Tacoma Film Festival marks 20 years

Welcome back to Good Day Live. I'm AJ Janivel. Thank you so much for taking some time to hang out with us on your Thursday afternoon. One thing that we've been doing today is just talking about the community here throughout Western Washington, getting to hear from folks with the Boys and Girls Clubs, just speaking to Rebecca with the Special Olympics of Washington, hearing from the folks over at the Grand Illusion as they're making their way to move into a new theater. And, of course, we want to focus on our great friends down in the South Sound. We're heading to Tacoma now, where they have the Tacoma Film Fest that is this weekend. Joining me live now is Megan, better known as MGL. Megan, thanks for taking some time to talk to me. First off, let's talk about the film festival. Tonight is the kickoff, correct? Yes, we kick off our 20th edition of the Tacoma Film Festival tonight with a film called Time Warp. And what's really exciting is the director, Alison Berg, will be in attendance. So that's going to play. And then we're going to have an after party at the Poet. And we'll get to see a Rocky Horror shadow cast, the Blue Musketeers. So it's going to be a crazy good evening. And so tell me about this, this first film of the night. Is it a local filmmaker? It is not a local filmmaker, but it is a Tribeca special jury mention winner and best documentary feature winner. It is about a shadow cast and a fearless dreamer who basically brings Rocky Horror and its message of personal expression and sexual freedom to a small town in Wyoming. So it's it's a great rural queer feel good documentary. How cool. And perfect, too, for this time of year, as I can't imagine there aren't some local theaters that are doing Rocky Horror shows or performances over the next few weekends. Tell me about the film festival. How long has it been operating? So this is actually the 20th anniversary of the Tacoma Film Festival. And something we're sort of doing to celebrate that is we're bringing back a screening of Pete's Everything Beautiful is Far Away. that'll be our closing film of the festival um it played back in the day i think like 20 i forget when it played but um yeah so that's really exciting and um this year's festival we've got nine feature narratives seven feature docs 11 shorts programs and a centerpiece of music videos that's like really exciting um and that's called track 20 and it is is gonna be at the blue mouse on i believe friday night so um you guys oh yeah oh so the films that you guys show throughout the festival uh tell me how you make the selection is there a focus on uh more indie smaller productions groups that kind of are putting together these films is there a focus on local or is it kind of spread across the board when it comes to um the selection for the festival Yeah, so we definitely work to make sure that we're highlighting the films of local filmmakers. Something that is really cool about this programming team at Tacoma Film Festival is our festival director, Hannah Beck, chose to bring on some seasoned filmmaker, like film programmers, and then pair them up with new programmers who work at the Grand. so kind of like creating a pathway into programming and sort of teaching people how to do it because you think programming would be easy it's just watching movies and deciding oh that's good i'll show it but really um focusing on your audience and what we think folks in tacoma want to see i mean 80 of these films don't have any distribution so these are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to see these films in tacoma um and i just want to make sure i mentioned some of the local highlights that we have um we're showing sky hope pink as powwow people which was shot up at daybreak at day daybreak star um and we've got mia moore's again again um we've got zach weintraub's assets and liabilities those are all features and then we have a local narrative shorts program and then a local doc shorts program so there's tons of local stuff to see um yeah um you said that you have um a piece from Sky is that the one where he was uh there was a rally that was happening um not too long ago is that is that it's about it's basically coming back and forth so i hear myself and like what am i saying um because he was actually just in Seattle a couple um months ago doing a a series up here as well so that's cool that he's back in town because he's a a New York-based filmmaker but originally from the PNW i think Bellingham was his home um for a long time so he's a you know a Washingtonian at heart um so you have you know this amazing filmmaker who is kind of made a name for himself and is now in in the East Coast but this is home for him yeah and so powwow people is sort of a cinema verite style documentary where they kind of just place the camera and you the audience get to experience like a powwow from start to finish yeah um let's talk about the the actual festival of logistics it's starting tonight how long does it go is it all weekend um and are there still tickets available yes there are tickets available um we open tonight with um Time Warp and it runs until Sunday evening so we'll have uh films running at the Grand Cinema all weekend for people to come enjoy so they can grab tickets online at grandcinema.com or they can pop in and buy them in person at the box office are there still tickets available um mgl for tonight's opening yes i believe we're opening a second theater for a simulcast um so yes there will be more tickets tonight are there any other showings that um the filmmakers will be in attendance for because i know that's such like a extra element when you go watch a movie and then person who made it can maybe explain okay this is what i was thinking when i did this or you can ask them why they made this um change of this consideration yeah we're gonna have zach weintraub who's an olympia legend uh with assets and liabilities um the filmmakers uh marjorie conrad and john tuttle for uh the joyless economy will be there we have tons of shorts filmmakers will be in attendance so if you want to see people who are on the on the brink of breaking out um it's always great to come see a shorts program and see these filmmakers before they uh get big but we've also got um a city in the forest this amazing documentary about folks protesting cop city in atlanta the director lev omolchenko will be here um gloria mercer from a safe distance will be here and um the other filmmakers from uh dwarf neon mayfield as well like lily nally will be here so it'll be a lot of cool folks it's a really friendly festival so it's a great place to come and just meet people talk about film see some films you'll never see again possibly um it's a really cozy fest so excited to welcome everyone into our space this weekend yeah and uh last thing just uh remind everyone MGL where can people get more information about the festival or even get tickets or the details of the shows and the times yeah you can head on over to www.grandcinema.com and the full lineup will be there you can buy tickets um and get more information perfect uh MGL thanks for taking some time to talk to us the Tacoma Film Fest starting tonight uh the filmmaker in town tickets still available and as you heard MGL mention all the details online appreciate you taking some time to talk to us. Yeah. Thanks so much for having us. All right.