Award-winning filmmaker Alexander Jeffery thought Louisiana Film Prize and its prize money was too good to be true when he first heard of it.
He was living in El Dorado, Arkansas when he discovered Film Prize and decided to take a shot.
“I thought it was a scam, because they’re giving away $50,000, that seems like a scam, but it’s only two hours away to Shreveport. At least it wouldn’t be hard to just do something and test my theory, right? Scam or not, right? So I did. I tested my theory, and then we ended up winning the $50,000 the first year,” he said. That was 2015.
“And the check cleared, and I was like, ‘Wow, this festival is really cool, and this community is really cool, and I don’t live that far away, so I started coming down here all the time and got to know the film community here.'”
The $50,000 prize that is awarded each year by Prize Fest is the largest cash prize in the world for short narrative film competition.
He’s had a short film in Prize Fest every year since 2015, he said.
Jeffery owns Bespoke Works film production company in Shreveport with business partner Paul Petersen. “In 2018 we both said, ‘Hey, let’s move to Shreveport. We go down there enough. Let’s just live there.'”
Jeffery is Canadian and grew up in El Dorado. He earned degrees in Theatre Performance and in Film and New Media from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and spent time in Los Angeles before moving back home to make independent films.
Jeffery is also the Executive Director of the El Dorado Film Festival, happening Feb. 28–Mar 2.
