BY STUART ELLIOTT
PORT TOWNSEND — First prize was only a collection of Pez dispensers and a subscription to a movie magazine.
But that didn’t stop several dozen film crews from staying up 48 hours straight last week as part of a Port Townsend Film Festival competition in which they were given only two days to make a movie.
The inaugural “Film2880” competition drew about 30 entries.
A crowd packed the Oracle Arts Center on Sunday for special screenings of the films during the final day of the festival.
With little budget or publicity, the contest — whose title refers to the number of minutes in the 48-hour project — drew entrants from as far away as Hong Kong and included a handful of local filmmakers.
“I had no idea how many crazy filmmakers were out there who were willing to go 48 hours without sleep,” festival programmer Linda Marie Yakush said Tuesday. “There was an amazing amount of response.”
The enthusiastic reception of “Film2880” was indicative of the overall turnout for the third annual festival, Director Peter Simpson said Tuesday.
———————–
