Overview

Hockomock Film Festival

The Hockomock Film Festival was originally founded in 2002 as the “Easton Film Festival.” The goal was to encourage Easton's filmmakers by limiting entries to only films produced by Easton residents. Over the last four years, however, the founders recognized that there is a broader opportunity. Now renamed and reconstituted to include 12 neighboring towns, the HFF will provide to these towns the competition previously offered only in Easton. They are: Canton, Easton, Foxborough, Franklin, Mansfield, Norfolk, No. Attleborough, Plainville, Sharon, Stoughton and Wrentham.

Read about the seven successful Film Festivals.

Annual Competition

To enter the HFF, the producer must fill out the entry form that may be found on this site and include a check for $5. The primary criteria are that the filmmaker(s) reside in one of the above towns and that the film adheres to the requirements for length, decency and legality. Four weeks later the films will be screened at Stonehill College in North Easton starting at 9:00 a.m. as part of a day long venue that also includes a luncheon program, presentations in the afternoon by vendors of video software and hardware and an awards ceremony at 4:00 p.m. There will be cash awards for the three categories: drama, documentary and music video.

Cable Shows

The Hockomock Film Festival makes use of the public access channels in each of the above towns in order to showcase the talents of the local filmmakers. The host, Joe Conforti, interviews entrants to the annual film festival as well as local people involved in the filmmaking industry. These shows are aired on Monday and Tuesday nights at 7:00 and reruns are presented on Thurdays at 4:30 p.m.

Film Club

The Hockomock Film Club meets at the NRT Carriage House in Sheep Pasture located on Main Street across from the Post Office. A short is shown at 6:30 p.m. and the feature is on at 7:00 p.m. Coffee and pastries are served and there is no charge. Ed Hands is the filmmeister of the Hockomock Film Club.

Film Jams

The Hockomock Film Festival will also work with the towns in the festival to organize periodic film-jams. These short films (max 2 minutes) are made over a weekend so that there is little serious preparation possible and after two days it is over so the temptation to fine tune is not an issue. Entrants gather on Friday night at Andrews Bakery and draw two cards out of a hat. In one hat are twenty cards each with a different filmmaking genre on it, e.g. film noir, action, love story, and in the other are famous lines from films, e.g. ‘make my day', ‘love means never having to say you are sorry' etc. They make the film over the weekend and submit it by 9:00 p.m. Sunday night. Eleven days later at Andrews Bakery, i.e. on a Friday night, all the entries are shown and the audience votes for the winner. As the votes are being counted, each team is asked to talk about their film.

The HFF plans to hold two film-jams with the Andrews Bakery as the location for each Friday night gathering. The first film-jam is set for November and second will be in February. These events have an element of fun to them that the nicely complements the more serious annual competition. The high stress of making a short film in two days puts a heightened competitive edge to the filmmaking. Filmmakers are encouraged to assemble a team and enter both film-jams.

Educational Programs

Another feature of the Hockomock Film Festival is the education program which emphasizes technical issues such as editing, sound and lighting as well as script writing and film appreciation. We will inform you of these programs in the coming months.