Scaled-down Waterville, Camden film festivals to be held at drive-ins
Courtesy / Maine International Film Festival
Waterville's 10-day Maine International Film Festival, hosted by the Maine Film Center, normally draws thousands to the city. This year's scaled down event will be at the Skowhegan Drive-In and online.
Organizers of the Maine International Film Festival are taking it outside this year, to the Skowhegan Drive-In, while those who put together the Camden International Film Festival hope to build a drive-in of their own.
The annual festivals, which draw thousands to their regions and generate hundreds of thousands of dollars, are moving forward with smaller, modified formats to comply with social distancing requirements.
"We deeply felt it was important to host the Maine International Film Festival in any way we could," said Mike Perreault, executive director of the Maine Film Center in Waterville. "We're bringing films to Maine that otherwise wouldn't be shown here, and this year that's more important than ever."
On the midcoast, Ben Fowlie of Points North, which puts on the Camden International Film Festival every September, asked the Rockport select board earlier this month to allow for the installation of a 45-by-25 food screen on the now-vacant Rockport Elementary School site. It hopes to screen films through October as well as host the four-day September festival.
The select board will take up the the proposal at tonight's meeting.
Making new plans
In its 23rd year, the 10-day Maine International Film Festival is usually held at the Waterville Opera House and Railroad Square Cinema. Its economic impact was estimated to be $750,000 in 2011, but since then it's expanded and continues to build its audience.
Organizers knew in March, when they had to shut down Railroad Square Cinema, which is owned by the Maine Film Center, that this year was going to be different.
"We closed down Railroad Square and it's still not open, it's not going to be open this summer," Perreault said.
The Skowhegan Drive-In Theatre, owned by Donald Brown, was an obvious option. The film festival used the drive-in before, in 2012 and 2016, as a third venue.
The festival will stick to its planned dates, July 7 to 16. The drive-in will showcase nine feature films, including world, North American and East Coast premieres, as well as a program of Maine shorts. Because drive-ins can only show movies after dark, additional feature and short films will be made available for ticketed online streaming.
Maine International Film Festival normally has a budget of about $150,000, Perreault told Mainebiz, but this year it's closer to $75,000. While it normally screens 100 films over its 10 days as well as hosting a variety of events, the total this year will be about 30 films. He said there will also be online live discussions.
The capacity of the drive-in, on U.S. Route 201, is 350 vehicles, but Perreault said they're still figuring out how many to accommodate with social distancing. While the old sound boxes are still there, sound will be streamed into cars through an FM signal.
CIFF seeking free use of space
The Camden Film Festival normally has an operating budget of $1 million, of which around $500,000 comes from corporate sponsorship. Paid staff for the festival is around 50 people, with more than 200 volunteers giving about 2,000 hours, Fowlie said last year.
The four-day documentary festival is in its 16th year, and last year had 12,000 admissions, a 30% increase in sales of festival passes from the year before, Fowlie told Mainebiz in September. The festival is normally held at downtown venues in Camden, Rockport and Rockland.
The Points North Institute also puts on a growing artist development initiatives, from retreats to workshops, and has been holding virtual ones since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown began.
The Rockport proposal calls for installing a 45-by-25 foot screen along the tree line at the vacant site on West Street. Fowlie is asking that the town provide the space at no cost, with the town's support being publicized at the site.
The screen would be mounted on 40-foot utility poles and built to an engineer's specifications, in either a lean-to or box truss design.
The proposal before the select board says. Like the Skowhegan Drive-In, sound would be through an FM signal directly to cars. Fowlie said shows would be over by 10 p.m. to keep the light from bothering the surrounding neighborhood. There are also extensive social distancing plans with the proposal, which would include movies three or four times a month from July through October.
Reaching a new audience
Perreault said that while the international festival won't be the same as it's been in past years, the modifications are also an opportunity to reach a new audience.
He said that he'd already received emails from people who are vacationing in-state this year, in the Skowhegan area, asking about passes to the drive-in.
Ken Eisen, programming director, said that it's a new opportunity. "We are truly thrilled to be embarking on what we are sure will be an exciting, safe, and joyful version of MIFF appropriate to the current conditions," he said in a news release announcing the change.
Brown, owner of the drive-in, said the theater is "a unique cultural attraction from an earlier era" and the partnership with MIFF, a cultural resource for central Maine, is a good combination. Brown several years ago installed updated digital equipment at the dirve-in, which he's owned for the past decade. He recently restored the vintage sign, using a grant from the Main Street Skowhegan facade grant program.
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