ASHLAND INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL

I came to Ashland in 2015 as Director of Programming, with 33 years of programming film societies and film festivals under my belt. I fell in love with the city and its film festival, beloved both by filmmakers and the crowds of devoted attendees. In 2017, I became Artistic and Executive Director, and shepherded the growth of AIFF’s educational programs, year-round programming, and move to an AIFF Film Center on East Main Street. Last July, I began my slow ascent to retirement, shedding the Executive Director role, and, as of November 1, will give up the Artistic Director designation as well.

To my great delight, AIFF has offered me a continuing role as curator of special programs, inviting me to organize and present “live cinema” programs at AIFF2022. From the media art shows I have co-curated at the Schneider Museum of Art for the past six years to the live music and film events such as the Fanny: The Right to Rock and Hedwig and the Angry Inch shows at ScienceWorks this past June, these multi-arts programs have offered me my greatest curatorial satisfactions. 

Before I leave town to return to the East Coast, where my wife and I will live closer to our families, I will launch AIFF’s newest educational program. Growing AIFF’s educational programs these past six years, from Teen Press to Family Day at ScienceWorks, has been very satisfying.  I will now teach the first 4-week class this October in AIFF’s new monthly Cinephile Institute, offering film history and appreciation classes to students and adult learners in the AIFF Film Center. Since we opened this amazing space, with a 50-seat screening room, gallery, lounge, and shop in February 2020, my vision of launching film series and classes in this space has been stalled—but no longer.

My October class, which will be followed by others I will help set up before I leave, will focus on the independent film genre I love the most, neo-neorealism. What is this strangely named genre? Sign up for my class, which will include weekly screenings plus my introductions and discussions, in early September, and find out!

And in September, prepare to enjoy the 13 international films I have selected for this year’s World Film Weeks, the seventh I have programmed.  This year’s festival will be hybrid—live at the Varsity Theater and online at Eventive.com. The program will be announced on August 25 in a preview presentation I will conduct online. I will also build the team of screeners and programmers who will start screening film submissions for AIFF2022, leaving the final selections to my successor.  If you are a film afficionado and want to review films for us, do drop me a line at richard@ashlandfilm.org. 

And then expect to see me back at AIFF2022 April 14-28, because I have some “live cinema” events already cooking, and I will be sorely missing my life in Ashland.