A past Moviate Underground Film Festival.
Movie lovers may find a new favorite film at an upcoming event
The 25th Annual Moviate Underground Film Festival will run from May 16 to 19 at Midtown Cinema in Harrisburg, featuring over 50 films.
This year, there will be a heavy focus on documentaries, along with plenty of other avant-garde films.
“Since a lot of theaters don’t show these films, we try to show them,” said Caleb Smith, founder of Moviate.
Smith founded Moviate in 1997 with the goal of showcasing independent films. Since 1999, Moviate has held an Underground Film Festival every year to feature an eclectic array of independent, avant-garde films.
This year, Moviate received over 300 film submissions and has selected 50 to show, prompting them to extend the festival from its typical three-day duration to four days, Smith said.
The festival will start at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 16, with a screening of John Kinhart’s documentary “Married to Comics” about comic book and graphic novel creators Justin Greene and Carol Tyler.
This year, almost half of the featured films are from women filmmakers, such as “El Signo Vacio” by Kathryn Ramey and “Happy Campers” by Amy Nicholson. Nicholson will present her film on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
“We’ve always been very conscious of that. There is always an imbalance in Hollywood of men getting more press and projects,” Smith said. “We don’t try to program a certain amount of women [filmmakers], but we do see a lot of women making independent films and we want to promote that.”
Also this year, Moviate received enough film submissions from local filmmakers to host a film block to feature the work of Harrisburg area filmmakers. This will be held Sunday at 5 p.m.
The festival will conclude Sunday evening with a showing of the documentary “Instrument,” about the band Fugazi, directed by band member Jem Cohen. There will be a live online Q&A session to follow with band member Ian MacKaye.
“This Q&A with Ian will be a very special event because many people know him as a musician, but he’s been at film festivals and has made his own films, too,” Smith said. “So it’s always very interesting to talk about his relationship with film.”
Smith said that he is excited about the variety of films that will be featured.
“Some are fun, some are serious. We have a lot of different stuff we bring in, so everyone can look at the schedule and find something interesting to them,” Smith said.
Tickets can be purchased on Midtown Cinema’s website or at the door. Prices range from $5 for students, $8 for a matinee short film block, $15 for a daytime pass, $12 for evening films or $65 for a pass for the full festival.
For more information about Moviate, visit their website. To purchase tickets, visit Midtown Cinema’s website.
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