Haymaker Film Festival is a celebration of action cinema, filmmakers, and stunt performers. Our mission is to challenge the notion that action cinema is lowbrow or unsophisticated. We assert that it's as worthy an art form as any other, that story is not strictly confined to the lines of a script, that a noteworthy performance is not limited to line delivery. While film actors work to hone their skills or chase prestige in theater, stunt performers are often world-class martial artists or acrobats that have spent a lifetime refining their physical abilities. Despite obstacles and injuries, they push on to create something aggressively beautiful. In the pursuit of contributing to the global language of action, they fight.

Year One of Haymaker Film Festival featured a suite of 15 short films from filmmakers across the globe: the World Premiere of Night Shift, from Germany-based director and star Lorenz Hideyoshi Ruwwe; Prevail, from Filipino-American filmmaker Ryan Dalan; United Kingdom's Brawler, from Bulent Ozlarusso; as well as Waterlogged and Ace of Spades, both from local, Utah-based filmmakers.

It is clear that action cinema transcends both language and borders. Reduced to its most basic form, action is conflict in motion — and there is no story without conflict.