COLUMN: Macon Film Festival returns this week with almost 90 independent films

The Macon Film Festival starts Aug. 18 bringing nearly 90 independent films to town for the weekend from a worldwide list of filmmakers.

The festival’s opening of standard-screen films is Thursday night with a free showing of the documentary “It Ain’t Over” about American sports and cultural icon Yogi Berra. It’s on at the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame at 7 p.m. at 301 Cherry St.

But Thursday also boasts the festival’s start of all-day showings of immersive, fulldome films at the Museum of Arts and Sciences, 4182 Forsyth Rd.

This year’s festival not only means getting to watch great films at a ridiculously low price – films that would generally never be shown in commercial theaters – but also a return to business as usual as far as the annual event offering its full-festival experience following COVID-19 interruptions.

“That is exactly right,” said Justin Andrews of the Otis Redding Foundation and this year’s festival chairman. “We’re very excited about the films but we’re especially excited to be back at 100% following the pandemic. We were able to do a virtual festival that first year showing films through a streaming service then last year do a hybrid festival with streaming and some live screenings, but this year we’re 100% and that means quite a few guest filmmakers are planning to attend and everyone can again go to all our downtown venues and have the freedom to make the most of what downtown offers from restaurants to shops to other attractions. Filmmakers always talk about how much they enjoy talking to audiences formally and informally and hopefully, some of them will be scouting locations and come back to shoot films here.”

Andrews said that back to normal also means a return to a variety of film after-parties, receptions and workshops for those with appropriate festival ticketing.

Festival information on ticketing and film schedules is at www.maconfilmfestival.com and now is the time to make plans and get passes

The festival has a reputation for showing quality films from talented filmmakers including a number of films made locally and others made by student filmmakers. This year, the highlight will likely be a special screening of “Conducting Life,” the documentary on Macon-native Roderick Cox who, at 33, has made a stellar rise from Macon’s lower-income neighborhoods to being an internationally acclaimed symphony orchestra conductor, one of only a handful of conductors of color.

Expect more on the festival and its films and comments from Cox in the week ahead, but here let’s consider one aspect of the Macon festival that continues to make it entirely unique: it’s the only festival to combine documentary and narrative film screenings with a category of fulldome works, particularly artistic and narrative fulldome films in addition to edutainment features, travelogues and other science-based creations.

An immersive fulldome film is essentially one created using technology allowing the film to be shown on the museum’s full planetarium screen-ceiling thus encompassing and involving viewers in new ways.

Since 2016 when the museum began its Fulldome Festival as the immersive element of the Macon Film Festival, it has become an internationally recognized leader and showplace for fulldome films.

Susan Welsh is executive director at the museum and an advocate for fulldome. She said the idea came from realizing the museum’s facilities and Mark Smith Planetarium could and should be used in new ways. The museum has not only shown but commissioned immersive works and Welsh said the medium is growing in quality and number of fulldome films produced as creators embrace its artistic benefits.

“It’s been an exciting partnership – a perfect one,” Welsh said of the museum-film festival connection. “They said, ‘Let’s do this,’ and with the help of a grant from the Knight Foundation we got it up and going. This year, we’re showing 39 fulldome films, twice what we had last year. Some are just 5-minute shorts and others are full feature presentations. Our emphasis is to promote the exploration of artistic works and new narrative possibilities but we also have plenty of films for kids, families and what you’d call edutainment.”

Welsh said the number of submissions has dramatically increased along with the quality and, for the most part, the artistry in all fulldome genres. For the festival, she said there are film blocks showing each of the genres Thursday through Saturday with the more artistic and boundary-pushing works during Thursday’s Art Immersive Block and Friday’s “Flow-Visions of Time” feature and an evening reception during the Fulldome Immersive Showcase Block and X-Treme Art Immersive Block. Saturday there is a final Art Immersive Block.

The festival website and the museum’s site at www.masmacon.com have details on fulldome times and films showing. Ticketing is part of regular festival ticketing but Welsh said museum members automatically have free admission.

Educational and family films of note include “Dinosaurs: A Story of Survival,” “Legend of the Enchanted Reef” and “Kitz the Cat’s Supermoon Adventure.” Other highlights include the science film “Living Worlds,” followed by a Q&A with its maker, Ryan Wyatt, and “Lands of the Americas,” an art documentary.

“On the more artful, experimental side, we’re excited to introduce ‘Partita for 8 Voices’ on Friday, an a cappella composition by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw that places viewers at the center of eight singers in a circle and pairs the oldest means of expression – the human voice – with cutting edge visual art and graphic animation. It’s a powerful immersive experience and, like other fulldome films, hard to explain just what the experience is like, you just have to come and see for yourself.”

Regarding the museum and festival’s unique status, Welsh said fulldome showings and festivals in the U.S. are science and astronomy-based versus art and feature film-based and often connected with science-oriented conferences. She said work is much further along in Europe and Canada to connect fulldome to artistic works. As part of its reputation, the museum has also become known for hosting workshops for fulldome creators and allowing them access to its fulldome capabilities. The Fulldome Festival has many firsts to its credit in the immersive world and not only showed but helped inspire the makers of the world’s first full-length, fulldome, narrative feature film, “Indirect Actions.” Welsh said its creators first attended the Macon festival which helped them see the possibilities.

“We want to continue to help move fulldome filmmaking forward as we grow and we want to educate a fulldome audience right here in Macon and Middle Georgia,” Welsh said.

Contact writer Michael W. Pannell at mwpannell@gmail.com.