Phoenix Film Festival 2009

A discussion with comedian/actor Bill Engvall.

We all choose our lives, this is the life I chose, a life of pixels, ones and zero’s. Highs and lows that only exist in the virtual realm. But I am not alone…video games are overtaking the world as we speak. Once a pastime of the Dungeons and Dragons geek, the quintessential friendless loner, hard-core gaming has entered the mainstream. I am at the dawn of the new age. In 30 years a family will no longer sit around the television deliberating the fate of America’s next pop idol, they will enter a virtual world of competition and cooperation. A world that is everything this real world should be. They say it’s just a game but what will happen when we realize... So is life. Yet, for the first time in my life, I don’t feel like playing video games anymore.

Wild Bill Crum (Bill Engvall) is a cowboy with a past. He's good with a gun - maybe too good. That skill has made him a target for every wannabe tough guy and aspiring gunslick in the West. While Bill has survived physically, he is haunted by the echoes of his bloody past.This angst manifests itself in nightly dreams in which he faces - again and again - the soulless menace that represents his former, more violent self, or perhaps the spirits of those who have faced his guns and lost. In restless slumber each night Bill makes the terrible ride away from all that he knows is good and beautiful - pulled inexorably towards an inevitable showdown. He is drawn to a fate he fears as he is stripped of his natural confidence and self-assurance.At last Bill is driven to share this personal torment with the men in whose hands he puts his life every day in the brutal existence of the trail-riding cowboy. At his saddle partner's insistence, Bill tells the men of his nightly terrors. In the flickering firelight the cowboys cannot hide their surprise and confusion at his tale. These are men accustomed to hard work and simple pleasures. They can't possibly be expected to comprehend the depths and complexity of the human psyche. Or can they?As Bill bares his soul to the other cowboys, their reactions - and subsequent analysis - prove to be enlightening and more than a little humorous.

Captain is stuck in a laundromat of broken dreams. Dumped by his long-time girlfriend, it seems his world is changing faster than he can bear. For Captain, laundry is the best of therapy. Through 101 laundromat metaphors, he comes to understand and embrace the true nature of change.

The death of the mythical route 66 also entails the forced recycling of certain businesses. Among them a shady motel that's heavily involved in organ trafficking. Little Delaney, a girl who's always falling in love, is the center of this road story that's as comical as it is gory.

Ein junger Mann kommt in eine Pfandleihe gesturmt. Er ist au?er Atem und in gro?er Not. 'Er braucht dringend 200 EUR. Es geht fur ihn um Leben und Tod!' Stolz, aber darin ungeubt, prasentiert er dem Pfandleiher seine 'Schatze'. Plotzlich betritt eine Domina die Pfandleihe. Sie legt 2000 EUR auf die Theke und der junge Mann muss erfahren, dass in dieser Pfandleihe anscheinend mit zweierlei Ma? gemessen wird und nicht alle Menschen gleich sind. Denn plotzlich ist alles anders, als es zuerst schien!

A collection of documentary shorts.

Tommy Novak, an aging boxer in the twilight of his career, wants nothing more than to go out with a win, and when a mysterious old janitor gives him that chance, Tommy's conscience suddenly becomes his main combatant.