There's a lot more to Palm Springs besides its hot weather and beautiful resorts. The city is home to the Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films and Film Market, a festival that is known to be the biggest short film festival in North America.
Palm Springs ' history does show that it was once a playground for some of Hollywood's famous celebrities. Now audiences have a chance to get a glimpse of up and coming actors, producers, writers and directors of the independent film industry, which incase may find themselves coming back to Palm Springs like the celebrities of the past. This popular festival presents more than 350 short films. One will have the choice to view short films of different genres from all over the world, like drama, comedy, action, romance, animation, documentaries, sci-fi and thrillers. Over the past 10 years, a great number of the short films were screened at the festival prior to receiving their nominations for an Academy Award. An entire vacation can be spent during the film festival which lasts seven days.
Besides watching fantastic independent films, one could also partake in panels and master classes. In the past such panels included, The Sound of Music: How To Work With Composers, Performers, and Publishers, which brought an interesting insight on what it takes to bring music to film by learning how to approach labels and musicians for rights and how to work with a professional composer. Famous film makers have also taken part in panels like Jason Reitman, who explained how to take your short film and make it into a feature length movie.
Special presentations have also been featured like the Opening Night Gala: International Award Winning Shorts, where recent winners of past festivals like the Cannes and Clermont-Ferrand, have been presented. Another special presentation was the Spotlight On Women Directors, where a great sum of short films were clumped together, only sharing one thing in common, they were all directed by gifted women.
