Local Newswire Introducing the Mims Brothers

One of the highlights of film festival screenings are the short bumpers—mini films that typically espouse the general theme of the festival—that play before each film starts. They’re typically irreverent and hilarious, eschewing good taste in favor of making the audience laugh a little before settling into their two-and-a-half-hour-long Turkish drama about the life of a poor, orphaned refugee. If you caught any of the films that played throughout the 12-day-long Starz Denver Film Festival, then you no doubt caught one of the eight bumpers that came courtesy of local filmmakers the Mims Brothers.

The Mims Brothers are mysterious entities. If you head to their website, you’ll find no names or biographies, no self-promotion beyond their films, and only one e-mail address. “We don’t use our names, we don’t say [REDACTED] or [REDACTED] or anyone else involved,” they say. “We’re trying to make it a collective, collaborative process.”

That collaborative nature helped them become the “official” bumper producers for the 34th Starz Denver Film Festival. Through their work with the post-production house Postmodern, the Mims Brothers were tasked with producing the bumpers for this year’s festival, and produce they did. Shot primarily by Kim Shively of Eyeosaur Productions, a total of eight bumpers—ranging from Santa and Satan fighting in an elevator while a monkey watches to an animated war zone wherein Mother Russia “rolls out the red”—were affixed to dozens of films.

"Elevator"-Starz Denver Film Festival - promo bumper from The Mims Brothers on Vimeo.

Outside of the film festival, the Mims Brothers have their hands full with all manner of creative endeavors. They’ve been approached by a number of local acts to produce music videos, and are currently pitching ideas for more long-form narrative and episodic projects, including a travel-type show described as Jackass meets No Reservations. “It’ll be a departure from sketch, but it would be the same type of irreverence.” 

Given their obvious talents, one question stands out: Will the Mims Brothers ever do a feature film?

“We want to do a movie, but we’re kind of waiting for the right time,” they say. “Part of it is cashing in the chips. [We] like our sketch and short episodic stuff, and getting stuff done within two weeks sure feels good. [We’d] like to get traction with our smaller projects before widening our circle to movies. No one wants to make a bad movie, but it’s really easy to make a bad movie.”