Hi Mom! Back Again
By Ashley Perryman

Nine years ago, a couple of local artists got together with the idea of having a festival of short films. The event spanned one night, with only a few hours worth of material from local filmmakers. Now, nearly a decade later, the Hi Mom! Film Festival is still running and getting stronger. Films come in from across the globe and the festival spans three days and several venues.

Though the festival has grown, some things haven't changed such as the pancake tradition, most notably. Hi Mom! Coordinator Mat Hedt said the quirky tradition has always been a crowd favorite.

"At the first festival a bunch of the filmmakers that came out were broke and so we got out the pancake mix and it's kind of been a tradition ever since," he said.

Though the festival now draws entries from far and wide, the coordinators still hold to the original motto of "No Fi too Low or High."

Filmmakers say that the festival is a perfect place to enter films that they just made for fun. Some of the ideas were too funny to pass up, but couldn't be stretched out into a long film. Filmmaker Jim Haverkamp said he began simply by wondering what his friend would look like in an Abraham Lincoln costume.

"It's these two guys waiting for an audition and one of the Lincolns tells a story, actually a true story from the actor, about beating up some guy with a log," said Haverkamp.

Participants are already getting geared up for next year's festival. The submission period will begin towards the end of the summer. Rules for registration can be found at www.himomfilmfest.org.