Sun, surf, celebrities and access to films that normally wouldn’t screen in Michigan without divine intervention. For a weekend spent on the west coast of Michigan, a film lover really couldn’t ask for more from the 11th annual Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck.
“This is what existed in my mind’s eye when I imagined what a film festival would be like,” said John Woehrle, co-director of the documentary “Pride of Lions.” “The experience has been just tremendous.”
Screening a total of 21 feature-length narrative films, 13 documentaries and 44 shorts, the festival showed independent films from all over, with a special eye toward Michigan filmmakers, with varying subjects, genres and tones ranging from light comedies to heavy dramas and documentaries. Spread out at four different venues around the city, it was easy to hop from screening to screening all day. There was a real sense of adventure in some of the selections, like the grave-robbing horror-comedy “I Sell the Dead.” Jumping from a serious documentary about the crisis in Sierra Leone to a comedy about a peculiar form of male rivalry played with my head a little bit, but at the same time really gave the festival a feeling that there was something for everyone.
Selecting a diverse and even group of films was a careful balancing act, said programmer and actress Christine Elise McCarthy. She said she watched more than 200 films while selecting the ones to be featured at the festival, and further, the programming board watches every film submitted and whittles down the final list through discussion and good-natured arguments.
With the intent to provide exposure in western Michigan to many independent filmmakers, some films had already shown at other festivals, while some world-premiered in Saugatuck. Festival favorite “Humpday” was a Grand Jury prize nominee at Sundance Film Festival and an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival.
“We’re looking for every kind of film that can make us cry, make us laugh, make us think,” McCarthy said. “Everyone has different tastes and we’re looking for what speaks to us.”
If McCarthy and the other programmers were thinking about emotional impact when choosing films, they were definitely able to hit the mark. Even films that were pretty hit-or-miss, like “Jesus People,” for example, a comedy about a Christian rock band, had moments of sheer brilliance amidst some weaker gags. The marks of true independent films are a certain rough-hewn quality and an edginess of subject matter.
The fun of such festivals is getting to try all sorts of different films that won’t necessarily show up in theaters. On a whim, I attended a screening of “American Harmony,” a documentary that follows barbershop quartets to the International Championships of Barbershop Harmony.
Documentaries that follow people through an unusual competition in a subculture are pretty standard. The response this film garnered, however, was not. The conclusion of the film registered an audible response from the audience. People sitting in the darkened gym of a local high school had become so involved in the trials of these barbershop quartets, you would have thought the gym was hosting a basketball game as opposed to a documentary.
That’s the kind of film you don’t often see at the multiplex, and that’s what keeps people coming back to the Waterfront Film Festival year after year.
Melissa Smalls, a 2008 MSU alumna, said she’s been coming to the festival since high school. She said the friendly and liberal tone of the event keeps the subject matter racy and makes it a high point of her summer.
The Waterfront Film Festival is run entirely by volunteers, subsisting on money made from donations and the sale of merchandise and tickets from year to year. With tremendous community support, after just 11 years, the festival has grown into one of the preeminent film festivals in the country, McCarthy said.
“The community is so behind this festival,” Woehrle said. “I’d like to thank them for giving a filmmaker the best experience.”