(note: Former NIFP VP Fred Finn did audio, Anne Moore is a member, and I work with Jim Mehsling- FROM RHETT)
SHOWTIME: 6 p.m. May 11th & 13th, Omaha, Big Damn Film Festival
Plot: A study in comic desperation. Fired from an office job he hates, Bert borrows from some shady characters for a scam investment. The mobsters then force him to rob a bank to repay them. The bank teller is Bert's old schoolmate, Mabel, who also hates her life. They improvise their way through a string of tight spots.

Among Omahans cast: Joe Vacanti, Kevin Pufall, Anne Moore, Jim Mehsling, Nora Vetter and Shane Staiger.

Omaha film sites: Old Market, 3D Creative Staffing, Pettit's Pastry, the Pinnacle Club, O'Connor's Bar, Opera Omaha headquarters and the BP gas station at 50th and Dodge Streets.

Rating: Probably R for language

Running time: One hour, 30 minutes

Screening time: 6 p.m. Saturday

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"Film and filmmaker come home"
BY BOB FISCHBACH
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

It's hard to get a part in a movie.

Harder still to make one.

Perhaps hardest of all to get your movie screened for the public.

Just ask former Omahan Scott Beehner, who has learned all three lessons.

But now, Beehner's movie, "Bert," - which he wrote, starred in and directed - will be screened for the public at the Big Damn Film Festival, right here in River City, on Saturday. Most of "Bert" was filmed in Omaha in August 2005.

The traveling festival, which plays a different Midwestern city each month, will be at the Doubletree Guest Suites, 7270 Cedar St., Saturday and May 13. The festival's hallmark is that it accepts all submitted films for public screening in an audience-judged competition.

The only qualifiers: The films must be submitted before that month's festival is booked full - and they cannot be pornographic.

Beehner, 34, has had movies on the brain a long time. His family moved to Omaha from Elmhurst, Ill., when he was 4. After graduating from college, he tried to break into movies and theater for nine years in New York before moving to Los Angeles in 2000.

In L.A., Beehner wrote a part for himself in a short film called "Crooks."

"It was a great experience doing something I wrote myself," Beehner said last week during a visit to Omaha. "Later I thought, why not direct myself as well?"

So he did. With a little savings, plus loans from friends, Beehner pooled $20,000 to film "Bert." Quickly he learned Los Angeles was not the place to make a movie on the cheap.

"I was waiting tables in an Italian restaurant, so I asked the owner if I could film a scene there when the restaurant was closed. He looked at me like I was nuts."

In the nation's movie-making capital, Beehner said, such a request can easily command $10,000 a day.

"Bums have union cards as extras," he quipped.

So he thought of his hometown. With an ad on Craig's List, he quickly hired what he found to be an excellent film crew.

"The enthusiasm level was so high here," he said. "It seemed like a no-brainer. Locations were no problem. Bars, restaurants, a doughnut shop - if you worked around their schedule, it was no problem getting permission for free."

While making the movie, Beehner was confident.

"We thought we'd get into the big festivals, no problem."

It was harder than he thought.

Sundance, Slamdance, Atlanta, Phoenix, Nashville, Ann Arbor and HBO's Aspen Comedy Festival all turned down "Bert."

Little wonder. Even the fledgling Omaha Film Festival accepted just one of every six films submitted this year.

"I thought my movie was so wonderful, it would come out OK," Beehner said. "But you can easily spend $1,000 on application fees and get nothing."

Enter this weekend's festival, which Beehner found on a Web site commonly used by filmmakers to apply for festivals. Entrants decide which cities they want their films to play, paying separately for each. "Bert" has so far been seen in Madison, Wis., and St. Louis.

Other cities on the BDFF circuit: Chicago, Cincinnati, Des Moines, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Fargo, N.D., and St. Paul, Minn.

Beehner said he will probably have his film play all of them.

Each city's winners, chosen by festival attendees, are entered into the year-ending best of the festival event in St. Paul. Prizes include free movie-making software.

The festival offers passes for $20 each day, or $12 for each of six blocks of films. Three blocks will be screened each day. Tickets to individual movies are not available. For passes, a list of the films showing in Omaha, a screening schedule and more, search the Web under the name of the film festival.