Annapolis Film Festival moves online amid coronavirus crisis
Organizers shift gears as COVID-19 pandemic forces closure of movie theaters.
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Over 10,000 people were supposed to be in Maryland’s capital this weekend for the eighth annual Annapolis Film Festival.
But like South By Southwest and Cannes, which have been canceled or postponed, the coronavirus made it impossible to host an event that requires hundreds of people closely sitting together for hours at a time.
“We’re disappointed, everyone’s disappointed, we had an amazing festival planned for our community,” said Patti White, one of the festival’s founders and directors.
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The team closely followed COVID-19 developments. Two weeks out, restrictions on person-to-person contact were growing and their screening venues were closing; they knew the festival could not go on as planned.
“We have not had a whole lot of sleep in the last ten days. It’s been a wild ride,” said Lee Anderson, also a festival co-founder and director.
They found Benjamin Oberman, whose company specializes in creating streaming services for festivals looking to move their films online.
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Streaming presented unique challenges. Oberman’s team had to set up servers and develop virtual vouchers for ticket holders, in addition to getting all those movies, documentaries and shorts online.
“Film Festival Flix, was meant, it was originally meant, I built it over the last eight years to complement festivals. I never foresaw a time when the world would turn upside down and we'd actually be virtually presenting them,” said Benjamin C. Oberman, president and CEO of Film Festival Flix.
According to Oberman, the process of putting a festival’s content online for streaming normally takes three to six months, they had to tackle this project in just 10 days.
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“Failure was not an option. To us if we didn’t continue we didn’t know what would happen to the future of the festival,” said Anderson.
It was far more complicated than just putting movies online for audiences to watch. The team also had to use locating technology to make some films available only in Annapolis. According to multiple people involved, restricting movies to certain locations reduces the risk for piracy.
“We’ve had probably more work this time because we almost had to reinvent the wheel. We had to go back to all the filmmakers, we had to go back to the distributors, we had to renegotiate deals,” said White.
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They also had to convince filmmakers to show their films to people sitting at home, rather than have in-person screenings. A few dropped out, but over 70 stayed on board.
“At this point to me it was a strong argument to make because obviously, so many people are at home and are clamoring for new content,” said Steven Oritt, director of "My Name is Sara".
Oritt’s movie tells the true story of a 13-year-old Polish Jew whose entire family was murdered by Nazis. It follows her escape and survival in the Ukrainian countryside.
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Paul Kaufman’s "Butter" will also be featured. It’s a feel-good movie that shares how a lonely, depressed teenager’s vow to eat himself to death puts him on a fast track to popularity.
“I thought it was a very intriguing and interesting idea that a film festival, you know, could be done, you know, in this manner, and can get eyeballs,” said Kaufman.
The festival has already begun and ends Sunday, March 29 at midnight.
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The shorts are available nationwide, while feature-length films are limited to a 60-mile radius around Annapolis.
Individual tickets and weekend passes are on sale here.
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