Scott Fitzpatrick has a special someone in mind when he and his team over at Open City Cinema plan out five days of contemporary experimental film and movie showcases.
“I will often be like, ‘What would my mom think of this program?’,” he shares. “’Is she going to have a good time or not have a good time? Is she going to have an access point to this? Is there going to be a lane for her to get in and be part of the conversation to?’”
It is a worthwhile consideration for the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, which opens its doors later today in the Exchange District. With dozens of films pushing the boundaries of what is possible in film, Open City Cinema (which runs the festival) plans out programming that is just as accessible to Fitzpatrick’s mother as it is to the major cinephile in a balance that he calls “fun formalism”.
“I don’t want this to just be a venue for experimental film nerds and academics to understand what we’re talking about,” he says. “I always tell people, ‘These aren’t puzzles for you to solve. They’re not something that you’ve got to get.’ It’s just something to respond to, to feel, to think about or think differently about.”
Endless possibilities for cinematic storytelling
Over the course of five days, the festival will share all manner of films created by local creators as well as submissions from across North America. These projects range from 90-second shorts that will be shared in a showcase on June 5 to Charlotte Zhang’s feature-length Tycoon, which closes the festival on June 7.
The curatorial responsibility falls on the shoulders of Fitzpatrick and Open City Cinema’s screening committee. “We get about a thousand [submissions] a year,” he says. “It’s insane the range of content and form that you’ll encounter and quality and just sanity.”
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Part of that curatorial responsibility is outsourced to guest curators that are invited from outside of the city. This year, the festival has made the rare move to invite two guest curators – Vancouver’s Steff Huì Cí Ling who will showcase experimental approaches to action films, and Toronto’s Blake Williams, who will share several pieces of experimental 3D cinema that Fitzpatrick is especially excited for.
“If you go to this screening, you’ll get five different pairs of 3D glasses at the door that you’ve got to switch throughout the screening,” Fitzpatrick says.
Stoking a vibrant local scene
Having guest curators as a part of the festival is one way that one of the most championed film communities in Canada can maintain its exciting creativity.
“I think it’s important to make sure that part of that vibrancy is not just having venues and potentials for screening for the films that we’re making here,” Fitzpatrick explains, “… but also bringing in work from around the world and from across Canada and getting exposure to our filmmaking community here to see these different kinds of forms and different filmmakers that they may not have encountered.”
The Winnipeg Underground Film Festival opens on June 3 at the Centre for Cultural and Artistic Practices on Hargrave Street with an exhibition by Columbus artists Dani and Sheilah ReStack called Line as Real and Broken. The rest of the festival will be hosted at Dave Barber Cinematheque. The full lineup is available at the festival’s website.