Collins film fest 'breaks illusions'

The Lost Film Festival, a traveling, independent multimedia show that highlights anti-authoritarian and anti-corporate films, is at 8:30 p.m. tonight at Collins Living Learning Center. This is the third consecutive year the festival has traveled to Collins LLC/ The event is free.\n"This (festival) is about breaking the illusions cast by Hollywood and CNN," said festival director Scott Beibin on the festival's Web site, www.lostfilmfest.org. "You won't see a lot of these at typical indie festivals."\nCreated by Beibin in 1999, the Lost Film Fest is, according to the Web site, "a traveling multimedia spectacle incorporating live performance and video clips from folks like The Yes Men, Guerrilla News Network and the TV Sheriff. The show incorporates a sexy, smash-it-up, radical anti-capitalist anti-globalization \nperspective."\nThe festival also features the Sean Connery Golf Project, a now infamous documentary in which two filmmakers infiltrate Sony Pictures Studios, steal a screenplay, rewrite it and return the altered script. The film is now the focus of a controversial lawsuit.\n"Because of the political, social and cultural slant of the films, Collins always welcomes the festival," said Yara Cluver of Collins LLC. "Collins has always been interested in non-mainstream art, and this festival is all about challenging Hollywood and the mainstream."\nBeibin, who will also be available for questions after the screening, will narrate the festival.\n"Scott is very energetic and very funny, and he always has a great story to introduce each film," Cluver said. "The festival is always a lot of fun and has always been a very positive experience."\nCollins Art Council Chair Margaret Miley said the spirit of the festival and Collins LLC are much in the same vein. \n"The Collins community has always been known for its love of experimental art, and the Lost Film Festival is \nalways new and unique," Miley said. "We're always trying to expose different forms of art to the IU community."\nBefore the festival begins, residents of Collins will have an opportunity to screen their own films in front of an audience, a new dimension to the festival. \n"We have two films created by students that we will be showing before the festival," Miley said. "It's a great opportunity for them to have their work seen by a large audience."\nSenior Erin Farlow submitted two short films which she describes as "silly little Telecomm projects."\n"One involves a plush frog going on a murder spree," she said.\n--Arts Editor Michelle Manchir contributed to this story.