![]() ![]() on Thursday, May 20, so it’s theoretically possible for someone who has the time to see every film, or at least a lot more than usual. This year, any film will be available for viewing for the whole festival week, starting at 10 a.m. At the in-person festival, with one-time viewings and venues that can be scattered across town, it’s not feasible for a fest-goer to be able to see every film. However, there are silver linings to the online route. Nonetheless, Reiser says “it’s heartbreaking” not to have that in-person camaraderie and joie de vivre that veteran Wisconsin Film Festival-goers love, like chatting with strangers in line, seeing the fest trailer for the first time (and the somewhat less joyous experience of seeing it for the seventh or eighth time), and experiencing the stirring films that have packed the Union Theater, like RBG or Knock Down the House, where there doesn’t seem to be a dry eye in the house.Īnother downside, Reiser notes (and one that frustrates fellow programmers Jim Healy and Mike King), is that the festival has little control over how these films will be seen and on what devices and under what conditions, whereas it has always taken pains to show films under the best projection situations possible. There are 37 Wisconsin films this year 30 are shorts and seven are feature-length. While organizers decided to reduce the overall number of films (to 115) to keep things more manageable, the entries for Wisconsin’s Own films were so strong they decided to keep the number of these about the same. ![]() “Even if we managed to attract 5,000 people, which would have been our biggest crowd ever, it still seems we could have had social distancing.” But organizers couldn’t get officials to commit by the time the festival needed to rent a screen and digital projection equipment.Īdditionally, Reiser says he discovered that “drive-in theater owners are all snowbirds they all go to Florida for the winter and none of them have any interest in coming back to Wisconsin before Memorial Day.”īut, he adds, “We found a way to pull together a really great festival.” The content is as strong as ever. “We had big dreams of doing a couple of nights of films at Camp Randall,” says Reiser. They investigated booking an outdoor drive-in theater, and even Camp Randall. ![]() SILVER SCREEN MADISON FULLScheduled for April 2-9, 2020, it was too close to the beginning of the pandemic shutdown to pivot to full online showings (although some selections were streamed free for limited times).Įven so, for 2021, festival organizers moved the traditional fest dates from April to May in hopes of being able to hold some kind of in-person outdoor event for even a few films. “As hard as we tried, we could not get commitments from campus that they would let us do an in-person festival of any kind.” “We weren’t happy about it, but we had two choices this year: Not do a festival, or do it online,” says Ben Reiser, director of operations. While the decision to take the 2021 Wisconsin Film Festival online only wasn’t an easy one, it was perhaps the only one. Clair, Lux, Victory, Astor, Oakwood, Broadway, Town Cinema, Oriole, International Cinema, Bay, Ace, Photodrome, Bedford, Hudson, Park, Belsize, Royal George, Oakwood, Vaughan, Scarboro, Donlands, Scotiabank, Paradise, State, Beach, Madison, Shea’s Hippodrome, Downtown, Willow,Metro, Kingsway, Royal, Runnymede, State, Hollywood and many others.One of the rituals of the Wisconsin Film Fest is collecting fest buttons, and this year will be no exception. Imperial, Loew’s Uptown and Loew’s Downtown, University, Odeon Humber, Odeon Fairlawn, Odeon Hyland, Odeon Danforth, Tivoli, Nortown, Biltmore, Eglinton, Kent, Colony, Grant, Paramount, St. Theatres in this book include the Odeon Carlton. Relive the days of these wonderful theatres, through anecdotes from those who attended them. The publication explores 50 of Toronto’s old theatres with more than 80 archival photographs, both archival and modern, depicting the facades, marquees and interiors of these theatres. SILVER SCREEN MADISON MOVIEThe story of the old movie houses of the city, from the early days of the nickelodeons to the grand movie palaces that followed them. Toronto’s Theatres and the Golden Age of the Silver Screen ![]()
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