ASHLAND INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL

It’s wild how many feature films I’ve seen since the pandemic began, while attending and engorging myself on the selections of virtual film festivals. Just since June of 2021, I’ve seen over 80 features at the virtual editions of Cannes, Toronto, AFI Docs, Tribeca and the documentary festivals in Sheffield, England and Camden, New Jersey. There’s no “screen fatigue” setting in for me, which means, I guess, that I’m in the right profession. It helps to have a video projector and a large screen to differentiate the movies from the monitor I’m facing the rest of the day.

At AFI Docs, I saw a wonderful movie, STORM LAKE, that ended up taking their audience award for Best Documentary Feature and is coming to our “Best of the Fests” monthly virtual series from October 15-21. It’s a cinema verité immersion in the day-to-day struggles of a small-town, family-run newspaper, the Storm Lake Times. Editor Art Cullen got a Pulitzer Prize for investigating a local Big Agriculture conspiracy in 2017, and his muckraking journalism hardly endears him to powerful forces in his community. But his fight to preserve his paper and continue to serve his community with locally oriented, investigative journalism is inspiring.

When the credits came up at the end, I recognized the name of the co-director, Beth Levison, whom I had met when we wound up sitting next to each other during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. I had admired and pursued a film she produced, 32 PILLS, and we had a great rapport, and have stayed in touch. I was reminded about what I miss most about non-virtual festivals—the live connections that have been so important in my life.

In 2013, I was teaching and programming films at the University of Oregon in Eugene, when I was invited by Executive Director Anne Ashbey to come check out AIFF. I sat down in the Armory at a screening of Lucy Walker’s THE CRASH REEL, and the person sitting next to me turned out to be a video producer and former AIFF board member, Brooke DeBoer. Brooke was extremely friendly and deeply enamored of this festival. Her enthusiasm made a strong impression on me and contributed to my decision to leave Eugene for Ashland when the Director of Programming job became available.  

Brooke is now one among many AIFF supporters whom I have befriended and will miss when I head to my new home in Maryland in early November. But I expect to sit next to many of you again when I come back for AIFF2022 next April, when I will present a few special programs and attend many others LIVE.