Some film festivals dangle the prospect of cash, camera equipment or access to distributors. But only the Kennywood Film Festival promises prizes that include a Kennywood Platinum Pass, allowing the cardholder and a guest unlimited visits to the park for the 2009 season.

The Kennywood Film Festival invites submissions of 30 seconds to 15 minutes in five categories:

• Kennywood's No. 1 Fan, who can be 15 and under or 16 and over, but must tell a story in five minute or less;

• Create a Kennywood Commercial, which must be 30 or 60 seconds long;

• Celebrate Pittsburgh 250!, which invites filmmakers to celebrate the anniversary or the city's transformation in eight minutes or less;

• Kenny's Picnic, designed to showcase a family, community or ethnic group's picnic or reunion;

• Artist's Choice, a catch-all for film shorts of 15 minutes or less.

Entry deadline is Aug. 15. Rules, details and forms are available at www.kennywood.com and films can be submitted to Kennywood at 4800 Kennywood Blvd., West Mifflin, PA 15122 or the video-sharing Web site, www.kennywood.com/ktube/

Participants will be invited to a special screening and awards ceremony at the park on Aug. 29.

'Adventureland' update

Although once floated as a late-summer release, "Adventureland" is now targeted for spring 2009.

Director Greg Mottola shot "Adventureland" at Kennywood in October and November with actors Jesse Eisenberg, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Kristen Stewart and others. Eisenberg plays a college graduate whose lofty summer and graduate school plans have fallen victim to money woes.

A recent story in Entertainment Weekly magazine recounts how director Catherine Hardwicke took a red-eye flight to Pittsburgh to meet Stewart while she was making "Adventureland."

Hardwicke was considering her for an adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's novel "Twilight," and the magazine reports that Stewart did an impromptu screen test and won the role in the movie, which is headed to theaters in December.

Seeing 'Red'

Boston's Devil Music Ensemble will return to Pittsburgh on Sept. 11 for a live performance of its original score for "Red Heroine," one of the earliest silent martial-arts films, at the Regent Square Theater.

"Red Heroine" is the only surviving episode of a 13-part serial about a Chinese knight errant. A young woman who is kidnapped, and whose grandmother dies in the process, is rescued by a mysterious hermit called the White Monkey. She emerges as a full-fledged warrior in this example of a sword-and-sorcery film from 1920s Shanghai.

Tickets are $12 and can be purchased from www.ticketweb.com (type in Devil Music Ensemble under "Enter artist or venue" line) or at Pittsburgh Filmmakers theaters -- the Regent Square, Downtown's Harris or Melwood Screening Room -- or the reception desk at Filmmakers' headquarters at 477 Melwood Ave. during business hours.

For more details, go to www.pghfilmmakers.org.

Hooray for 'Horton'

It's months away, but promoters have announced that a 66-foot-long (and 36-feet-wide and 48-feet-tall) Horton helium balloon will join the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The larger-than-life plug will be just one of many ways 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment will promote the DVD of "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" starring the voices of Jim Carrey, Steve Carell and Carol Burnett. It will be out Dec. 9.