Neepawa Film Festival seeks submissions

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This article was published 14/06/2019 (2278 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s not exactly the Cannes Film Festival, but for those who dream of being famous filmmakers, it’s a good start.

The Neepawa Film Festival is seeking entries for the first-ever event at the Neepawa Theatre Centre in August.

“We’re not going to be showing old movies. We’re not going to show science fiction or something from the ’50s or Hitchcock’s films,” said festival chairman Jamie Willis. “We wanted the local people. We know they have a story to tell.”

Those entering submissions must be from within 100 kilometres of Neepawa, or the entries must be shot within that area. Brandon falls well within that catchment area.

“We’ve got no idea what to expect,” Willis said Wednesday. “So we thought, if we keep it to that kind of area, we won’t get inundated. We’ll be able to handle and manage anything that comes in.”

A committee will be accepting entries until July 12.

“Interest is growing, the word is slowly getting out there,” Willis said.

Entries must be between five and 30 minutes in length and can be any genre, including fiction, non-fiction or animated — as long as they’re suitable for family viewing.

“We wanted to make it easy for first-timers,” he said.

“The idea of one-and-a-half hours (the average length of a feature film), that’s daunting for any filmmaker, even the professional ones.

“A five-minute to 30-minute short — that’s doable,” Willis said, adding that it can even be shot on a cellphone.

“Tell us your story, tell us your history or even a day in the life of whatever you do.”

The festival is a partnership between the Neepawa Theatre Centre (also known as the Roxy Theatre), a volunteer-based community organization, and NACTV, the local community access television station.

The theatre centre has been tossing around the idea of a film festival for about four years, ever since the Roxy Theatre went digital, Willis said.

The festival will take place in Neepawa on Aug. 10, with entries to be screened in blocks at the Roxy Theatre. The Roxy, which was built more than a century ago, hosts concerts and plays in addition to showing movies.

During the screenings, audience members will vote for their favourite films, with an overall best in show and category winners announced at a community event that evening.

Following the festival, entries will be shown on NACTV for the following year.

The winners in each category, as well as the overall People’s Choice winner, will receive prizes and “Neepawa bucks” redeemable at local businesses that are members of the local chamber of commerce.

Kate Jackman-Atkinson, the chairwoman of the Neepawa Theatre Centre, said they have been busy securing sponsors for the event.

Jackman-Atkinson said they are offering sponsorships as low as $50.

“The goal is to, kind of, try and make a lot of community ownership for this,” she said, “so we wanted to make sponsorship really accessible.”

She noted support for the local theatre centre is very strong, in general.

“I have found that the community is unbelievably keen and ready to support us, which I know is not a situation that a lot of other communities or not-for-profits find themselves in,” Jackman-Atkinson said, “and it’s been very rewarding and very encouraging just to see how much support for the theatre there is out there in the community.”

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