Ann Arbor Film Festival to shine on screen and off

By Danny Villalobos
Staff Writer

Marking its 57th anniversary, the Ann Arbor Film Festival begins on March 26 and will feature a plethora of films, short films and programs.

Ten feature films will be screened at the festival, along with more than 110 short films. Audiences can expect to see themes representing fierce women, black voices, animation, LGBTQ+ community, tech perspectives, retrospectives and festival titans all throughout the festival.

“This year we have made sure to honor this festival’s traditional roots of being community oriented,” said Leslie Raymond, director of the festival.

Nearly 3,000 works were submitted to the festival from more than 65 countries. 143 films were selected for the festival this year. The Ann Arbor Film Fest is one of a handful of Academy Award-qualifying festivals in the US.

This year, “Off the Screen!” will continue to be a part of the festival.

“Off the Screen! has always been a part of the festival, but this year we are particularly excited for it,” said Marin Smith, a festival assistant.

“Off the Screen!” is an expanded cinema experience. Forms of new media will be present at the festival that include virtual and augmented reality, educational salon sessions, projector experiments and live performances that interface with the film or screen.

Raymond said “Off the Screen!” is a much different experience than just sitting down and watching a movie on the screen.

It is also a chance for the community to know about the festival in the city. “Off the Screen!” will have locations at multiple venues, including the Michigan Theater, North Quad, Ann Arbor Art Center and Stamps Art Gallery.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is North America’s oldest avant-garde and experimental film festival. Founded in 1963 by George Manupelli, the festival puts a focus on the art of film and provides the public with visionary and forward-thinking work made by filmmakers, as an alternative to a commercial platform to showcase their work.

Notable filmmakers whose works were first shown at the film festival were Andy Warhol, George Lucas, Gus Van Sant, James Benning, Yoko Ono and Barbara Hammer.

About nine-thousand tickets are sold at the festival on average each year, according to Raymond, and those are big numbers for an experimental film festival.

For those who may be timid on going to an experimental film festival, Raymond advised: “Don’t think that you’re just coming by to see ‘movies’ but think that you’re coming to an ‘art museum.’”

“Think about it in terms like you would with music where there are parts of a song that are abstract,” Raymond added. “It’s challenging, but it offers diversity.”

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is one of the city’s crown jewels and is a current nominee on USA Today’s “10 Best” list of Film Festivals in North America.

For tickets, a full event schedule and more information, visit aafilmfest.org.

This story has been updated for clarity.

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