Easthampton Film Festival returns for second yearDate: 5/16/2023 EASTHAMPTON — After a fruitful inaugural run, the Easthampton Film Festival has returned for its second year of showcasing up-and-coming filmmakers from all over the world.
“We added in some workshops this year and we’re spreading [the festival] out across multiple weekends,” said Chris Ferry, the founder and organizer of the festival.
Ferry began the festival in 2022 as a way for independent filmmakers across the region, country and world to display their independent films to the public across four different locations within the Easthampton community. After moving to Easthampton from New York in 2020, Ferry was destined to form a connection with the local filmmaking community and spearhead a festival that otherwise did not exist at the time.
“I wanted to get involved in stuff that I was excited about … where I could meet other people,” Ferry told Reminder Publishing at the time of the festival’s inception.
The first festival occurred during Memorial Day weekend in 2022, but Ferry said he wanted to change it up this year where screenings occur across multiple weekends throughout the month of May to accommodate people who may travel on Memorial Day weekend. The flexible schedule now allows people to attend multiple screenings across multiple weekends.
“One thing about Memorial Day weekend is people do a lot of traveling,” Ferry said. “So, I thought if we did it earlier and spread it out a little bit, I might get people to say, ‘I’d actually like to come to see three or four of the screenings.’”
The festival this year occurs from May 12 to May 26 with independent film screenings occurring at Abandoned Building Brewery, Easthampton Media, Luthier’s Co-op, New City Brewery and The Marigold Theater. Much like last year, the films showcased come from filmmakers that live as close as Amherst and Easthampton to as far away as Turkey and France.
After receiving close to 80 submissions last year, Ferry said around 100 filmmakers submitted their films for consideration this year. Thirty of those will showcase at this year’s festival, according to Ferry.
On May 19, four dramatic shorts will be shown at the E-Media studio, three of which are by local filmmakers. May 20, meanwhile, will feature “all ages” short films at The Marigold, which are films suitable for younger children and their families. Films from that day come from Boston, Turkey, Maine and New York. Talkbacks with the filmmakers will occur immediately following the films for both days.
The festival continues on May 21 at Luthier’s Co-op with a showing of “American Justice on Trial: People vs. Newton,” directed by Oakland natives Andrew Abrahams and Herb Ferrette, and then May 25 at Abandoned Building Brewery with a showing of “Greyland,” by Ohio director Alexandra Sciotte-Lévesque. The latter film tells the story of the fastest shrinking city in the U.S., Youngstown.
According to Ferry, the festival culminates with a free networking event and festival party at The Marigold on May 26, where the filmmakers and the broader public are invited to make connections and celebrate the festival.
“I like that this festival is a balance of about half the rest of the U.S. and the rest of the world and half local/regional,” Ferry said, of the films. “That aspect of the festival has remained the same.”
Accompanying the festival this year is ways in which the community can connect on deeper levels and gain access to filmmaking tools. Aside from the free networking event, the public was able to join workshops spearheaded by Easthampton Film Festival and E-Media, including one called “The Art of the Interview and Conversation” workshop that runs from May 18 to June 13.
With that workshop, award-winning filmmaker Patricia Montoya will teach students how to create, research and analyze the process of producing scripted, story-based, socially-engaged, non-fiction video shorts. The festival also conducted a “Short Screenwriting 101” class as well as a “Documentary Filmmaking” workshop.
“The participants are able to meet at E-Media to use E-Media’s equipment,” Ferry said, of the workshops. “Our mission in the community really overlaps a lot with E-Media in terms of promoting people doing digital media, having access to it, and really going out there to celebrate and support each other’s work.”
As for the free networking event and festival party, Ferry said the goal with that is to form a more connective tissue between the local film community and forge relationships with like-minded creatives.
“I think it’s important to have a social networking event for people involved in the local indie film community to have an excuse to come and meet each other,” Ferry said. “It could be photographers, sound people, directors, writers, actors…that want to develop a personal relationship. Film is a super collaborative art form that it is absurd to have an interesting and thriving film community in the valley, and have some of these folks not know that other folks are also here doing the same thing.”
To learn more about the festival and workshops, visit easthamptonfilmfestival.com/2023program.
Screenings are $5 each, and the networking event is free.
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