

Boulder City, Nevada

Boulder City is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States. It is approximately from the City of Las Vegas. As of the 2010 census the population of Boulder City was 15,023.Boulder City is one of only two cities in Nevada that prohibit gambling....

, Nevada

Nevada

Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

, typically in early February. Lee Lanier

Lee Lanier

Lee Lanier is an American 3D computer animator and the author of two books for the 3D modeling software package Maya—Advanced Maya Texturing and Lighting and Maya Professional Tips and Tricks—both published by Sybex...

 and Anita Lanier are the original co-founders of the festival. The festival is currently run by the Dam Short Film Society, a non-profit Nevada corporation. Regular sponsors have included The Art Institutes

The Art Institutes

-Fraud lawsuit:In August 2011 Education Management Corporation was investigated and sued by the United States Department of Justice and four states for illegal recruitment practices and fraudulent receipt of $11 billion in federal and state financial aid money....

 of Las Vegas, the Nevada Film Office, and the Hacienda Hotel and Casino

Hacienda Hotel and Casino

The Hacienda Hotel and Casino replaced the old Gold Strike Hotel and Casino which was destroyed by fire on 16 June 1998 ..The hotel is located outside the city limits of Boulder City, Nevada, which does not allow gaming, and is on a parcel of private land within the boundaries of the Lake Mead...

.

Started in 2005, the Dam Short Film festival is a showcase of only short films, always topping 100 selections. Although most of the festival shorts are from "up-and-coming" filmmakers, the stiff competition means many of the shorts have been produced involving film professionals. These have included Oscar-winner Louis Gossett Jr., "Window," Oscar-winner, Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks

Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...

, William Shatner

William Shatner

William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...

, and Michael York

Michael York (actor)

Michael York, OBE is an English actor.-Early life:York was born in Fulmer, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, the son of Florence Edith May , a musician; and Joseph Gwynne Johnson, a Llandovery born Welsh ex-Royal Artillery British Army officer and executive with Marks and Spencer department stores...

 in "Why Shakespeare?" the late Bela Lugosi

Béla Lugosi

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...

 narrating an animation based on the Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

 classic "The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the...

", Francesco Quinn

Francesco Quinn

Francesco Daniele Quinn was an Italian-born actor. The third son of Oscar winner Anthony Quinn and Jolanda Addorlori , Francesco is perhaps best known for his breakout role as Rhah in Oliver Stone’s Academy Award-winning Platoon...

 in "The Gnostic", and Robert Wagner

Robert Wagner

Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...

 and Lori Singer

Lori Singer

Lori Singer is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Ariel Moore, the female lead in the 1984 feature film Footloose, and as Julie Miller in the television series Fame.-Film and television career:...

 in "Little Victim ".

In 2008, the Festival moved to the historic 400-seat Boulder Theatre. The Theatre was built in 1931 and currently owned by Desi Arnaz Jr. and his wife Amy. Returning for the 2009 Festival (February 11-14) is the mini Film Market, which features over 1000 short films that may be checked out for viewing.

External links

• Dam Short Film Festival website
• Dam Short Film Festival at the Fargo Filmmaking Wiki Project