The success of the Milwaukee Film Festival has long roots and has grown remarkably in recent years. But 2014 was the year of reaching critical mass. The festival seemed to be everywhere, and not only because it had expanded to seven venues. Word of the event was inescapable. Attendance shot up sixteen percent over 2013.
“It’s not just ticket sales but membership,” says the festival’s executive and artistic director Jonathan Jackson. “Our membership base is larger than the Chicago International Film Festival,” adds Blyth Meier, marketing director. Over 3,000 people have signed on as members.
Chicago may have size, but in a competition for top Midwest film festival, Milwaukee has advantages. “When I take a visiting filmmaker to the Oriental for the first time, jaws drop,” Meier says. “In Chicago, the venue is a multiplex. It’s a very different experience. You can’t be in the audience at the Oriental without feeling special.”
While the eclectic Orientalism of East Side movie palace provides the hub, the Milwaukee festival can also spread out to fully functioning neighborhood cinemas, the Fox-Bay, Downer and Times. And unlike Chicago, a festival goer in Milwaukee can travel easily across town, catch a movie on the East Side in the late morning, in Whitefish Bay in the afternoon and the West Side in the evening.
The Milwaukee Film Festival has also built up its community partners program—micro sponsors for films of particular concern to ethnic or other special interest groups. “They are groups without lots of money but with lots of love,” Meier explains. “They bring enthusiasm to the screenings and fuel a spreading sense of engagement through the community.”
“In the beginning, the festival’s programming reflected where contemporary cinema was at. Now, we are hoping to come closer to the demographics of Milwaukee,” he says, explaining that this year’s Black Lens and Passport Mexico program tracks had the dual mission of presenting important films and reaching more diverse audiences. And by diversity, the festival also means diverse interests as well as ethnicity.
“Everybody today is so busy,” Jackson continues. “I want to understand how people make choices for the movies they want to see. With that in mind, we’ve developed programming brands: if you’re part of Milwaukee’s incredible food scene, you might be drawn to our Film Feast program; if you like music documentaries, horror, kids films, we have them. We want to give people many easy entry points into the festival.”
Challenging foreign films appeared at this year’s festival, along with a Mary Poppins’ sing-along and engaging Q&As with filmmakers. In a world where middle-class people can sit at home in front of a giant screen and summon a menu of even the most obscure films with a click of a mouse, Jackson cites the early days of motion pictures—when movies were often shown as part of Vaudeville shows or occupied an entire afternoon with newsreels, cartoons and two features—as a model for drawing moviegoers out of their dens and into the community. “A festival has to be an event experience,” he says.
The Milwaukee Film Festival screens movies for members throughout the year. Visit mkefilm.orgfor more information.
