Jukebox Film Festival set for Carson City

Carson City will be bringing together music and movies with the first Jukebox International Film Festival.

The festival, which runs Tuesday and Wednesday, will feature filmmakers from all over the world to showcase their passions that are all centered around the theme of music.

“All of the films are unique and all have music involved, but they are all different and are excellent films,” said festival coordinator Scott Young.

Young said there will be 15 films shown, ranging from music videos to documentaries, that all have to do with music. Some subject matter includes a film about a man who handcrafts guitars, a village without music and a musical with original songs.

The festival is being presented by Wired Wednesday Digital Artists, which typically hosts several film competitions throughout the year. However, this year, they decided to do something different and add the film festival to their line-up.

“It turned out to be a bigger deal because this is totally new for us,” Young said. “We have only done competitions and this is an actual festival... but (festival organizer) Darla Bayer said we have done contests, let’s do a film festival.”

The difference between a competition and festival is when the film is made. For the competition, filmmakers have to produce the movie within a week, whereas for the festival the film could have been made at any time.

The festival will even feature three U.S. premiers.

“We got them first so that is pretty exciting,” Young said.

Young said they’re also excited because in addition to the films, the event will feature a Q&A, meet and greet and a panel with the filmmakers.

“One of the highlights is that we want to see our local filmmakers get to see other filmmakers and do networking,” Young said. “We obviously want everyone to see the films but the meet and greet will be a big event.”

The event will also feature special guest Grant Davis. The singer/actor is a Carson City native and will be bringing his film, “Something Like Summer,” to show at the festival. In addition, in conjunction with Jazz and Beyond, he will be performing a concert Friday night.

At the end of the festival, there will be an awards ceremony to celebrate the best and top films of the event.

But, creating this event wasn’t without difficulty. Young said some of their problems came from trying to find acceptable judges.

“We wanted to find judges who had enough credibility for the filmmakers to accept as judges,” Young said. “The problem we ran into was that people wanted stipends to judge and we are a first year event so we don’t have the money to do that.”

But, they were able to pull through. There will be five judges and a tie breaker judge that include local filmmakers, directors and even a Grammy winner.

“We wanted people to look them up and say ‘this person is an accomplished filmmaker or has a musical background,’” Young said.

For next year’s festival, Young said they hope to mitigate this issue among others. Next year, they want to have the submissions open for longer than two months in order to get a greater amount of films into the festival.

“We waited too long to start and I think that hurt us a little because we didn’t have as many entries,” Young said. “Come Oct. 1, we will open submissions for next year to end up with hundreds of films and get the judges we want.”

But, the organizers are excited to put on the first Jukebox International Film Festival.

“People should come if they are into movies or music because there will be plenty of both to go around,” Young said. “Filmmakers who want to attend should come because the filmmakers who are in the festival are making the journey here and will be participating in the meet and greets for those who attend.”

The event is open to the public. Tickets are $15 for an all access pass for both days, $10 for the awards ceremony only, $6 for a daily pass.

The event will run Aug. 15 and 16, with doors opening each day at 9 a.m. at the Brewery Arts Center Performance Hall.

For information, call Darla Bayer at 775-830-7939 or visit the event website at www.jukebooxiff.org.