OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — There’s a little bit of Hollywood in the metro this week.
The Kansas International Film Festival is unveiling 50 movies for Kansas City metro audiences to vote on, as films are shown at the Glenwood Arts Theatre.
When you think of making it big in Hollywood, Overland Park, Kan., may not come to mind. For 50 filmmakers, they’re banking on this festival to be their spring board to the big time by having their film distributed around the world.
“The movie is about a gang of juvenile delinquents and they are sentenced to planet earth until their leader Johnny X can do a good deed and go back home,” filmmaker Paul Bunnell said.
Bunnell’s film, “The Ghastly Love of Johnny X”, will make its Kansas debut Monday at 7:30 p.m., but Bunnell says his film has already been picked up for distribution.
“It’s the only rock and roll musical sci-fi fantasy horror film you need to see this year.”
Filmmaker Mark Volkers hopes his documentary “The Fourth World” will be played around the world to get people thinking about the one billion people he says live in slums.
“Most of these people are living off one to two dollars a day,” Volkers said. “In the film, we pull that apart. We meet people and we pull apart the numbers and we start showing this kid is making 17 cents an hour and he’s working his tail off.”
Volkers says his film documents the immense human capital in slums or “the fourth world” as he calls them, and how the lack of financial capital and government keeps people in systemic poverty.
“When the lights come back on, I think people will be thinking, ‘Maybe I can do something about this,’ rather than, ‘Oh, that’s so sad,’ and they move on.”
The film festival will continue at the Glenwood Arts Festival until Thursday, Oct 11.
