AIFF2020 - Anchorage International Film Festival 2020 - Q&A With Co-Festivial Director John Gamache

I've been blogging the Anchorage International Film Festival since 2007.  Usually, by now (mid-November)  I've got descriptions of some of the films up already.  But tracking COVID-19 in Alaska daily, has distracted me.  But I finally checked out this year's festival website and emailed the staff.  John Gamache, one of the festival co-directors, responded fully, so I thought I'd just present what he said to you.  

I'd said that I hoped they were all well and I knew things must be crazy as they switched over to a

Gamache photo from AIFF2020 website

virtual festival.  Here's John's response along with my questions, which were based on the websites images of 27 films, without any categories.  

Hope you're doing well. And yes, it's been crazy busy. Switching to an online format is about four times more work than presenting the live festival, and that's when I have 2-4 people helping me, so it's a lot. Here are some answers to your questions. . .

1.  I see 27 films. [There are more up now]  Are there categories?

Our ticketing company just switched some things on our website so we're still building that out, but when we're done it will show the usual categories and they will be color-coded and also labeled. We have 14 shorts programs this year. You can already filter by category on the website though. 

2.  No animation at all?  

There are 15 animated short films. They will all be in short film programs, as usual. 

3.  Are all the films eligible for awards?

Almost. Only two feature films were curated and will not be in competition. Crescendo and Rafiki. All other films are eligible for awards in the usual categories, and we've added a Horror category award this year as well, the jury for which is AIFF alum Greg Ivan Smith.

4.  There are only three staff members listed.  What about the board?

Still building out the website, but we've sent out requests to all board members (we have two new ones since the board was last on the site) and are waiting to get all that info back so we can add it.

5.  It mentions discussions with the film makers, so I guess there will be more up on the website, right?

Yes, we're in the process of scheduling all of the Q&As and other live filmmaker panels, discussions, and workshops. Typically we just have the attending filmmakers walk on stage after a film is over. In the virtual world we're coordinating with over 11 filmmakers, producers, distributors in about ten time zones. It's quite an undertaking. :)

6.  What did I miss that I should have asked that people should know?

I think when you activate your pass and preview the virtual festival you might think of more questions. The look and feel of it is very familiar to anyone who has Netflix or Xfinity OnDemand. We'll also have a Roku channel set up so people can more easily watch on their TVs. The option to cast to their TV using ChromeCast or any Apple-compatible devices works, too. 

As you know, on average each year we have between 30-40 visiting filmmakers. Doing a virtual festival means that filmmakers, cast and crew from every film can potentially participate. As an example, at Woods Hole we average between 120-140 visiting filmmakers each year. This year's virtual festival involved over 300 filmmakers and every feature film in the festival had a live Q&A. We'll see what our numbers are this year, but we're hoping to at least triple the number of filmmakers "attending" and interacting with the audience. 

• Passes are on sale now. It's still just $100 for an all access pass - which is $10/day and less than $1 per film. People also have the option of buying the Household All Access Pass for $150 if they have multiple people in their hime who will be watching and want to do a little extra to support the festival. All the live filmmaker Q&As will be easily findable and accessible through the virtual platform for passholders as well. So to sum it up: The pass is the best way to experience the festival.
• Tickets for individual films and shorts programs will go on sale, Friday, December 4. Individual tickets are still $10.

So there you have my first peek an this year's festival.

So I bought my household pass and there are lots of films up.  Here's a teaser.  

•  top two are narrative features, 
• the center two are documentary features, 
• the bottom two are narrative shorts.

These were just randomly chosen.  Well, probably not random.  I thought the bridge picture was eye-catching. But otherwise they're random.  I know nothing about them or any of the others at this point. 

Meanwhile I've created a tab for AIFF2020 where you can find an annotated index of all these posts as they go up.  Here's the link to AIFF2020.  Blogger has a glitch right now (their help page says, four days ago, that they're working on it.  The glitch is preventing me from putting up the AIFF2020 tab on the top of the page just below the header.  But the link seems to work.