Scott Fitzpatrick\u00a0has a special someone in mind\u00a0when he and his team over at Open City Cinema plan out five days of contemporary experimental\u00a0film and movie showcases.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI will often be like, \u2018What would my mom think of this program?\u2019,\u201d he shares. \u201c\u2019Is she going to have\u00a0a good time\u00a0or not have\u00a0a 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\u00a0conversation\u00a0to?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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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\u00a0what is possible in film, Open City Cinema (which runs the festival) plans out programming that is just as accessible to Fitzpatrick\u2019s mother as it is to the major cinephile in a\u00a0balance that he calls \u201cfun formalism\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want this to just be a venue for experimental film nerds and academics to understand what we\u2019re talking about,\u201d he says. \u201cI always tell people, \u2018These\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0puzzles for you to solve.\u00a0They\u2019re\u00a0not something that\u00a0you\u2019ve\u00a0got\u00a0to get.\u2019\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0just something\u00a0to \u00a0respond\u00a0to, to feel, to think about or think differently about.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Endless possibilities for cinematic storytelling\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over the course of five days, the festival will share\u00a0all 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\u00a0showcase on\u00a0June 5 to\u00a0Charlotte Zhang\u2019s feature-length Tycoon, which closes the festival on June 7.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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The curatorial responsibility falls on the shoulders of Fitzpatrick and Open City Cinema\u2019s screening committee. \u201cWe get about a thousand [submissions] a year,\u201d he\u00a0says. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0insane the range of content and form that\u00a0you\u2019ll\u00a0encounter\u00a0and\u00a0quality and just sanity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
RELATED STORIES<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 Vancouver\u2019s\u00a0Steff Hu\u00ec\u00a0C\u00ed\u00a0Ling\u00a0who will\u00a0showcase\u00a0experimental approaches to action films,\u00a0and Toronto\u2019s Blake Williams, who will share several pieces of experimental 3D cinema that Fitzpatrick is especially excited for.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you go to this screening, you\u2019ll get five different pairs of 3D glasses at the door that you\u2019ve got to\u00a0switch\u00a0throughout the screening,\u201d Fitzpatrick says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Stoking a vibrant local scene\u00a0<\/p>\n
Having guest curators\u00a0as a part of the festival is one way that one of the most championed film communities in Canada can\u00a0maintain\u00a0its exciting creativity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s\u00a0important to make sure that part of that vibrancy is not just having venues and potentials for screening for the films that we\u2019re making here,” Fitzpatrick explains, “… but also bringing in work from around\u00a0the 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The Winnipeg Underground Film Festival opens on June 3 at the\u00a0Centre for Cultural and Artistic Practices on Hargrave Street with an exhibition by Columbus artists Dani and Sheilah\u00a0ReStack\u00a0called 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.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scott Fitzpatrick\u00a0has a special someone in mind\u00a0when he and his team over at Open City Cinema plan out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-713108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}