Reflecting on the Emerge Film Festival

Child of Grace Stars and Director in the Q&A after the film.

The second annual Emerge Film Festival has come and gone and I'm missing it already.  Although this was only my first time attending, it was a really great experience.  I had the good fortune of volunteering, which enabled me to see many films and attend many functions.

During the four-day festival, I watched 14 films, which is far and away more movies than I've seen in probably the past 5 years.  Granted many of the offerings at Emerge were short film, ranging from just over three minutes to 35 minutes, but they were all wonderful in their own way.

Kirsten Russell, Director of Universal Language

 
While they were all good, some of the standouts for me were Child of Grace, Universal Language, Love is Now and Southern Fried Fencing.  If you get a chance to see any of these, don't let the chance pass you by.

Southern Fried Fencing Directors Jay and Kim Carter during Q&A with Bate's Professor, Elizabeth Eames.

 
One of the special things about this festival was access to the filmmakers and actors.  Not only did many of the films at the festival have Q&A sessions with the filmmakers following their showings, the filmmakers and actors attended all the functions and hung out with festival goers.  "Selfies" were being snapped each night, sometimes with actors and directors, sometimes with old friends, but most often with the budding friendships sprouting up within the ranks of festival volunteers, filmmakers and filmgoers.  There seemed to be a special camaraderie, like you were in this little film festival oasis within the vast desert of reality outside the venue walls.  It was like escaping from the world where, in the words of Smash Mouth lead singer Steve Harwell, everybody is struggling with "beating each other at being each other."  This was in contrast to inside the confines of the festival where everyone was being themselves and celebrating one another's creative flair and prowess.

Skipper Rich Wilson, Director Rick Groleau and Bate's Professor Jakub Kazecki from Go Around Again

What made the festival special?  My feeling is that anyone can go to a blockbuster movie, pay eight bucks to get in, drink from a cup that holds more than your car's gas tank, eat a bucket of popcorn the size of a horse's feedbag and walk away entertained, and perhaps a little stuffed.  What you don't get from these films are the interesting stories and insight of the filmmakers.  The Q&A enables the audience to ask questions of filmmakers and get inside their head as to what they were thinking when they produced the film.

The sheer nature of the film festival is that there are different genres of film.  But what I found with Emerge is that all the films that were screened were thought provoking.  Watching the characters struggling with their own demons, gives you pause to reflect on your own life.
  
Throughout the films, characters were all making choices that impacted their lives for better or worse.   As I watched, I escaped life's daily routine for awhile  and was absorbed into the scenes with the characters, experiencing their highs and their lows.  There was joy and sorrow.  Humor and drama. Sitting witness to this, I found myself reflecting on my own life.  Not in a melancholy way, but more along the lines of a, "life is good" kind of way.

So thank you Emerge for presenting films that have a far more lofty goal than breaking box office records.  For this filmgoer, it was a better payback than that for which mass market films strive.