Well-versed in the art of making movies

Weck enjoys the challenge as a filmmaker, he said, and learns from a community of artists through the festival.

“It’s just fun to see people put into the pressure cooker and see how their lives are changed by doing it,” Weck said. “It really is transforming. It gives you an opportunity to grow in your faith and grow in your craft. Hollywood’s a pigeonhole place, with [attitudes such as] ‘He’s an editor, and he’s a writer.’ A lot of people want to experiment with different roles. This gives everyone a chance to do it.”

But, he added, it’s also about his faith.

“I do it because it gives me a chance to honor God with my talents and to learn something from him that I normally wouldn’t get in a regular film production,” Weck said.

“Bountiful,” a film directed by Burbank resident Eric Tozzi, is nominated for six awards at the festival, including best screenplay for a drama, best supporting actor, best cinematography, best editor, best production design and best make up.

The film is about a character with a serious gambling problem that brings his marriage to ruin because he loses so much money.

“I really wanted to up the game this year in terms of production value and visual effects,” Tozzi said.

“The process was really thinking about how to tell a larger story and bring much higher production value to something in a short amount of time.”

The director and his team increased the production value by adding a second camera and shooting a car-crash scene that marks the moment of divine intervention — when the main character has to choose redemption or continue making his family suffer.

To learn more about the festival, and to buy tickets, visit 168project.blogspot.com/.

The Alex Theatre box office will have tickets available two days before the show and the day of the show.