PHOTOGRAPH BY ANNA CZARNOTA
ALWAYS FOR PLEASURE
December, 2019 / New Orleans, Louisiana
/ alwaysforpleasure.org
Les Blank and Dr. John are gone, but
there’s still crawfish to eat and culture
oozing from every corner in New Orleans.
One shining example is the work of
Court 13 Arts, a Big Easy-based multidis-
ciplinary art-making collective and pro-
duction company known for their team
having co-produced 2012’s dreamlike ode
to bayou life Beasts of the Southern Wild.
More recently they inaugurated a movie-
maker-curated showcase fest, Always
for Pleasure, and its reputation has only
grown. Five raucous days of movies, music,
art, and performance partially contained
in the historic Orpheum Theater (a stage
for vaudeville and silent movies back in the
day) it serves as an outlet for local talent
and showcase for Court 13’s artist-in-resi-
dence installations. As one panelist notes,
the festival is “a DIY art explosion” and
“a filmmaker-spawned fest based out of
a compound arts warehouse that includes
parades and game shows—fun and sort
of lawless.” If that isn’t wild enough, they’re
offering something this year described as
“the world’s first karaoke flotilla.”BENDFILM FESTIVAL
October 10-13, 2019 / Bend, Oregon /
bendfilm.org
Having written previously about the indie
film haven of Ashland, Oregon, with its
increasing population of working mov-
iemakers, we now invite you to look 200
miles north to the mountain town of Bend,
with its evergreen forests, clear mountain
lakes, and the BendFilm Festival, now in its
16th year. Supported by an arts community
that loves its craft beer (23 local brewer-
ies at last check) and able to dole out cash
prizes to winning moviemakers despite
being a single-weekend fest, BendFilm is
a natural crowd pleaser. Recent years have
seen panel discussions on how to pitch
a project and the ins and outs of documen-
tary storytelling, and last year’s competi-
tion had a 50 percent ratio of films directed
by women. (Don’t be surprised to see
movie studio scouts in attendance.) The
pride of the fest is its Future Filmmakers
program, founded in 2006 and open to
Central Oregon students. Says one panel-
ist: “The audiences are some of the most
engaged you’ll find and have led to some
of the best Q&As I’ve ever seen. Films
are shown in their historic movie theater
downtown and even inside a craft brewery.
You feel like you’re in a utopian bubble.”BORSCHT FILM FESTIVAL
Spring 2020 / Miami, Florida / borsc.ht
Miami-based Borscht Corp. is a non-profit
that creates shorts and videos and show-
cases them at the bi-annual Borscht Film
Festival, a week-long affair that exists
“to tell Miami stories that go beyond the
typical portrayal of a beautiful but vapid
party town.” In fact, Borscht’s films have
screened at Cannes, Tribeca, Sundance,
and even at the Guggenheim in NYC. The
festival’s desire to continually up its artis-
tic game is matched only by its determi-
nation to put on the most memorable,
creative events, which in past years have
included a cinematic bike trail though
Miami’s Wynwood district, an amusement
park with a VR playground, and a “fake
Criterion” release party. Adds one panel-
ist: “These guys are on everyone’s radar,
but I’m always impressed how each fes-
tival is both different and a step up from
the previous one.”CRESTED BUTTE FILM FESTIVAL
September 26-29, 2019 /
Crested Butte, Colorado / cbfilmfest.org
Advertised as being “four beautiful hours
southwest of Denver,” this boutique
festival includes a focus on the restorative
properties of cinema immersion combined
with bikes, hikes, and mountain views.
Sample the fest’s traditional narrative
and doc categories mixed in with more
narrowcast genres like children’s film and
outdoor adventure film, all screened at
venues within walking distance of each
other. You may also be interested in the
Trailhead Children’s Museum, a dynamic
camp environment with activities designed
to foster youthful interest in the creativearts. One panelist notes: “When you end
up playing glow-in-the-dark ultimate fris-
bee at 3 a.m. in a soggy field with the real-
life Warren Lipka from American Animals
and go back to your hotel in the wee hours
bruised and mud-caked, you know you’ll
want to come back to this one.”MILLENNIUM DOCS AGAINST
GRAVITY FILM FESTIVAL
May 2020 / Warsaw, Poland / mdag.pl
“We encourage you to FREE YOUR MIND!”
implores the charming website for the 16th
annual Millennium Docs Against Gravity fes-
tival, the largest doc film festival in Poland
(and the country’s first to organize a feature
documentary competition, in 2008). Taking
place across six Polish cities (Warsaw,
Wrocław, Lublin, Gdynia, Katowice, and
Bydgoszcz) in late spring, the festival’s most
recent iteration boasted 160 film screen-
ings attended by 65,000 patrons. A further
19 cities were since added to the festival’s
reach with its “Weekend with Millennium
Docs Against Gravity” selection showcase
of the fest’s best offerings. Recalls one pan-
elist: “Am I a little biased because I won four
awards from this festival with cash prizes?
Maybe. Am I surprised that on my last night
in Warsaw the festival staff ended up back
in my hotel room finishing off bottles of
bison grass vodka and watching the sun
rise? Maybe not.”D O K U F E ST
August 2-10, 2019 / Prizren, Kosovo /
dokufest.com
For documentary connoisseurs, DokuFest,
now in its 18th year, offers a uniquely envi-
able competition slate of nonfiction. The
bounty of over 100 documentaries as well
as shorts and experimental subjects rep-
resenting over 40 countries are meticu-
lously curated into programs including:
human rights docs, green docs, Balkan-
focused docs, and docs of international
interest. Other specialty curations include
the festival’s “View From the World” strand
and its “Truth” strand: these are multidisci-
plinary mood pieces coupled with outdoor
exhibitions, artist talks, workshops and
live music performances to create a full-
sensory thematic experience. A panelist
notes: “Few festivals get as much right as
DokuFest does. Their programming team
brings some of the best films of the year to
a small town in Kosovo, where international
filmmakers, industry, and locals gather to
watch.” We haven’t even gotten into the
late-night parties where Mykki Blanco and
Princess Nokia have performed.LJUBO STEFANOV (R) RECEIVES THE BANK MILLENNIUM
GRAND PRIX AWARD IN MILLENNIUM DOCS AGAINST GRAVITY
FILM FESTIVAL 2019’S MAIN COMPETITION FOR HONEYLAND,
WHICH HE CO-DIRECTED WITH TAMARA KOTEVSKAMOVIEMAKER.COM SUMMER 2019 37