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Over last weekend I set out on a mini festival tour here in the South East in support of screenings of Jeffrey’s Hell at both ScareFest Weekend in Lexington, KY and Nooga Underground Film Fest in Chattanooga, TN, both occurring on Sunday, 10/20. Armed with a rental car and a suitcase, I set out for Lexington first to experience the madness of the 30,000 people who would be attending ScareFest and to take advantage of my VIP passes for such an event, even though I would not be able to attend in person that Sunday. It was a fantastic romp that quickly burned me out with the immense crowd and just general chaos of that many people in one room.

I did, however, get to see some of my favorite familiar faces: Heather Donahue, Josh Leonard and Michael C Williams from the iconic Blair Witch Project, and of course my old pal, Richard Brake being all handsome and weird as always. And I did get to meet the fabulous Coleman Brothers and YouTube paranormal sensation, Stephanie Harlowe at the film fest where I picked up copies of a few of their projects since I would not be able to attend their screening on Saturday because even being surrounded by the hundreds of iconic celebrities who attended this year, I just could not handle the crowd and after a full day of Friday, I woke up and set out for Chattanooga where I booked a room at the Marriot Downtown and sat in for the much more low-key Nooga Underground Film Fest, which was much more intimate and much more my speed.

Films by the Coleman Brothers
Blu-rays from the fabulous Coleman Brothers
ScareFest Weekend and Noog Film Fest badges.
All access passes for ScareFest Weekend and Nooga Underground Film Fest

The film fest was just what I needed: a mingling of other filmmakers and a few fans of indie films set in one of the most amazing hotels I have ever experienced, The Dwell Hotel! Some great films of all genres were shown, including an incredible short film, It’s Better This Way, which brought out a really good crowd being a local premiere and was a fresh take on the typical “body snatchers” type of story. Then you have the fabulous short documentary Unlikely Mermaid by Lorraine Portman as we follow her journey to becoming a professional, but unlikely mermaid. I also caught one of the most superb animations I think I have ever seen, which also premiered at the Defy Film Festival back in August, the short film Les Betes which was even more stunning the second time around.

But the true honor of the weekend was winning the award of The Chad Farmer Face Grinder Award for Jeffrey’s Hell, which was the highest award of the festival. Out of all of the fabulous films shown over the weekend we were very honored to take home this award, as cumbersome as it was to put into luggage! I can’t thank everyone at NUFF for such a wonderful weekend and to all the other fabulous filmmakers it was an honor to share such an artistic space with you and show these weird movies we make.

Chad Farmer Face Grinder Award
The Chad Farmer Corpse Grinder Award for Best of Fest

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