Eli Roth is receiving a huge honor at the 5th Annual HollyShorts Film Festival on August 7th, they are giving him the Indie Film Visionary Award for his contribution to independent cinema!!! Here is what he posted on his MySpace blog about the well deserved honor, “Many people don’t realize that everything I’ve done has been independently made and later distributed by a studio, and from beginning I set out to redefine the perception of what an “indie” movie could be, so it really means a lot to me they’re recognizing me this way.” Besides accepting the award he will be introducing and showing his personal copy of Cabin Fever that is 4 minutes longer and those 240 extra seconds have not been seen since he did the film festival circuit back in 2002 and 2003 and is not available anywhere. He told me, “I’ll be there to introduce the film and to watch it with the crowd to see if it was necessary to cut those 4 minutes or not! ” (I’m sure after seeing it, it wouldn’t have been necessary.) Eli made that movie and the Hostels as independents and then sold them to the studios. He made Cabin Fever for less that $2 million and Hostel for less the $5 million and both movies grossed more than 50 times that. He was also credited with starting a new genre of horror with his movies. If that is not worthy of Indie Film Visionary Award, I am not sure what is!
Cabin Fever is one of my favorite films, and what he did with it and the DVD special features makes me respect him so much. I am a huge admirer of his work and I can’t wait to see Cabin Fever with him telling his stories about it in person. The price to see him and the movie is a mere $10 and you can get tickets at the HollyShorts site to see it on August 7th at 9:30p at the Laemmle Sunset 5.
August is going to be an awesome month for him! Not only will he getting this huge honor, but on August 21st he will make his lead role debut in Quentin Tarantino’s WWII epic Inglourious Basterds with Brad Pitt! On the IB note, how freaking awesome is that poster of him as Donnie “The Bear Jew” Donowitz!!! Below is the newest TV spot for the movie!
Way to go Eli, look at the career you have had that started with making a film for just $1.5 million!!!
