How faux-ny!

The name, Faux Film Festival (FFF), might be confusing. No, it’s not a fake festival—it’s quite real and has been running for six years now. Rather, it’s a festival that features fake films. Spoofs, satires, faux commercials, faux film trailers…the list goes on. This year the festival promises to be as silly as ever, with three nights full of faux.

Mike Shkolnik created FFF in 2005 and has been running it since. He first came up with the idea after working on his own faux film trailer, Broccoli Man Vs. the Zombie Vegetarian, in which heroic Broccoli Man arrives to fight off the zombie vegetarians and their lust for greens.

Shkolnik sought out a festival to submit the trailer to, but found none. There were some mockumentary festivals, but nothing that also welcomed faux trailers, commercials and other shorts. Thus, FFF was born.

Shkolnik also sponsors the festival with his bizarre toy-selling business, Mad Martian, which boasts 196 different eyeball toys, among other strange knick-knacks.

If that sounds a bit wacky, it’s because it is. FFF is anything but serious. Their motto is, “we poke fun at stuff.”

There are faux film trailers like It Came From Over Yonder, in which mysteriously airborne cow pies infiltrate a city. There are uplifting and inspiring stories like The Joe Show Show: Growth, in which the main character finds hope and meaning in a ham and cheese sandwich.

Sunday will be somewhat Snuggie-themed, as The Snuggie Killer will screen and any audience member who arrives in a Snuggie will be given a $2 discount on admission. There will also be Snuggie giveaways provided by The Snuggie Killer filmmakers.

Many of the filmmakers involved will attend the festival. There are two blocks of films each night, and every block except the last one on Sunday will be followed by free Q-and-A sessions with the filmmakers. Some of the directors are flying in from across the country for the festival and others are locally based.

Friday night will feature faux commercials and movie spoofs and Sunday night will be mostly horror films with commentary in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Saturday night is reserved for general satire films.

The filmmakers range across the board, from amateur to professional. FFF received a wide variety of submissions.
“It’s funny, it’s a complete mixture,” said Shkolnik. “We’ll get stuff that’s a bunch of frat boys with a camcorder and we’ll get stuff with special effects and everything.”

Shkolnik and a committee that varies every year from three to six filmmakers choose the films. When asked to pick a personal favorite for this year’s festival, Shkolnik simply said, “They’re all my personal favorites.”

While Shkolnik is a filmmaker himself, he shrugs off the title.

“I don’t make a lot of films, admittedly,” Shkolnik said. “I do it more as a hobby.”

In any case, he is bringing together FFF for a number of talented filmmakers who might equally shrug off their titles. The result is a festival that’s fun and downright silly.