Kim Sanchez is excited. As she talks, relaying information at a mile a minute, you can tell that what she’s talking about is incredibly important. That’s because she’s discussing the upcoming Glass City Film Festival, Toledo’s newest and biggest way to celebrate cinema.
In a phone interview, Sanchez, the festival’s coordinator, couldn’t help but passionately explain the event coming up in May. “Making this work accessible to people around here, to go and see it, have something to do, and celebrate film is really important,” Sanchez said, “and it’s important to building a sustainable film industry here in Toledo.”
Community cinema
That idea is at the core of the festival: getting audiences and artists together. “If you talk with filmmakers around here, they’ll agree that that there’s a lot of resources here, but almost no infrastructure, or ways for them to interact with an audience,” according to Sanchez. “There are other film programs in the area, like the Tree City Film Festival, that we’re trying to build on the energy of. It’s a great time for collaboration and getting people involved in film.”
The festival will have opportunities for the audience and artists to interact, including an opening night reception and panel discussions throughout. This is a mutually beneficial relationship: the movie goers get more insight into the films they love, and the filmmakers get noteworthy responses on their work.
Collaboration is an important part of not only the festival, but it’s venue, the historic Ohio Theater. The theater is an ongoing project for United North, a local community development corporation that has spent the past few years renovating the theater. Sanchez and other festival organizers hope that the GCFF will help out not only the filmmakers, but the theater itself: “A goal for the festival is to help spur economic development on Lagrange Street.”
A Medley of Moving Pictures
The festival, taking place over three days, will show off films from 11 cities and 8 different countries, including France, Korea, and Sweden. Sanchez explained, “we put out a call for films in October of last year, through a website called FilmFreeway, and we were surprised to get over 80 short and feature length films from around the world.” A handful of these submissions were local films, including Heat Wave, which the City Paper has discussed previously.
Any type of film you can think of will be represented at the festival. Graveyard of the Great Lakes, for instance, follows a documentary film crew looking into the tens of thousands of shipwrecks across the Great Lakes. O +AB – is a Finding Nemo-esque animated film from Iran. “Bringing Down The House” is one of the music videos in the festival, from NW Ohio hip-hop artist Stretch. You can view the full schedule of films (and purchase tickets) on the festival’s website.
The GCFF kicks off Thursday, May 19 with a red carpet reception and viewing of Kickstarted, a documentary about the crowd funding movement. It’s the perfect way to start out a film festival centered around community. “This is really cool, and it’s great to offer this opportunity for artists in the area,” said Kim Sanchez. She is excited for the Glass City Film Festival. If you enjoy films, or Toledo in general, you should be excited too.
6pm, Thursday May 19 | Noon, Saturday, May 20 and and Sunday, May 21.
$10 for an individual event, $30 for a Friday or Saturday day pass, $60 All Event Pass.
Ohio Theatre and Event Center | 3112 Lagrange St. | 419-720-8952
ohiotheatre.secure.force.com/ticket, glasscityfilmfestival.com
