Director’s Desk
By Richard Herskowitz, Artistic Director
It will be wonderful to be live again in late June.
Our staff has been planning these outdoor events for the past nine months. We got a crash course in virtual festival exhibition last May, when we were compelled by the pandemic to move from live to online. Pulling off part one of our “double feature” festival this April was a relative breeze. Now, we are coming back IRL, and we have to relearn live exhibition, this time in outdoor settings.
Our unexpected windfall was a grant from Travel Oregon to purchase the projection, sound and screen equipment that will allow us to mount big-screen outdoor events in late June and hopefully many times to follow. Having the full cooperation of our friends Erin Endress and Kevin Boog at ScienceWorks and Cameron Litton at Walkabout Brewing Company is the other great benefit we’ve received.
Our greatest satisfaction is the opportunity to utilize the window and theater in our AIFF Film Center on Main Street for events. We moved into the Film Center in January of 2020, planning to make it our hub for the April live festival, and exhibition space for screenings and workshops all year long. The pandemic halted these plans….although the Main Street window has given us an unexpected venue for exhibition.
For months, we have been presenting window displays created by our creative Systems Manager, Lisa Greene, complementing our virtual film showings. People love these. Now, we are turning the window into a studio and performance space, as animator/musician Jeremy Rourke will create his animations and perform them with his own live music June 24-28.
There is so much more in the live festival, including the belated arrival of Fanny: The Right To Rock in our program after it was originally scheduled for the live 2020 festival. Our 20th anniversary celebrations will kick off with fanfares written for us by the Rogue Valley Symphony on opening night and culminate with a “CineMasque”—an open-air party with costumes, music, and film on closing night, celebrating the 20th anniversary of both AIFF and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Ticket availability is limited, but I hope to see you there!
It will be wonderful to be live again in late June.
Our staff has been planning these outdoor events for the past nine months. We got a crash course in virtual festival exhibition last May, when we were compelled by the pandemic to move from live to online. Pulling off part one of our “double feature” festival this April was a relative breeze. Now, we are coming back IRL, and we have to relearn live exhibition, this time in outdoor settings.
Our unexpected windfall was a grant from Travel Oregon to purchase the projection, sound and screen equipment that will allow us to mount big-screen outdoor events in late June and hopefully many times to follow. Having the full cooperation of our friends Erin Endress and Kevin Boog at ScienceWorks and Cameron Litton at Walkabout Brewing Company is the other great benefit we’ve received.
Our greatest satisfaction is the opportunity to utilize the window and theater in our AIFF Film Center on Main Street for events. We moved into the Film Center in January of 2020, planning to make it our hub for the April live festival, and exhibition space for screenings and workshops all year long. The pandemic halted these plans….although the Main Street window has given us an unexpected venue for exhibition.
For months, we have been presenting window displays created by our creative Systems Manager, Lisa Greene, complementing our virtual film showings. People love these. Now, we are turning the window into a studio and performance space, as animator/musician Jeremy Rourke will create his animations and perform them with his own live music June 24-28.
There is so much more in the live festival, including the belated arrival of Fanny: The Right To Rock in our program after it was originally scheduled for the live 2020 festival. Our 20th anniversary celebrations will kick off with fanfares written for us by the Rogue Valley Symphony on opening night and culminate with a “CineMasque”—an open-air party with costumes, music, and film on closing night, celebrating the 20th anniversary of both AIFF and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Ticket availability is limited, but I hope to see you there!
