The Victory International Film Festival is next Friday and Saturday at locations such as the Victory Theatre and the WNIN Public Theater. Festival Director Patrick Higgs sat down with WNIN’s TIm Jagielo to talk about the festival and the new Indiana tax credit for films. Go to www.victoryiff.com for more information.
Patrick Higgs
We're doing a special celebration of the 30th anniversary of 'A League of Their Own.' And we've produced our own documentary called 'In Our Own League.' We'll also be doing a special screening of the original 1987 documentary 'A League of Their Own,' which inspired Penny Marshall to make her film. And of course, we'll have a screening of that film, plus 65 other films throughout the two days. So, a lot of films in just short time.
Tim Jagielo
What's the range of the subject matter and experience for the directors?
PH
We have a wide range we have a lot of short films, of course, we have international films. We have student films from both college and high school. Opening night we have a documentary about the Tuskegee Airmen in Indiana, that was produced by one of our volunteers last year, he was a Signature School student. He's off to film college now. And Owen Hollander is his name, he produced that one and another veteran-inspired documentary called 'Never Lose Hope,' which we'll be showing on Saturday.
Chris White is a very experienced director. 'Electric Jesus' last year won all sorts of awards all over the country for his film.
We do have the first time filmmakers we have ones that have several films under their belt, growing each year, we have some international films really, really good international films this year. So and those are professional quality, but you wouldn't see them otherwise in Evansville.
TJ
And every film festival is unique. How does the fact that it's an Evansville make it unique? Or maybe even influenced that a little bit?
PH
Well, you know, we are at the historic Victory Theater on the Friday night. And for years, that place sat empty. Now people go to it and it's a, you know, concert venue. But it was a movie theater when it was created. And so we get to actually show movies back in the theater like it was intended in the one great big huge stage.
TJ
Why is the film tradition important to support and showcase considering that we've got the Evansville Philharmonic, we've also got a great arts council here. So why is it important to also bolster the film tradition?
PH
Because film and media production, whether it's you know, YouTube videos or anything like that, is a creative art to for the film festival. Most filmmakers don't make their first feature film, you know, out of the box. They learn, they make their short films, they make their mistakes, they get feedback, they see what works, what doesn't work, and they grow.
Now we've got some great film institutions, educational opportunities at IU and even here locally. So this gives a lot of the Indiana filmmakers a chance to show off their work. We have several from around the state also, we've got about eight local Evansville area films that were made, and they're all short films. So hopefully area will come out and support their their friends and neighbors.
TJ
What is the overall goal of a film festival especially we'll say a local kind of film festival?
PH
For us, you know, we're celebrating 'A League of Their Own' this year. That was 30 years ago, we've not had a major film come back and film. Here in the Evansville area, we finally have a new tax credit that the state put in this year. So there's a new program for that 'Film Evansville,' which is a brand new program. We'll be presenting information to that to the filmmakers. From what I understand it's competitive with California, Georgia and New York. It's about a 30-percent credit. They just started it in August; they've extended the deadline. But it's going to get better over the next couple of years.
We've got a great city to attract (filmmakers); we've got a lot of landscape and historic structures. (And) over the years filmmakers have said, 'Oh, I would really like to come back.' But there's been no incentive and no financial help to do that. So with the new tax incentive in bringing more filmmakers in, we're going to hopefully give them that shot to come in, and I know of one that's coming so I just can't say anything about that yet.