Metro Roundup: For the love of film: Sidewalk Film Festival back for 24th year of celebrating the art of movies

The Sidewalk Film Festival will return for its 24th year later this month. Held in downtown Birmingham’s Theatre District, the festival will take place the week of Aug. 22-28.

Over 250 films will be screened throughout the weekend, including shorts, documentaries and narrative features. Venues throughout the theater district will include Sidewalk Film Center and Cinema, the Alabama Theatre, the Lyric Theatre, the Carver Theatre, First Church Birmingham, the Alabama School of Fine Arts Dorothy Jemison Day Theatre, Recital Hall and Lecture Hall and the Steiner Auditorium at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Sidewalk recently received some national recognition. The festival was named one of “20 Great Film Festivals for First Time Filmmakers” by MovieMaker magazine in June.

An excerpt from moviemaker.com read, “This delightfully film-mad festival is just the highlight of a year-round commitment to film by the Sidewalk Film Center, a Southern film palace known for deliciously so-called high and low culture and finding the best of both. Renowned as it is for great programming, Sidewalk has a fairly welcoming submission-to-acceptance ratio, and it represents a diehard film community any movie maker should want to be a part of. Also, if you hold any narrow-minded, over-generalized opinions about all Alabamans, attending Sidewalk will cure that.”

Chloe Cook, executive director of Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema, believes the event is a success due to the energy and effort the staff puts into crafting a "summer camp" environment for visiting and local filmmakers.

“We work really hard to make sure our filmmakers have the opportunity to go beyond basic networking during the festival and truly have the chance to get to know other filmmakers whom they could work with one day,” Cook said.

Director of Education and Community Outreach Jessica Chriesman added, “I think we have a good place for people who [have] films at all levels. People can submit to Sidewalk and be accepted to Sidewalk and meet filmmakers of all pedigrees, which I think is really cool.”

Sidewalk’s mission

Chriesman said the broad mission of Sidewalk is allowing people to share their stories both locally and with the world.

“I think a lot of the things we see about Alabama in the media, whether it’s a documentary or a fictional piece, are not usually seen in the most flattering light,” Chriesman said. “The programs at Sidewalk have the ability to empower people so they can share their stories that are not a stereotype or what generally comes to mind when people think of Alabama. They may fancy themselves a creative person but maybe they don’t know what is the best way to write a script or how can you share your story in a way that will resonate with people. The programs at Sidewalk can help do that and change the perspective of other people about Alabama.”

Cook added that another part of the mission of Sidewalk is to encourage filmmaking in Alabama, by Alabamians, and to build media-literate, savvy audiences.

“We work towards these goals by not only hosting the annual film festival and by running our cinema week to week, but by hosting a wide range of educational programs for kids, teens and adults, covering anything from film criticism and appreciation to special effects make-up and everything in between,” Cook said.

Education and community outreach

Another goal of Sidewalk is to educate and nurture the next generation of filmmaking talent in Alabama. They’ve offered classes in screenwriting, cameras, special effects and makeup in order to bring variety to local filmmakers.

“We are also trying to have some programming for kids and younger people so they can start thinking critically about what they’re watching, and even start them coming to Sidewalk,” Chriesman said.

The community outreach and education programs are so important because they believe that media literacy is an essential element of a healthy community, and that being exposed to new ideas and perspectives is an essential element of personal growth and community progress, Cook said.

“Beyond these larger, loftier goals, we believe in the importance of a diverse economy and a thriving film and media community should be a part of that for our state,” she said.

Sidewalk Salons will also return this year after a hiatus during the peak of the pandemic. Held once a month, a filmmakers happy hour is held to discuss the projects they are working on.

About the films

Rachel Morgan, creative director for Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema, has been with Sidewalk for 16 years. She said that they strive to have diverse film offerings, bringing titles that are going to sell tickets but also balancing that with interesting, innovative, provocative work that might not otherwise make it to Birmingham.

“During the pandemic, we included a lot of ‘blockbuster’-type titles, but we are now leaning away from that,” she said. “We really do a little of everything: documentaries, narratives, small films and big indies.”

Attendance varies depending on the film, and films going straight to video on demand (VOD) increased with the pandemic, which also impacts attendance. Morgan said films that only open theatrically tend to do better than those that are available online.

“We have great success with special event programming, such as Bad Movie Night,” she said. “I'd say that we still struggle with Birmingham audiences supporting smaller indie films even when they aren't on VOD — part of our programming mission is to help build audiences for such titles.”

Organizers know that it’s impossible to have something for everyone, but believe that the closer they get to achieving it, the better. They strive to expand on film screenings to include other elements like give-aways, special guests or musical performances.

Cook said they want the cinema space to be a place for everyone, and they hope to show films and have programs that appeal, in some part, to a wide variety of people, whether they be filmmakers or just film lovers.

“We want to be sure that people in the community know that Sidewalk exists and that we are a space where they can come and hang out on a Friday night and grab a drink and watch a movie, or they can rent it out for their birthday party,” Cook said. “We want people who would love to know that we exist, to actually know that we exist, and also do more school and youth-oriented programming as well.”

Post-Covid cinema and safety protocols

This will be the 14th festival for Cook. Before Covid, she said attendance at the festival averaged between 13,000 and 15,000 people. During last year’s event, attendance was limited to 50% of venue capacity to provide a safer environment for guests, so both attendance and ticket sales were lower than pre-Covid years.

This year, planned Covid safety protocols will be limited to providing complimentary masks and hand sanitizer at all venues. However, Sidewalk reserves the right to alter those plans based on local case counts and guidance from public health officials.

“I'm excited about returning to a full-scale festival after two years of altered formats due to Covid,” Cook said.   

Chriesman screened a student film, one of her very first projects, at Sidewalk and said it’s exciting getting to work there.

“Sidewalk nurtured me when I really didn't know what I was doing, and now I can help other people figure out how they can best make films and tell their own stories,” she said. “To be working here and helping other people get their work seen is really cool.”

An interactive schedule is available at: sidewalk24.sched.com/  or on the app. For all the information on the festival, visit sidewalkfest.com.

Feature Films

The first nine official feature selections include:

► “Mija”: From Disney and Nat Geo, the movie follows Doris Muñoz, a young Mexican-American woman working as a music talent manager for a hot new artist and providing a key source of income for her undocumented parents and her brother, who has been deported.

► “The Automat”: A fond remembrance of Horn & Hardart, a more-than-100-year-old chain of popular fast food restaurants at which customers would select a menu item from rows of coin-operated, windowed compartments and eat their meals at communal tables.

► “A Walk With Joey”: A documentary about Joey Hale, who survived a brain tumor at a very young age and defied all odds to mount a recovery, thanks to some needed inspiration from his beloved football team, the San Diego Chargers, and a close friendship with former Auburn player Lionel “Little Train” James.

► “The Sun Rises in the East”: A documentary from Black Lens that features the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1969, when prominent Black activists and educators founded The East, a pan-African cultural organization established to enrich the lives of children and promote Black self-determination.

► “The Thief Collector”: Set in 1985, a priceless painting was cut from its frame at the University of Arizona Museum of Art and stolen in broad daylight and resurfaced 32 years later.

► “Peace in the Valley”: The story of a young mother who is suddenly widowed when her husband is killed in an act of heroism during a mass shooting incident.

► “Funny Pages”: A young cartoonist drops out of school to make it on his own in Trenton, New Jersey. This movie gives a look at a subculture of comic book-obsessed young men.

► “The Integrity of Joseph Chambers”: Filmed in Alabama, this deeply tense thriller is about modern masculinity gone awry. A man fearful of imminent societal collapse seeks to prove he can make it on his own during a hunting trip.

► “Good Girl Jane”: A lonely teenage girl falls in with the wrong crowd when she meets a group of trendy friends and starts experimenting with drugs in the aftermath of her parents’ divorce.

Ticket Information

► VIP: All-access pass to the festival with access to all the films, parties and more. $195

► Weekend Pass: Access to all films, including the opening night film and after party. $65

► Day Pass: Choose from three different passes: Opening night film + party pass; Saturday day pass or Sunday day pass. $30

► Premium Single Tickets: A limited number sold for each film block. $15

► Festival Spotlight Series: Special films from spotlight categories such as Alabama Filmmakers, Life + Liberty, SHOUT and Black Lens. $15 (VIP passholders can add for $5)

► General admission tickets: Only sold during festival weekend at onsite box offices. $10

Getting Around

► Street parking: Available throughout the festival footprint, street parking is free after 5 p.m. on weekdays and all day/evening on Saturday and Sunday.

► Surface Lot and Garage Parking: There are several privately owned parking lots available throughout the festival footprint, but rates and terms vary.

► Shuttles: Complimentary shuttle service provided by AIDS Alabama will travel between the south end of the festival footprint and the north end. Two shuttles will run continuously from 10 a.m. to midnight Saturday, Aug. 24, and from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 25.

– Former Community Editor Jesse Chambers contributed to this report.

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