PXL THIS 35, one of Cali's oddest, oldest, indie film fests

Toy Camera Film Fest: Live via YouTube, Sunday 16 Nov. 2025 7 p.m. PST.

October 9, 2025 - (Venice Beach, CA) Filmmakers get a fresh chance to enter PXL THIS 35, one of the oddest, oldest, and most experimental film festivals here in California, a movie capital.

“Still NO entry fee,” PXL THIS founder Gerry Fialka said. “Our free, non-competitive, non-commercial film fest returns this fall for its 35th run. Email me , but, please, PXL-2000 films only.”

“Our festival attracts both teens and seminal experimental filmmakers; both pros and the houseless,” Fialka said. “I’d call it the most populist film festival ever. At 35, we host one of the oddest, oldest film festivals here in California, earth’s entertainment epicenter.”

Since 1991, PXL THIS screens an open showcase of short films or video, either shot with, or emulating the low-fi output of, PXL-2000 (120x90 pixels, 15 FPS), originally designed to record on a cheap, standard audio cassette.”

Prior festival participants include independent filmmakers Michael Almereyda, Lee Ranaldo, Chris Metzler, James & Sadie Benning, Joe Gibbons, Cecilia Dougherty, Peggy Ahwesh, Margie Strosser, Jesse Drew, and Ann Randolph.

Pixelvision has also made it to the big screen via directors Richard Linklater (Slacker, 1990), Peggy Ahwesh & Margie Strosser (Strange Weather, 1993), Craig Baldwin (Sonic Outlaws, 1995), and several feature films by Michael Almereyda including Nadja (1994) with a cameo by David Lynch, and Hamlet (2000) with star Ethan Hawke, as reviewed by Siskel and Ebert, “running around New York City with a PXL2000 toy video camera.”