The Milwaukee Film Festival: A Milwaukee Cultural Touchstone
by Christopher Hayden
Oriental Theatre; Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Film Festival
The 27th annual Milwaukee Film Festival recently wrapped, further proving why it is an important part of Milwaukee’s culture.
The Festival took place from April 16–30 at the Oriental and Downer Theatres. According to Milwaukee Film Communications & PR Coordinator Robyn Ehrlich, over 243 films were showcased. Of those, 51 were narrative features, 54 were documentaries, and 138 were short films.
When it comes to certain films making big impressions on audiences, the Festival has two Audience Awards. One is for Best Feature Film and the other is for Best Short Film. This year, the former went to “Bright Beautiful World: The Infectious Joy of Pat McCurdy,” a documentary about Milwaukee singer-songwriter Pat McCurdy. The latter went to “Oh Whale,” which follows a news anchor covering a story about an exploding whale in Florence, Oregon in 1970.
“We had 36,922 attendees across the screenings and events at the 15-day festival,” Ehrlich said. “Which was a 15.4% growth in attendance over last year.”
Last year’s attendance totaled 32,004. As strong as those numbers are, they remain below pre-pandemic levels. According to Ehrlich, the pre-pandemic record was in 2019 and drew 87,000 people. Still, this year’s turnout was the best post-pandemic showing yet.
When asked about what the significance of the Festival was to Milwaukee culture, Ehrlich brought up how special it is for the city to have something like it since it is not a huge film city like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles or Toronto. The Festival brings films to Milwaukee that would not otherwise be shown or accessible to Milwaukeean audiences. Since Milwaukee is hungry for unique, artistic and cultural experiences, the Festival helps to fulfill that desire.
Because the Festival is based in Milwaukee, homegrown filmmakers naturally tend to be well represented. According to Ehrlich, 18 percent of the films shown were from Milwaukee filmmakers. There is an entire local section of the festival called “Cream City Cinema” that showcases work from Milwaukee-area filmmakers. Aside from the McCurdy film, the films that had world premieres this year were “Ueck,” “Makin’ Cake” and “Flytrapper.”
“Ueck” was directed by Milwaukee-based filmmakers Steve Farr and Michael T. Vollmann and is a documentary profiling former baseball player Bob Uecker. “Makin’ Cake” was directed by Milwaukeean Dasha Kelly and is a documentary that chronicles her journey across America as she talks to bakers, historians and scientists while touring her stage show of the same name. “Flytrapper” was directed by UW-Milwaukee alum Drew Britton and is a comedy centered on a woman named Crystal whose life gets upended by the arrival of her estranged friend, Maddie.
“It’s super exciting,” Ehrlich said of this year’s audience response. “We are really grateful to all of Milwaukee for getting so into it this year.”
Next year’s Festival takes place from April 29–May 13, which will coincide with the Oriental Theatre’s 100th birthday.
Christopher Hayden is the local news reporter for Bridge the City. You can connect with Christopher here.
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