Greenbelt's Utopia Film Festival Seeks Volunteer Screeners

Do you love movies? Greenbelt's Utopia Film Festival 2012 needs volunteer screeners to help evaluate this year's entries, which typically include short and feature-length documentaries; short and feature-length comedies, dramas and science fiction works; experimental films; and animation.  

A screener orientation meeting will be held Monday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. in the Greenbelt Access Television (GATE) studios, located in Suite 204 of the at 15 Crescent Rd. Utopia planners will explain the screening process and at least three films will be evaluated.  

"Come join us, watch movies, and help us select the very best films for Utopia 2012," said Utopia Screening Director Alan Haley, a filmmaker who has worked with the festival since its 2005 launch. 

The Utopia Film Festival, now in its eighth year, derives its name from Greenbelt's origins as a "utopian" intentional community designed and built in the 1930s by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration to foster harmonious community living. The festival's motto is "seeking a better world through film." 

Utopia, an annual all-volunteer project of nonprofit GATE, receives entries from independent filmmakers worldwide, as well as from local directors. The best submissions are selected for screening at the festival, which is held each year in October. 

While seeking quality short and feature-length documentaries and narratives in all areas, Utopia is particularly interested in films which investigate utopian communities and concepts. 

Filmmakers who wish to submit work to Utopia should visit the festival website at utopiafilmfestival.org for further information.