Jan 7, 2013 10:00 AM PST    Text size: 

LAS VEGAS — The PollyGrind Film Festival is calling for entries for its fourth season. 

"PollyGrind is about trendsetting and blazing trails," festival director Chad Clinton Freeman said. 

"My goal is to not only find and share groundbreaking projects from emerging filmmakers, but to be able to really push them to the forefront. PollyGrind has been knocking and knocking at the door; this year the door is going to open or we are going to kick it in." 

Freeman has dubbed his latest installment PollyGrind IV: A New Hope with "May the Fourth Be With You" as one of its taglines.  

Film festival organizers say they are always on the lookout for talented filmmakers, and try each year to spotlight as many different types of projects as it can.  

"I try to learn from each festival and make sure PollyGrind evolves," Freeman said. "When I started this event, I didn't want to dictate what it was about each year. Some years it might be heavy on horror, grindhouse or found footage, other years it might be heavy on the arthouse side. Last year, true crime was king with our top three films falling into that category." 

PollyGrind has expanded its entry categories and now accepts screenplays, while offering special discounted categories for women and girl filmmakers, all filmmakers under 18 and Nevada filmmakers.  

The festival also offers discounted entries to debut and sophomore features that have not had world premieres, as well as films that have been rejected from other festivals.

"We also had some really cool stuff from filmmakers that were under 18 and some really good stuff from women filmmakers last year. So I gave out awards for best directors under 18 and 15, as well as best woman directors for features and shorts," Freeman said. "Many times these projects might get overlooked by a lot of other festivals, so I wanted to make sure everybody knew they were welcome here. I like to say PollyGrind champions the broken, the beaten and the damned, but the truth is we champion any and all good films, no matter who made them, what they are about, what they cost to make or what rules they happen to follow or break." 

For more information, visit PollyGrind.com.