Lights! Camera! Action! The Maumee Film Festival is back.
After a four year hiatus, the international film festival will return to the Maumee Indoor Theater (601 Conant St.) on Saturday and Sunday for a two-day celebration of film craft. Films will be shown in both screening rooms at the theater beginning at 11:30 a.m.
Among the nearly 70 films submitted—which includes entries from Canada and Mexico—are two short films from Samantha Ryan, a Williams County native, Reunions In Heaven and Love Undead .
Ryan first began making films when she was 12 and credits her biggest filmmaker inspirations as James Cameron and Rob Zombie. Ryan’s films screen back to back in the 7:30 p.m. block on Saturday evening, which is a series of short films made by Ohio filmmakers.
Ryan’s film Reunions is a celestial themed short, running 26-minutes. It was entirely shot in northwest Ohio and utilized several locations and local actors in Bryan and Defiance.
“ Reunions in Heaven follows a couple of people’s lives and their viewpoints about what death is and their reunions with those loved who have passed before them,” said Ryan.
Her other film Love Undead runs 20 minutes and according to Ryan is about “finding your humanity in a post-apocalyptic world.”
“I made these films based on inspirations of my own life as well as dreams,” said Ryan. “This is my first time being accepted into the Maumee Film Festival so I’m going to be learning a lot this weekend. I’m really excited because I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in the FilmToledo group and I think its really exciting that they’re going to get a chance to see what I can really do as opposed to just conversation.”
Jim Merkel is a filmmaker, author, and political activist from Maine who will be screening his documentary Saving Walden’s World on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. The film examines various cultures in the world and how economics and environmentalism plays a role in the lives of citizens.
“I was really jazzed when my film got accepted by (the Maumee Film Festival),” Merkel said in an interview. He is a former arms dealer, who is screening his film across America while traveling coast to coast in an electric car.
“I was focused on societies that had small families, small ecological footprints, and healthy people — the holy grail of sustainable development,” Merkel continued in a statement. “In editing process, I’d realized we’d filmed societies where the sustainable development goals were accomplished decades ahead of the 2030 targets.”
He traveled to Cuba, India, and Slovenia for the documentary, which recently screened at the United Nations’ Summit of the Future.
Behind the scenes is Sara Eiden, supervisor of theater operations at the Maumee Indoor Theater and the event organizer of the Maumee Film Festival. Eiden has been with the Maumee Indoor Theater for four years, but this is her first time organizing a major film festival.
Eiden said the Maumee Film Festival was revived due to popular demand from local filmmakers.
“Since I’ve taken this position, we’ve gotten an increasing amount of independent filmmakers wanting to screen their films here,” said Eiden. “I’ve gotten to know many of them and many filmmakers were saying to me, ‘This festival used to happen and we need to bring it back.’ I’ve now been here long enough that I feel comfortable with the job, so I said, ‘Let’s do it. Let’s bring it back.’ And Michael (DeSanto) over at FilmToledo has been an amazing partner in getting this up off the ground.”
DeSanto, president of the film advocacy group FilmToledo, called the return of the Maumee Film Festival “a big deal.”
“It’s a big deal because we’ve been without a major film festival in the area for a while. We’ve had a few smaller events, but this is a big deal to have something like this,” said DeSanto.
Members of FilmToledo and Women in Film and Television (WIFT) will be leading panel discussions about the filmmaking industry throughout northwest Ohio.
“We’ll be talking about the state of the film industry in northwest Ohio and Toledo and some of the films that we’ve helped bring in. We just had the major feature film that was at the Hollywood Casino and there was another feature film that was at the Toledo Club for three weeks, so there are projects happening here. We’ll be talking about that and how people can get involved,” said DeSanto. “It’s really nice to work with the Maumee Indoor Theater and Maumee Uptown to bring (the film festival) back. It’s going to be great.”
The festival will kick off with a VIP reception with the film directors in the festival on Friday from 6 to 10 p.m. at Buster Brown’s Big Dog Lounge, located at 313 Conant St.
“The reception is going to be a good chance to network with the filmmakers, find out how to get involved in the film scene,” said Eiden.
Tickets for the Maumee Film Festival are $30 for two day admission, and $20 for a single day admission. The VIP reception is $80 and includes food, drink concessions for both days of the film festival, and a T-shirt.
For more information, including a full lineup of films, visit maumeeindoor.com/maumeefilmfestival.
Local News
Comments / 0