All 65 movies being featured in this week’s Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival have some sort of Iowa connection, which fest director Eric Dean Freese says has been a hallmark of the event since it began.
“We recognize and celebrate that there are Iowa-connected people working in the film industry worldwide,” Freese says. “Whether someone was born in Iowa, educated in Iowa, worked in Iowa, or maybe their story features an Iowan, either real or fictitious, or of course, the film may have been made in Iowa.”
Freese says it was a thrill to have a record 121 entries from all over the planet, totaling more than 53 solid hours of films, from which the final roster of 65 were chosen. He says it’s a very diverse slate of entertainment for any cinephile.
“You’ll have opportunities to see music videos, horror films, mysteries, comedies, documentaries, and films from all skill levels,” he says. “We actually have a Bettendorf middle school student who submitted a documentary, up to professionals who have been working in the industry for decades.”
That 14-year-old from the Quad Cities is Adrian Gillette who’s already earned national recognition for his documentary about the first-ever school book-banning case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
By coming to the festival, Freese says you are -not- committing yourself to sitting all day long, watching two-hour film after two-hour film.
“You might see a feature, then you might see a ten-minute film, then you might see a three-minute film,” Freese says. “Over the span of a couple of hours, you’re able to take in a number of different films that span many genres, certainly many topics and many filmmaker voices.”
The festival opens Thursday and runs through Sunday at various Cedar Rapids venues, including the Ideal Theater in the historic NewBo District, which was built in 1914 as a silent movie theater.
The last day of the fest, Student Cinema Sunday, focuses on young filmmakers who are competing for prizes, including a $1,000 scholarship.
