Submissions from Russia, Ukraine part of Fort Smith International Film Festival

With submissions open for less than two months, the Fort Smith International Film Festival is proving it is an international film festival. As of March 24, 183 entries have been submitted for the festival with 102 from 33 different countries and 81 from the United States.

Dr. Brandon Chase Goldsmith, executive director of the Fort Smith International Film Festival, said that included in those submissions are “Valera,” submitted March 5 from a director in Ukraine, and “One,” submitted Feb. 4 from the Russian Federation.

Roman Sinitsyn, the Russian director who won last year’s Jen’s Kitty Rehab’s Best Animal Film with “COP,” has been in touch with Goldsmith many times since Russia invaded Ukraine. He provides updates on the antiwar movement in his country and the many people leaving Russia for Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Turkey, Goldsmith said.

“We invited our winners from last year to submit again this year. He was able to submit his film before anything started there,” Goldsmith said.

He said the Ukranian film includes many cityscapes that have been destroyed during the Russian invasion.

“The film was finished in February, right before Russia invaded. That makes it somewhat historical in what it shows of how things used to look,” Goldsmith said.

‘BORDERLANDS’
The festival began accepting submissions of films Feb. 4 and will continue to accept them through June, Goldsmith said. This year’s theme is “Borderlands.”

“Fort Smith is an original wild west border town. Physical and societal borders are where innovations and novel concepts are born. Creativity flourishes in these spaces. Film acts as a threshold between actuality and fantasy capturing the moment a border is established, defended, or overcome. The stories of our lives exist within these borderlands and movies bring those experiences to the screen,” Goldsmith said.

The festival will be held Aug. 26-27 at TempleLive in Fort Smith. The 2021 festival was held across four venues. Goldsmith said organizers are hoping with everything being contained in one building this year, there will be a better chance for more people to see more films. Last year, there were 396 films submitted for the inaugural Fort Smith film festival. The festival screened 132 (43 hours) of film from 32 countries.

“I’m hoping we can screen more this year,” Goldsmith said. “I learned the hard way that it is more about choosing films for the time slots available, rather than trying to pick the films we want to show. Of course, we know there are some we definitely want to include, but we know it’s easier to schedule if we include several short films. In a two-hour block you can show a couple of 30-minute films and then lots of five to seven minute ones.”

Goldsmith is also using screeners to help determine what films make the cut this year, rather than trying to watch all the films submitted. There was a screener training held March 19.

“The idea is that each film gets three sets of eyes on it. That way we have a diversity of opinions,” Goldsmith said.

STUDENT WORKS, NWA COLLABORATION
Films chosen by the festival screening committee will compete for cash prizes, trophies, and scholarships. Organizers are hoping to again receive submissions from high school students. The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith is once again offering scholarships to the top three films in the high school category. Scholarships will be $2,000 for the first-place film, $1,000 for second and $500 for third, Goldsmith said. Organizers are also hoping there will again be many music videos submitted from local artists.

“It’s a great way to get local flavor into the festival,” Goldsmith said. “Those really showcased Fort Smith people in Fort Smith areas with Fort Smith musicians.”

Arkansas Cinema Society and the Fort Smith International Film Festival will host a screening of “The Collective: A 10-part Fashion Film” at 7 p.m., Thursday (March 24) at TempleLive. The film about a fashion event in Northwest Arkansas will be followed by a question and answer session with filmmaker Jessica Whalen, designer Elizabeth Koerner and representatives from INTERFORM and the Fort Smith Fashion Project. Admission is $5.

The screening is part of the Borderlands Film Series, which features selections from the movies screened at the 2021 Fort Smith International Film Festival and aims to bring Northwest Arkansas and the Fort Smith region together through the arts, Goldsmith said.

“We’re too small to not all work together. When we join our two areas together, we can offer so much and really compete in the world of film,” he said.