'Bella' is of the five movies in contention for Heartland's $100,000 Grand Prize. (Provided by the Heartland Film F for The Star)

As it turns 16, the Heartland Film Festival is growing up and going global.

With more than 600 films that competed for a slot this year, it's clear that Heartland is "not just a sweet little Midwestern film festival" anymore, in the words of Hollywood producer/director Mike Tollin ("Radio").

New promotional ventures are putting the Heartland brand on DVDs and in stores, and even on its own on-demand cable channel. Word-of-mouth also is building from a generation of filmmakers whose careers got a boost from the festival.

Heartland, which opens Thursday, has always had an international flavor, with movies from a variety of countries and languages. This year, more than a quarter of the 47 films have a foreign influence, with a special emphasis on Spanish-language films that organizers hope will lure the local Hispanic community.

Jeffrey Sparks, the festival's president and chief executive officer, decided the 2007 event should have a Latin theme. The result is five films in Spanish or with Hispanic stories, including two of the five movies in contention for Heartland's $100,000 Grand Prize: "Bella" and "Mia Sarah."

"This is actually the first year that Heartland has focused on Latin-based films," said Malissa Escalante, a festival volunteer. "Hopefully we'll get a pretty good turnout from the Latin community."

"Bella" stars Eduardo Verastegui, a model/singer/actor who's a major sex symbol in his native Mexico, where he appears on the sort of telenovelas spoofed on TV's "Ugly Betty."

Heartland officials screened snippets from these films for area leaders in the Hispanic community, who came away pleased with what they saw. Mary Jane Gonzalez, president of the Indiana State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, hopes it will lead to stronger ties with Heartland.

"They are forward-moving and trying to reach our community. I think the timing is perfect," she said. "But like anything else, the momentum is there, and you have to keep that going to really stick."

Sparks thinks his festival is merely representing a global trend where, cinematically speaking, international boundaries are blurring.

Not only are Hollywood films starting to do more business abroad than at home, foreign-language films are becoming mainstream in domestic theaters.

Even more telling, movies with big American stars such as "Babel" and "Syriana" are tackling international stories. Foreign-born filmmakers such as Ang Lee ("Brokeback Mountain") and Guillermo del Toro ("Pan's Labyrinth") come to America to make Hollywood movies but also return to film in their native tongue and country.

"Good stories"

Take Marc Forster, a German-born director who grew up in Switzerland, studied film at New York University, made acclaimed movies such as "Monster's Ball" and "Finding Neverland" and has now tackled a multigenerational story set in Afghanistan with "The Kite Runner," the closing-night film for Heartland.

"I think there's something going on in the world, and in the world of film, that we've been doing for 16 years," Sparks said.

"End of the Spear" is a good example of that. Heartland's 2005 Grand Prize winner told the tale of a violent encounter between American missionaries and Ecuadorian tribesmen that ultimately led to forgiveness and redemption.

Bill Ewing, a writer/producer on the film, was pleased that a Midwestern festival would give its top prize to a movie that's largely subtitled and told from the perspective of the tribe, not the Americans.

"People are looking for good stories. And they really could care less about the point of origin," Ewing said.

Heartland On Demand

The story is getting out about Heartland.

In July, Bright House Networks launched Heartland On Demand, a special channel available to its digital cable subscribers in Marion and Hendricks counties, Zionsville, Carmel and other outlying communities.

The free service allows viewers to watch 10 past Crystal Heart-winning films plus trailers from this year's festival on Channel 627. All told, there are 28 titles and 12 hours of programming.

"This is the only cable system in the country that has a local film festival highlighted on demand like this," said Buz Nesbit, Indiana division president for Bright House.

He and Sparks hinted that if the channel performs well, it could spread to other markets across the country. Nesbit declined to divulge specifics but said that if the numbers for Heartland On Demand were plotted on a graph, so far "it has just hockey-sticked up."

On Tuesday, Heartland announced a partnership with Disney and Best Buy for a new promotion. Sixteen Disney films that have received the "Truly Moving Picture" designation from Heartland will be discounted in special kiosks at 80 to 90 of the electronic superstores in nine Midwestern states, starting today.

The "Truly Moving Picture" is an award given outside the regular festival to movies that meet Heartland's mission of promoting films that highlight the best of the human spirit. Started five years ago, it's become a vital way to spread the festival's logo, which is prominently displayed on movie posters and DVDs.

Mike Tollin, who brought Dakota Fanning and "Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story" to Heartland two years ago, said the "TMP" designation is a way of helping parents worried about the media choices their kids are making.

Tollin's success dovetails with the evolution of Heartland. He and partner Brian Robbins won a Crystal Heart Award at the second Heartland festival with their documentary "Hardwood Dreams." They used the $5,000 prize money to transfer the video to film, which allowed them to enter it in the Sundance Film Festival.

Their showing there attracted the attention of Denzel Washington's production company, which led to an Oscar-nominated documentary about Hank Aaron.

Tollin jokingly refers to Sparks as the "godfather" of their production company and says he never misses a chance to talk up Heartland to emerging filmmakers.

"In the back of my mind there is a sense of the potential of film, the power in film, the other agenda beyond the commercial," he said. "As I get further into my career... that part becomes a great deal more significant. I find myself more and more doing films that are Heartland-appropriate."