Written by Brian Pennington, Director of Apocalypse Rock
This past weekend, I made the trip down to sunny Orlando, Florida to attend the first annual End of Days Film Festival, hosted by Trent Duncan at the massive Gods & Monsters Comic Store.
In addition to the festival, I was able to reconnect with several of my friends/colleagues I met while attending Full Sail University and who continue their professional success in the Orlando film market.
The End of Days Film Festival celebrates films in the apocalyptic genre, as well as horror and science fiction. It was programmed in one hour genre blocks, which proved to be a perfect length of viewing before taking a brief break at the end for filmmaker Q&A and to browse the extensive catalog of comics, games, and collectibles the store had to offer. Awards were given out at the end of each film block if any of those films happened to have won.
Apocalypse Rock screened in the 7:00pm block to a great audience reaction, and was then awarded “Best Comedy”. There was a great Q&A session afterwards; you can watch it here.
Apocalypse Rock won alongside the zombie comedy film Brainless Killers, helmed by Australia native Ren Thackman of Action Creative, which won for Best Special Effects and Best Supporting Actress (both well deserved). Other standouts of my time at the festival included Eliaz Rodriguez’ short Think Twice and One92’s Gabel, about a self-aware, killer fork.
End of Days was an outstanding first year festival. The festival director Trent Duncan was very helpful with questions I had, the bartenders were super nice and had a great selection of beer, and Coffee Shop of Horrors supplied the black beverage all day to keep everyone alert. The festival was so well coordinated that they were live-streaming every block of awards, and the aforementioned Australian team Action Creative was able to celebrate their win from the other side of the world. It’s details like this that really make a difference and make you glad for spending your limited festival budget on submitting and attending. I’m really hoping the team at Star Wipe Films has a short to submit next time because it would be great to see where this festival goes.
