2008 Machinima Film Festival
Nominees announced; winners to be revealed on November 1st.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK, NY, October 8, 2008—The Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS) has announced the nominees for the 2008 Machinima Awards (“The Mackies”), which will be held as part of the 2008 Machinima Festival ( www.festival.machinima.org), Saturday, November 1, at Eyebeam, a multi-disciplinary art and technology center in Manhattan.
The announcement comes after a record 200+ submissions from more than 20 countries around the world. The 35 nominees span 15 categories such as “Best Series,” “Best Long-Format,” “Best Independent,” “Best Direction,”
or “Best Cinematography.”
The complete list of nominees, including works that received an Honorary Mention, may be viewed at the festival website. In recognition of the diversity of works submitted to “Best Game Company Machinima,” a special category, the honorary “Outstanding Achievement in Game Cinematics” award that highlights one particular computer game that came out this past year, has been added. This award will be given out at the official awards ceremony along with the other Mackies at 8PM.
Throughout the day, the 2008 Machinima Festival will also feature special screenings of nominees and panel discussions with prominent machinima filmmakers discussing this new form of cinema, which often uses popular video games like Halo® 3, World of Warcraft® and The Sims™ as source material for entirely new and often subversive works.
Hailed as the “Sundance for the Video Game Set” by MTV News, the Machinima Festival evolved from its humble beginnings as an adjunct to QuakeCon in Mesquite, Texas in 2002, into the field’s definitive celebration and showcase. The event, which is organized and produced by AMAS, consistently draws hundreds of machinima professionals, enthusiasts and critics, who gather to explore the works of modern innovators, network and discuss the future of the industry.
Date: November 1 (Saturday)
Location: Eyebeam
540 W. 21st Street, (between 10th and 11th Avenues) New York, NY 10011
Time:
• Festival and Screenings: 11:00am - 8:00pm
• Awards Ceremony: 8:00 pm
Admission: FREE!!
About the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences Based in New York, the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS) is a volunteer-run nonprofit established to promote, organize and advocate the growth of Machinima filmmaking and filmmakers. The organization was founded in March 2002 by several leading members of the Machinima community, including Paul Marino, the noted author of The Art of Machinima (2004, Paraglyph Press), who currently serves as president. Their goal in creating AMAS was to make the current creative industries aware of Machinima as well as bring support & credibility to independent Machinima productions as a whole. The Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences continues to support the Machinima movement with lectures, presentations, workshops along with its principal event, the annual Machinima Festival. For more information, visit www.machinima.org.
About Eyebeam
Founded in 1997, Eyebeam is an art and technology center that provides a fertile context and state-of-the-art tools for digital experimentation. It is a lively incubator of creativity and thought, where artists and technologists actively engage with the larger culture, addressing the issues and concerns of our time. Eyebeam challenges convention, celebrates the hack, educates the next generation, encourages collaboration, freely offers its output to the community, and invites the public to share in a spirit of openness: open source, open content and open distribution. For more information, visit www.eyebeam.org, or contact 212-937-6580 or info@eyebeam.org.
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Media Contact:
Bill Lessard
PRwithBrains for 2008 Machinima Festival
914.476.6089
wlessard@prwithbrains.com
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