Sidewalk Film Festival Returns for its 20th Year
When the lights go down at the Alabama Theatre Friday evening, it will mark the 20th opening of the Sidewalk Film Festival. Sidewalk has been a source of independent movies and a touchstone for the Birmingham filmmaking community. WBHM’s Andrew Yeager spoke with Michele Forman, former president of the festival’s board and part of the group that got Sidewalk off the ground in the late 1990s.
Highlights
The challenge of convincing people a downtown festival would work:
“We kept telling people at that time it’s like [the now-defunct music festival] City Stages, but for movies … That probably in my mind was a sort of model that it can be done and that you can get people to come back to downtown to be able to go out at night, eat, hang out, be able to really activate that space again.”
Finding space to screen films:
“We really didn’t have any venues … We had the Alabama Theatre and we had a lot of empty storefronts. So that involved bringing in generators. Not just projection equipment, but actually bringing in our own electricity. In those early years there were folding chairs and bean bags. It really was a pop up that first year.”
How technology such as smart phones has changed filmmaking:
“The barriers to production have really never been lower. You have the power in your pocket essentially. But it still requires the kind of training, the kind of craft, to be able to direct, to be able to do the production and set design, to be able to cast, to be able to edit, be able to put together all those visual and audio elements, to be able to create a work of art, to be able to tell a story. Those things still require the same kind of education. It’s just the expense of making it have really shifted.”
Michele Forman’s Top Picks To See:
Studio 54: The Documentary
Three Identical Strangers
Michelin Stars – Tales From The Kitchen Trailer
White Tide: The Legend Of Culebra
Rodents Of Unusual Size
Madeline’s Madeline
**Note: this film was reviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd
Alabama carries out nation’s third nitrogen gas execution on a man for a hitchhiker’s killing
Carey Dale Grayson was executed at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in southern Alabama. He was one of four teenagers convicted of killing Vickie DeBlieux as she hitchhiked through the state on the way to her mother’s home in Louisiana.
You can sword-fight at this club. But no politics allowed
At the Pittsburgh Sword Fighters club, members are asked to leave their politics at the door, a rule that has led to closer relationships and more learning from one another.
How will China impact the future of climate change? You might be surprised
As a new Trump administration signals a retreat on climate action, China is stepping up. China is the biggest producer of climate technologies like electric vehicles and solar panels.
More than 100,000 pounds of ground beef are recalled for possibly having E. coli
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture alerted federal authorities about several illnesses in the past week.
President-elect set to shape ‘Trump judiciary’ for next generation
Legal experts predict President-elect Donald Trump will move quickly next year to cement and extend his legacy in appointing federal judges.
Mama Stamberg’s relish faces its toughest critics: NPR staffers
Susan Stamberg returns with her annual love letter to the pink pile of Thanksgiving mush known as Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish.
