Los Angeles, California and the Downtown Independent Cinema have been selected as the hosts for the First Annual Heavy Metal Film Festival, to take place this coming March 31st through April 3rd, 2011.

This inaugural event is the brainchild of Samuel Douek, a metalhead since the age of six and director of the Hola México Film Festival.

States Douek: “After the success of films like Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, Heavy Metal In Baghdad, Anvil: The Story Of Anvil, Lemmy, Until The Light Takes Us, and many others in recent years, the idea is to bring the best films in metal together and give them one home. The primary objective is to bring the metal community together to watch our music on the big screen. There’s a bright future for metal films, and I want to have a platform to launch them, promote them, and support them. I also want to have some great Q & A sessions with directors and maybe even some surprise guests. I'm very happy to have the support of Decibel Magazine and Nuclear Blast Records for this event. See you at the cinema and keep it metal!”

There is still an open call for submissions, which can include full-length features, documentaries, shorts, “making-of”s and live concerts. The only required theme is that the footage focus on heavy metal music. Deadline for submissions is Friday, February 4th, 2011.

The program for the Heavy Metal Film Festival will be finalized on Friday, February 18th, 2011.

For more information about submitting to the film festival or volunteering for the event, please write in to heavymetalfilmfestival@gmail.com.

Visit the Heavy Metal Film Festival online at the following locations:

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