Welcome to Behind the Fest, Backstage’s questionnaire series with film festival figures who want to get your work selected and seen. With behind-the-scenes insight from the men and women at Sundance, TIFF, Cannes, and more, their tips might just hold the key to your indie film success story!
Founded in 1963, the Ann Arbor Film Festival is North America’s oldest festival featuring experimental filmmaking. This year, the renowned Michigan fest is conducting an experiment of its own.
“Due to growing health concerns surrounding the COVID-19 virus, we made the decision to suspend all in-person events for the 58th AAFF and instead present short and feature films in competition entirely online,” they announced March 17. The digital event will be livestreamed over the original AAFF dates, March 24–29.
How the Entertainment Industry Is Dealing With Coronavirus—the Latest
This switcheroo is good news for far-flung cineasts. Through Vimeo they can tune in for free, both to the movies and post-screening Q&As with filmmakers. To see what kind of work they should expect, we turned to AAFF executive director Leslie Raymond. She discusses the fest’s history (which includes films by Andy Warhol and George Lucas), what sets it apart, and the ins and outs of the submission process.
Tell us about the festival.
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the oldest avant-garde and experimental film festival in North America, founded by George Manupelli in 1963. Internationally recognized as a premiere forum for independent filmmakers and artists, each year’s festival engages audiences with remarkable cinematic experiences. The six-day festival presents 40 programs with more than 180 films from over 20 countries of all lengths and genres, including experimental, animation, documentary, fiction, and performance-based works.
Thousands of influential filmmakers and artists have exhibited early work at the AAFF, including Kenneth Anger, Brian De Palma, Agnes Varda, Andy Warhol, Gus Van Sant, Barbara Hammer, George Lucas, Les Blank, Matthew Buckingham, and James Benning.
The Ann Arbor Film Festival receives more than 3,000 submissions annually from more than 65 countries and serves as one of a handful of Academy Award-qualifying festivals in the United States. Our awards program presents more than $22,000 in cash and film stock or services to filmmakers.
During its first four decades, the festival solely exhibited works finished on 16mm. The AAFF remains committed to the exhibition of this medium among other formats, including expanded cinematic forms.
In addition to exhibiting over 100 new films in juried competition programs each year, the AAFF presents filmmaker retrospectives, gallery installations, panel discussions, historic and thematic surveys, and contemporary artist programs.
Why was it founded? What distinguishes it from other film fests?
Our founder George Manupelli saw that things were happening with experimental film in NYC and San Francisco. 1963 was the heyday for this kind of work, and scenes on the east and west coasts were very happening. He thought that he could make something happen in the Midwest, and here we are 58 years later! Ann Arbor was a hotspot for avant-garde music, and the ONCE group was active at that time as well.
The mission of the Ann Arbor Film Festival is to promote bold, visionary filmmakers through the advancement of film and new media art, and to engage communities with remarkable cinematic experiences.
Tell us about the selection process. What do you look for when evaluating submitted films?
We give each and every film entered into our festival equal and full consideration. Your film will be reviewed by two different people from our enthusiastic cadre of AAFF volunteers—folks who love and attend the festival and can’t get enough of the films we show. They are on the lookout for the AAFF vibe, range, and visual and philosophical aesthetic. We are an experimental and avant-garde festival, so we are looking for films that push the medium beyond the mainstream techniques, subject matter, and aesthetics.
If the first two reviewers are in disagreement, then one of our trusted advisors (a maker, teacher, writer, or longstanding reviewer) has a look. About a quarter of works evaluated in the first round move on for further consideration by the advisor group, and half of those go on for final deliberation by the program director (and any others who are programming). They may pull any film at any time for additional review.
A listing of films set aside from the first round is seen by our advisory board (an entity different from the screening advisors). Alumni films from the first round are also revisited.
When and how should filmmakers submit their work to the festival?
AAFF [2021] is open for submissions July 1 through September 30, 2020. Filmmakers can submit directly through the AAFF website as well as on FilmFreeway.
What are the benefits for a filmmaker of submitting to your festival?
When a competing film is selected for the festival, it is seen in the historic Michigan Theater. Short films in competition screenings take place in the gorgeous 1920s 1,700-seat movie palace, and feature films generally show in the lovely 200-seat screening room with state-of-the-art sound system.
Three seasoned and accomplished jurors will sit amongst the audience on a mission to distribute over $20,000 in awards such as Best International, Best LGBTQ, Most Technically Innovative, Best Sound Design, Best Regional, Funniest, and others. Short films that win Best of Festival, Best Animation, Best Narrative, and Best Documentary qualify for the Academy Awards. Additionally, a selection of awarded works and other “films of interest” are invited to be a part of the oldest film festival touring program as well as the AAFF DVD, for which the filmmakers are paid.
If your film is selected and you attend the festival, the Ann Arbor community will eagerly welcome you with housing and celebrate you all week long. There will be nourishing refreshments, enthusiastic viewing, and intelligent dialogue about your work, and you will have the opportunity to meet and make lasting relationships with other artists of our tribe.
What about the rest of the year? What else should we know about the festival?
The AAFF is a pioneer of the traveling film festival tour and each year presents short film programs at more than 35 cinematheques, universities, museums and artist-run centers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The Festival began publishing DVD anthologies in 2008, and has produced ten DVD collections with award-winning works available for home and educational viewing. The tour and DVD offer expanded exposure for AAFF filmmakers, who are also paid for their participation in both programs.
We also launched a monthly screening series last year and showed over half of the feature films from that year’s festival from May through October. We have dates to do the same again this year.
Check out Backstage’s film audition listings!