Lighthouse Film Festival Recap
Atomic Abe took Long Island Beach, NJ by storm when our award-winning animated short film Message From the Future played the 2021 Lighthouse International Film Festival. Cowriter/coproducer/voice actor Kevin Maher attended the festival and provided the recap below. Read on for more about the festival, and to see an exclusive promotional video created by Kevin around Long Beach Island.
Kevin Maher writes:
As a New Jersey native, I was thrilled to get to screen our short film in Long Beach Island at the Lighthouse International Film Festival.
The four-day festival showcased a "COVIDEO" program of shorts that were made during the pandemic, or about the pandemic. This collection included documentaries, comedies, stop-motion, horror and a mockumentary starring Linda Lavin. (Finally, I can boast that our movie shared the bill with one of the stars of The Muppets Take Manhattan.)
For most of the filmmakers, it was the first time they were seeing their short with a live audience. And for a comedy, that makes such a difference.
After MESSAGE played, programmer Chip Parham brought me up for a Q&A and we talked about how the short was written as a live-action film but because of the pandemic we had to make it as animation.
That night, I hobnobbed with other creators and filmmakers at a packed party at "Bird & Betty's" in Beach Haven. It was the most people I'd been around in 14 months. And because NJ dropped the mask mandate, most people were maskless.
I met up with friend and fellow filmmaker Jeremy Workman, whose documentary feature Lily Topples the World was the closing night film. Jeremy was like the character in a movie who knows everyone at the party and gives you necessary exposition and gossip.
Thanks LIFF and Long Beach Island for a fantastic weekend and a thrilling festival. We'll be sure to submit our next film and bring more of the Atomic Abe team in '22.
Our movie played at the Lighthouse International Film Fest -- and everyone was talking about it! Watch the video diary and Message From the Future below.
