It’s that time of year again: time to celebrate the 15th annual Berkshire International Film Festival. This world-class festival will showcase features, films, and documentaries representing 20 different countries. The virtual event will run from September 9th-12th.
Founder Kelley Vickery spoke with Zydalis Bauer and previewed what to expect at this year’s festival.
Read the full transcript:
Zydalis Bauer, Connecting Point: It’s that time of year again, time to celebrate the 15th annual Berkshire International Film Festival. This world class festival will be showcasing features, films, and documentaries representing 20 different countries.
The virtual events will be running from September 9th through the 12th, and I spoke with founder Kelley Vickery to learn more about what to expect at this year’s festival.
Kelley Vickery, Berkshire International Film Festival: You know, Berkshire County is well known for its amazing cultural heritage and activities.
And so, I moved here about nearly 20 years ago, which is hard to believe, and I go to Tanglewood, I go to Jacob’s Pillow. I love all the theater around here, and it seemed a little obvious that there wasn’t a real celebration of film.
And so I talked to some friends who run a film festival out in Colorado, where I’m originally from, and I got the idea and started talking to people.
And before you knew it, BIFF was born over 15 years ago now, and the community, the Berkshire community, wrapped their self — their arms around the film festival and and here we are, still! Even survived a pandemic.
Zydalis Bauer: While talking about the pandemic, due to recent COVID concerns, the festival will be going virtual for the first time ever this year.
How difficult was it to make that decision and what challenges and even opportunities come about when planning a virtual event?
Kelley Vickery: Well, it was very — it was a very tough decision that our board had to make. But with rising cases, the surge even in Berkshire County, to have a four day, nonstop film festival with hundreds of people going in and out of seven venues throughout the county, it just seemed irresponsible for us.
And — but we didn’t want to give up all these films that we have. We have over 60 films that are fantastic, you know, from all over the world and locally, as well. So, we did make that hard decision with, you know, we’re glad we did.
And the fortunate thing is, that we already had a hybrid kind of setup with this company Evented, which many of the film festivals around the country and quite frankly, the world, have had to pivot to. We fought it because originally, because there’s nothing in the world like being in a theater with your community, watching films.
There’s — the festival atmosphere is exciting, so we were able to pivot to this virtual platform so that we can still, no matter what, bring all of these wonderful films to our community.
And some some films had to drop because of the distribution agreements, they are not allowed to go virtual. But the plus side about it is that people can watch whatever they want, whenever they want in the comfort of their homes and invite friends over, have a BIFF party, we hope.
We’re doing a virtual happy hour at five o’clock every single day of the festival. So, things like that are fun. We’re trying to make it as fun as we can, despite the fact that we’re not going to be gathering properly together.
Zydalis Bauer: Executive Director David Tochterman commented on your ability to create a theme every year that reflects and connects with what’s going on in the world.
So, tell me a little bit about the theme for this year’s festival.
Kelley Vickery: Well, this year it really is. You know, the programing team were very thoughtful in making sure that it wasn’t heavy. We’ve all experienced a very heavy time, 18 months. I was not going to program a film about COVID. We didn’t need a film like that.
So…so, I can’t say that there’s a specific thing, but there’s definitely, throughout the films that we’re showing, there’s a lot of inspiration. There’s a lot of inspiring and heartwarming stories. They’re funny. Some are serious, of course, but we really wanted to find that balance to make a festival where people were entertained. They are educated, they are inspired.
And there’s, you know, funny films from Ireland to very heartwarming films from the Berkshires included in this.
Zydalis Bauer: The lineup features 22 documentaries, 20 narrative features, and 18 short films representing 20 different countries.
What is the selection process like for this festival? I can’t even imagine.
Kelley Vickery: It takes a long time. I mean, we, you know, we’re opening up — you know, we’ll be turning around after this festival and three weeks later, we’ll be opening up our submission process. But we look at over a thousand films and curate, essentially, ten percent of that.
So, we have an amazing programing team. We look at everything from Australia and China and Chile to to right in our backyard and we go through distribution companies, but we also have filmmakers contacting us directly to submit their films to us.
And we start viewing in October to make selections by April 1st. So, it’s a long process and good thing we do it during the winter, when nobody wants to go out anyway.
Zydalis Bauer: What are you looking forward to the most at this year’s festival? Is there a particular film that you’re excited for? And what should festival goers expect?
Kelley Vickery: Well, festival goers can expect to really find some amazing gems. I mean, we have, you know, an adorable story from Ireland — a mother- daughter story. We have an incredibly heroic, inspiring story from Kosovo. The documentaries, our environmental documentaries are incredible. They will give you hope in our climate crisis that we’re experiencing.
But I suppose it’s always really fun to have our local connection films. We have three very prominent ones, one’s called “Hello Bookstore” about Matt Tenenbaum and his bookstore in Lenox. One is about Shakespeare and Company’s Fall Festival, Speak What You Feel. Really beautiful, inspiring story about how Shake and Co goes into our area high schools and presents — puts on a show each fall. And we have a short film called “Sprout Land” about Steve Meyerowitz, who sadly passed away some years ago and he was called Sprout Man. This is a narrative feature, a short film, but it’s wonderful.
So, it’s fun when we have these stories that are connected to our community and they’re all three, just wonderful.
Zydalis Bauer: Moviemaker Magazine named the Berkshire International Film Festival as one of the Top 25 Coolest Festivals in the World. What an honor! What, in your opinion, makes this festival one of the coolest?
Kelley Vickery: Well, I will say that BIFF is really about the filmmakers, we bring in filmmakers from all over the world each spring, in a normal world. And we really take care of our filmmakers.
And we also we also curate our film festival very tightly. We don’t, you know, we don’t just throw anything in there, you know. We only have — in a normal year — we would have 80 films. And, you know, we go through this process, as I said, of over a thousand — viewing over a thousand films. So, it’s very tightly curated.
We bring in filmmakers from all over the world. We have a very enthusiastic film-going audience. And so I think being in the Berkshires, having these filmmakers, creates a really incredible vibe and and it is pretty cool. I got to say — it’s cool!
Zydalis Bauer: Last year, amidst the pandemic, you were able to create an eight-week, pop-up drive in event. This year, you’ve been able to move forward with a virtual event.
What does the future hold for the Film Festival?
Kelley Vickery: I believe the next next June, in our proper time slot, we will be back and we will be we will be, you know, full thrust going ahead.
We plan to have a Sweet 16 celebration. We will be back in Great Barrington with all the bells and whistles. Filmmakers will be back. We will have tea talks. There is no doubt that we will be celebrating next year.
So, BIFF is here to stay, and next next spring, I plan to have a very happy celebration of all being back together. No more drive-ins. No more virtual. We’re going to be back, in action.
