This excerpt is written by Jes Reyes, former Ae board member.
Self-motivation, a deep love for art, and joy in creating community. That is how the Ae film festival was founded, and that’s what keeps it going. Altered Esthetics’ film festival was founded in 2014. It came out of planning around Ae without Walls, in which we took Altered Esthetics into the community, working for a year bringing group art exhibitions to community spaces and local businesses. I wanted to exhibit short films, emphasizing work made by one person or a small crew, all to demonstrate to our audiences that filmmaking wasn’t always about big budgets, big crews, and big, explosive narratives. Often we showed very personal filmmaking, told in the first person.
I believe this is the heart of cinema. Our voices. Film’s power is in its interdisciplinary ability to give voice to our ideas and stories. Also, because of our digital age, filmmaking equipment is now easily accessible, giving people who wouldn’t necessarily call themselves filmmakers the opportunity and means to make films on the spot. That’s not only powerful; it’s also empowering. The medium has become more democratic and inclusive in production. The internet has also made it easier for people to connect with one another.
The love of art and joy in creating community is what makes the program different and valuable to our local Twin Cities arts scene. Also, Altered Esthetics is run by artists for artists. That kind of says it all. Ae definitely has a DIY mentality that energizes whoever is leading on its board of directors, and we kept this approach with the film festival. This foundation of doing it yourself built a community—within Ae, but also for the artists we supported. As a practicing filmmaker, this was invaluable to me, because when I first started volunteering with Ae, this is what I needed. I needed to find my people.
In our inaugural year, the film festival had over one hundred applicants and showcased over twenty artists. In 2015, the second annual film festival doubled in size to 650 applicants and exhibited over forty-three artists. These artists were all showcased within a two-day festival at the Southern Theater, a community-focused theater space located in the West Bank neighborhood of Minneapolis. In 2016, we were also awarded a Community Arts Grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council so that we could continue expanding our presence on the West Bank. In only our second year, we were receiving the support we needed to grow and started to include curatorial recognition and audience awards with honorariums for artists. Second-year programming screened international artists from Spain, India, Iran, and Canada with a prominent number of US-based artists from Illinois, New York, Florida, and Arizona. With our third and fourth seasons, programming spanned three days, and each year we showcased work from over fifty artists. We continued honorariums for featured artists and award winners.
It was an aim of mine to also make sure 50% or more of the work the festival exhibited was by artists of color and female-identified artists. There are many reasons to do this, but I found that many prominent festivals would report only showing 20% to 30% films by underrepresented artists, and often it’s even less. I feel if we want to make change in the industry we have to be intentional about screening opportunities and make decisions towards how we want to represent diversity in programming. I made sure it was an active mission of this festival to be inclusive in multiple ways. From specializing in showing experimental work to exhibiting artists from diverse backgrounds, we worked to demonstrate that film and video artists’ voices and approaches ranged. We have shown with this festival that a wide range of people are making moving-image art and that it should be screened and celebrated.
The passion behind this program and the strong need for it were demonstrated in its growth. By its second year, the film festival had already grown to be Altered Esthetics largest and most popular group exhibition. With each subsequent year, the program expanded. New partnerships helped the festival achieve new directions and connect to our larger community. Without the partnership with the Southern Theater the program wouldn’t have grown. We needed the venue. Its consistency and support facilitated our goals and helped us reach new people each year. The most important relationship we had, though, was with the artists we collaborated with. Artist Andrea Shaker brought to the festival on silence, an experimental performance piece that integrates film, spoken word, and live music. Artist Adam Dargan facilitated a camera-free film workshop, inviting people to interact with analog film and create moving images in a physical medium. The piece was projected later in the evening by collaborating with composer Greg Brosofske. Beyond our more traditional screenings, throughout the seasons we also featured work from many video artists who activated the theater’s lobby spaces with moving-image installations, including M. Parker Stuart and Insa Evans. Partnering with artists and other local groups to include live components stretched the notion of what the moving image is and can be.
Running a film festival is a year-long process, from taking submissions, reviewing those submissions, and hiring interns and volunteers to connecting with partners and developing the schedule. Organizing a two- or three-day event is time-consuming. When one season ends you start planning for the next program immediately. So, I encourage anyone who is looking to start a film festival to recruit a team for support.
I couldn’t have led the festival all by myself. I brought on cocurators to help program and select work. I reached out to local universities to find individuals interested and passionate about film history who were watching film and learning curatorial work. Ari Newman, Ella Rowe, and Marcie LaCerte assisted me tremendously, among many others, over the years.
Declining a film for exhibition was one of the hardest parts of being a festival director. You can’t show everything. I generally offered an open submission platform and then curated the program based upon themes that I saw in the works. This helped create a cohesive and engaging lineup of films. Attempt to go broad with your theme, though, so that films are diverse and work to spark conversations. People love Q&As and introductions from the curators. Awards seem cheesy, but recognitions are important. They help artists build their resumes and highlight excellent work. If nothing else, have an audience award. Lastly, let your festival thrive as a living and breathing organism. It will grow into whatever it wants to be—whatever the community wants it to be.
Four festival seasons later, as I reflect now, I did a lot of pacing in the sound booth at the Southern Theater. While everyone watched films I worried something would go wrong with the projection. Nothing bad ever happened, and I am thankful for that. Leading a film festival and acting as its founder is a lot of fun, kind of stressful, and tremendously rewarding. I left programming in 2017, handing it over to another determined woman who similarly believes the work she is doing for filmmakers and video artists is about community, inclusivity, and partnership. That is all I could ask for.
This post is adapted from It’s Never Going To Work: A Tale of Art and Nonprofits in the Minneapolis Community. The book includes illustrations by Athena Currier. ©2019 Jamie Schumacher.
It’s Never Going To Work is a light-hearted, illustrated book that offers real-life insights on founding a community space and nonprofit. It provides tools, tips, resources, and camaraderie to community organizers and anybody attempting something new.