CASCADIA Congratulates and Thanks FeFF!
In 2014, a small group of people gathered in the kitchen of Polly Miller’s lakeside home and listened to an idea she had. At the time Polly was president of the Female Eye Film Festival (FeFF) in Toronto Canada where she had lived before moving to Bellingham. It was a festival devoted to showcasing the work of women directors and she thought a similar festival would work in Bellingham. Maybe it could even affiliate with FeFF.
Excited about the prospect, the group decided to try it out. In October 2015, FeFF founder Leslie-Ann Coles (pictured second from right) was invited to the Pickford Film Center’s Doctober festival for a special screening of films that had been in FeFF earlier that year.
The films, question and answer session, and the panel discussion that took place with the directors afterward was so well received that the CASCADIA group began to think more seriously about how a festival like FeFF could happen in Bellingham.
Sustaining Local Festivals to Save the Movies
Now, seven years later, CASCADIA is preparing for its sixth festival this spring May 12-15. FeFF is celebrating its 20th anniversary in June giving testimony to the sustainability that a festival like ours can have. Our congratulations to FeFF for clearing the way and for providing CASCADIA with an excellent example on which to model our own festival.
Indiewire columnist Eric Kohn wrote recently: “Want to save the movies? Support local film festivals.” Kohn attended the week-long online film festival conference presented by the Film Festival Alliance earlier this month, as did several members of CASCADIA’s team.
As Kohn wrote: “…audiences who want entertainment choices that go beyond algorithms should pay attention. Community and quality are hard to quantify in the film world and require acute programming instincts to serve. If you’re sick of the most obvious home viewing options, your local festival has your back. Smart, engaged movie audiences depend as much on small-scale festivals as the heavyweights.”
That’s where festivals like CASCADIA and FeFF come in.