What is RIPFEST?

Since 2002, RIPFEST has provided an outlet for some of New York and LA’s brightest filmmaking and theatrical talents, allowing both established and up-and-coming artists to collaborate on professional-quality short films over a 16-day process. RIPFEST is a unique collaborative filmmaking project that allows filmmakers the freedom to do what they do best – just make films.

While other quick filmmaking projects try to churn out lots of short films in just hours, RIPFEST brings together a carefully selected group of professional and emerging film and theater talent to collaborate on high-quality, original short films, and gives them the process and support that they need to make great work. Each team is supported through a carefully developed creative process and at the end, all the films are given a public premiere.

To date there have been 10 RIPFEST events in New York and LA. We've made over 80 original short films, short movie-musicals, and documentaries.

Big Apple Film Festival - Ft. Lauderdale Film Festival - NYC’s First Sundays Comedy Film Festival - The Mill Valley Film Festival - Urbanworld Film Festival - Chicago City Limits Film Festival - Santa Cruz Film Festival - Sonoma Valley Film Festival - James River Film Festival- New Filmmakers Series, Anthology Film Archives - Showtime’s Black Filmmakers Showcase

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When is it?

RIPFEST #11 will take place in New York from April 10 – 26th 2010. The three short narrative films and three short movie-musicals will be screened to on Monday, April 26th at Anthology Film Archives. The next RIPFEST will likely be held in Spring 2011. For information about participating in a future season of RIPFEST please click here.

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How it works

At the launch of a RIPFEST event several teams of filmmakers who have never met are given guidelines to create a 5-10 minute film. Each group is comprised of a Producer, a Writer, a Composer, a Director, a DP, an Editor, a Choreographer (for musicals), 2-4 Actors and 2 locations. The teams are given guidelines to create a 5-7 minute film. Then they have:

  ¬   2 days to write the first draft
  ¬   2 days for re-writes
  ¬   2 days for pre-production
  ¬   2 days to shoot the film
  ¬   1 week for post production, scoring, and graphics.

And then…

All the films are premiered, just 16 days after the process began.

There are no restrictions on content or style – pieces range from the most serious to absurdly comic and for musicals, in styles from R&B to operatic to traditional Broadway. Each team is, however, given the same guidelines for creative inspiration and a theme, and the teams are required to only shoot in the two locations provided and to tailor their movie to the actors on their teams.

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A very brief history

RIPFEST began in May 2002 and was originally an acronym for Raw Impressions Productions Film Festival. In the beginning it was the film division of Raw Impressions, a non-profit collaborative arts organization dedicated to "inspiring artists to be prolific with excellence, introducing artists to new collaborators and supporting them through to premiere in a speedy development process.”Guided by those principles, RIPFEST has grown and become an independent company. We have held 10 collaborations in 8 years and worked with over 1000 collaborators

RIPFEST is run by a collaborative group of film and television producers and past participants who are dedicated to producing great work and facilitating meaningful and fulfilling collaborations among filmmakers, artists, and actors.