168 Film Project
The 168 Film Project is a Christian film festival. Worldwide, over 1500 short films have been produced for the competition since 2003.
168 is a 501 nonprofit corporation.
History
The 168 Film Project was launched in 2003 by filmmaker and producer John David Ware in Burbank, California. Its inaugural edition screened thirteen shorts created in the single-week production challenge. By its seventh edition in 2009 the festival had adopted the annual theme “Family Business,” and organisers reported a growing slate of eleven-minute shorts drawn from randomly assigned Bible verses.The eighth edition in 2010 drew more than sixty-five submissions from sixteen U.S. states and five continents. Ware, described as having “worked with filmmakers worldwide,” estimated that over 300 films had already been produced through the initiative.
At the ninth festival in 2011, themed “Second Chances,” ninety shorts competed for twenty-one awards and more than US$15,000 in cash prizes. That year the short Useless won the top prize.
By 2014, organisers estimated that alumni had produced more than 800 shorts, with some screening at other international festivals and some advancing into feature-length development.
In November 2022 the festival relocated permanently to Fayetteville, Georgia, staging its twentieth edition at Trilith’s Town Stage.
Hollywood participants include Zachary Levi ; Candace Cameron Bure ; Academy Award winner Louis Gossett Jr.; four-time Emmy Award winner Michael Learned ; Max Gail ; actor and director Corbin Bernsen ; actor and director Kevin Sorbo ; T. C. Stallings ; producer Howard Kazanjian ; producer Ralph Winter ; and co-creator David McFadzean.
Past 168 sponsors include Sony BMG, Sony Pictures, Canon, Arri, Sony BPC, Sony Affirm, Panasonic, Kino Flo, Roland, Panavision, Regent University, Biola University, Church Production and Worship Technology Magazines.