The event has humbleorigins as a simple gathering of friends wanting to share their work with oneanother each week. Koch and Monaghan, who recently won Milwaukee’s 48 Hour FilmProject 2009, were inspired to make their get-togethers public, so they rentedBay View’s Alchemist Theatre and managed to pull in 50 people for an evening ofshort film screenings. By the third event, the audience nearly doubled, provingto Koch and Monaghan that Milwaukeeis home to more filmmakers than they imagined. Because of the supportiveenvironment of the festival, the exposure it provides for its artists and itsability to connect a director with compatible collaborators, such as a musicianto compose a film’s score, Firestarter Films’ events are experiencingphenomenal growth.
Koch and Monaghanshow between 20 and 30 short films at each event, allowing time betweenscreenings so attendees can discuss what they just saw. Critique sheets arehanded out before the screenings and given directly to the filmmakers later inthe evening. Because Firestarter Films doesn’t screen submitted filmsbeforehand, the event can be wildly unpredictable. Artists can arrive the nightof the festival with a DVD in hand and have it playedthey just need to havethe guts to personally introduce their work of staggering genius to theaudience.
To accommodate theirgrowing numbers, Koch and Monaghan moved the festival in August to bigger digsat Live Artists Studio in Walker'sPoint. In November, 175 people attended Firestarters’ one-year anniversarycelebration to watch 26 local films. This Friday, Jan. 15, Firestarter Filmswill be hosting its seventh festival. While the program’s agenda is somewhat ofa mystery, Monaghan did challenge fellow filmmakers at the last event toextrapolate on a short film he and Koch made called Brookfield.A parody of the film Cloverfield, theshort film begins when an unseen monster rises from Lake Michigan, grabs the signature orange sculpture at the foot of Wisconsin Avenueand heaves it into the side of Borders (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D5QNEDSFGg).
“The plan is to haveeveryone moving forward together,” Monaghan explains. “The great thing aboutFirestarter is that you can utilize it to reach your maximum potential… youjust have to be motivated enough to do it.”
Live Artists Studio is located at 228 S. First St. There isa $5 cover for the Jan. 15 event. Networking begins at 6 p.m. and films will bescreened at 7 p.m. For more information, visit www.firestarterfilms.com.
