Last Fall, we assembled a group of people (many of whom we met in classic 21st century fashion, over the Internet) with a more than casual interest in film and experience in making films or putting on film festivals. From an ongoing discussion emerged a mission statement and Call to Entries for a new film festival to be named the Flickerings Film Showcase at Cornerstone Festival.

The mission was multifold. First, to raise the level of discourse about film and culture in our Cornerstone Festival community, primarily by exposing people to quality international and independent releases (along with a structure for discussion) that would facilitate this process. Second, to engender a filmmaking culture in that same community: just as we've seen at Cornerstone a thriving music-making culture come into being and mature over the years.

The announcement of our Call to Entries created an immediate and significant buzz that confirmed our intuition that the time was right. The entries we were soon receiving came from professionals, amateurs (both "garage" level and more serious), as well as film students. The variety of style was encouraging: from traditional narrative and editing to more experimental styles, from documentary to animation. The entries were in multiple formats: most on digital video, though some of the films were actually shot on celluloid —though for Flickerings "film" is a way of communication, not a particular format. (See the complete list of 2001 Showcase Films and filmmakers).

After some shuffling among Cornerstone's existing programs (i.e., the kids' program, Creation Station, graciously moved out of the festival grounds' only building to a nearby tent), we had a place to create our new venue. No sooner had we opened the doors on July 4th than we realized we needed more chairs. Indeed, one of many pleasant surprises was interest and enthusiasm for new films and filmmakers nobody had ever heard of before. Not only is the time right for creating a filmmaking culture at Cornerstone, but clearly the audience is ready to support new films as well. And while Flickerings is not a juried festival, we did take crowd reaction into consideration (along with an informal selection among the staff) to create a slot of films we recognized as the Best of Flickerings 2001. Congratulations to these and all the participating filmmakers.

As mentioned earlier, The Film Showcase is only part of the mission of Flickerings, the other part having to do with screening quality features our audience might not otherwise have had a chance to see. Even before we'd decided to create the new venue at Cornerstone, in fact, we'd been exploring the possibilities of screening Krzysztof Kieslowski's masterpiece The Decalogue, beginning when the films were released on VHS/DVD by Facets Multimedia here in Chicago. When the go-ahead was given last Fall to create the program that became "Flickerings," screening The Decalogue was the obvious way to set the tone for the new venue. Each screening of the ten-film series filled the Flickerings building; at the festival's end, a couple dozen hands went up in answer to the question of how many present had seen all ten films over the four days of Cornerstone. Hundreds of people who may not have been able to stay with us for the entire series were hooked on the films after catching one or two episodes. Kiewslowski buff Scott Young of the City of Angels Film Festival joined us to introduce to our crowd the director and his films and lead an often spirited discussions afterwards.

Our other special feature presentation was the German film, After the Truth, which we first saw at the 1999 Chicago International Film Festival (see posted review). This screening was a bit of a coup for Flickerings, as the film has not yet been released in North America — but for that reason there's not much point in recommending it to your friends. However, perhaps if enough people inquire at BetaFilm, the distributor (who was gracious enough to let us screen the film) may sense growing public demand and respond accordingly.

Creating a second film program at Cornerstone Festival has been talked about almost since the creation of the first. The Imaginarium was started in 1995 as a safe place to work out a Christian approach to popular culture: the atmosphere being a strangely-effective combination of film and lit studies class, science fiction convention, and late night monster movie. A loyal community has formed around the Imaginarium, for some, their sole Cornerstone Festival event. There have always been more films we like than we can show in the Imaginarium, so from the beginning we'd talked about eventually creating another venue that would allow us to expand our treatment of film at Cornerstone with out adversely affecting the Imaginarium's unique chemistry, or its close-knit community.

A good way to ease the new species into the habitat, we hoped, was a joint program: thus we chose a filmmaker appreciated equally in the arthouse and Saturday Afternoon Matinee, John Ford. There were nightly screenings of Ford films in the Imaginarium. Flickerings contributed a space for a screening of Ford masterpiece, The Searchers, and for daily lectures by James Wall, along with a fascinating panel discussion on myth vs history in the West (see complete Imaginarium 2001 report). It's hard to say how well the joint program worked: we learned the Imaginarium and Flickerings are, for the most part, distinct venues, each with their own audience and atmosphere. In hindsight, perhaps it was a mistake to scatter a program over two venues. Nevertheless, it seems an equal mistake to divide too sharply the arthouse from the often balancing effect of the popular perspective. The challenge will be to manage two film programs so each can retain both individual identity (along with respective communities) and a common vision that can embrace both approaches to cinema and culture.

Some of the richest moments of the 2001 Flickerings experience came during the daily afternoon panel discussions, which were held (after a bit of the inevitable logistics re-shuffling) outside in the open air, or rather, under the Creation Station program tent. The make up of the panels differed each day, drawing upon the fine speaker contingent from both Flickerings and the Imaginarium, along with various filmmakers in attendance, including some whose films were screened during the festival as a part of the Film Showcase. The topics for discussion were basic, and deliberately so: the idea was that we would formally touch on fundamental issues, then move forward from there.

Moving forward also means keeping the discussions going. We welcome your comments and suggestions for future Flickerings programs. As further online forums arise, we'll spread the word about them. In the meantime, we've posted a basic list of links to online resources and will occasionally post both profiles of filmmakers in our "Sparks" section and select films as well. One way or another, we hope to hear from you: the Cornerstone Festival filmmaking culture we envision is only possible if Flickerings is but one of many voices involved.

Again, thanks to everyone who helped make our initial Flickerings Film Showcase such a success: the filmmakers, the audience, and the staff. We'll consider carefully all we learned this first year, and try to put together an even better Flickerings experience for you all next year. Of course, much of that experience will depend on some of the people reading this report: somebody's got to make all those new Showcase films. The deadline for entries for the next Flickerings Film Showcase is March 1, 2002. We hope to hear from you.

MORE NEWS
Announcing Damah Film Festival