The last time the Milwaukee Film Festival operated at only two venues, “Slumdog Millionaire” was the reigning Oscar champ.
Contraction might be the subtext of MFF’s 17th annual edition, which launches with “Sally,” a documentary about the first American woman in space, at 6 p.m. April 24 inside the Oriental Theatre on North Farwell Avenue. The celebration will move under the stars at 8 p.m. for what’s being billed as the Opening Night Block Party. While ticket and pass holders are eligible for special discounts throughout the evening, the general festivities are free and open to the public.
This year Milwaukee Film will use all five screens at the Oriental and Downer Theatres to present 96 feature films and 112 short films over two weeks. That’s a much smaller footprint than usual—the venue roster from last year has been halved—but the organization is positioning this year’s fest as a “walkable” experience that will find new ways to enliven every corner between its two historic cinemas.
“We are activating the full festival experience for cinemagoers,” said Susan Kerns, Milwaukee Film’s new executive director. “Audiences love the great films, talkbacks with filmmakers, and panel discussions at the film festival, and these are the cornerstones of what we do. We know festival-goers also love talking to each other in the lobby about the films, continuing that conversation over a snack across the street between screenings, and browsing nearby businesses along the way.”
For those who have faithfully tuned in to the festival, the decision to downsize counts as a midseason bombshell. The story arc begins in 2009, when the inaugural MFF rose from the ashes of the Milwaukee International Film Festival and ran 11 days on four total screens, including two at the Marcus North Shore Cinema in Mequon. By 2019, the fest had swelled to 15 days and eight screens at six venues, reaching as far north as the Rivoli Theatre in Cedarburg.
But then COVID-19 created a cliffhanger: How would the festival survive? After two virtual-only and two hybrid events, MFF finally seemed back on the expansion track in 2024, offering in-person screenings in seven auditoriums.
Among those were single-screen neighborhood theaters in Washington Heights (Times Cinema) and Bay View (Avalon Theater) that had been part of MFF since 2014 and 2015, respectively. With the scaled-back festival now sticking to the East Side, those entrenched partnerships appear to be over.
This year’s “walkable” fest, then, also feels like a walking-back.
That plot reversal was perhaps foreshadowed by a challenging post-pandemic span during which Milwaukee Film has faced significant financial deficits, performed an internal reorganization, and felt the departures of key staff, including Chief Innovation Officer Geraud Blanks and Founding Artistic Director Jonathan Jackson. Last August the nonprofit also announced that it was cutting its cultural outreach, artist mentoring and youth education divisions.
Spotlight presentations
Education programs, of course, were central to Sally Ride’s post-NASA life, so kicking off with “Sally” is fitting for a festival trying, in difficult times, to effectuate its mission in sustainable ways. The award-winning profile, which screens again April 25 and May 1, takes great interest in how the trailblazing astronaut encouraged women to pursue science and settled down with her life partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy.
There’s also a love story in closing-night selection “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,” but one much less earthbound. In this fanciful rom-com, Agathe, a young bookseller and Austen enthusiast living in Paris, is over the moon about attending a writer’s residency in the English countryside. Once there, Agathe finds herself in a romantic triangle that begins to resemble a quintessential Jane Austen comedy of manners.
By contrast, book banning is often a comedy of errors—even “Pride and Prejudice” has been targeted in some countries—but the recent, widespread threats to intellectual freedom in this country are no laughing matter. With “The Librarians,” director Kim A. Snyder (“Us Kids”) has made another topical documentary about what it means to be in the trenches fighting for core American values. Place a special bookmark inside the program guide for this one, because in these fraught times when democracy itself seems on the line, there are plenty of hot-button reasons why MFF made “The Librarians” its centerpiece selection.
Only a philistine would object to the book-signing event that will precede a 40th-anniversary screening of “Desperately Seeking Susan.” Director Susan Seidelman will be in town April 26 to answer audience questions and discuss her new memoir about, as the subtitle says, “movies, mothers and, material girls.” I haven’t seen Seidelman’s mistaken-identity comedy since the ‘80s, but who could forget its bodacious SoHo vibe and the way it brings together Madonna and Rosanna Arquette through a kooky case of amnesia?
If memory serves, I last showed F.W. Murnau’s silent vampire classic “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” to students in 2006, its cursed poetry accentuated by being projected onto butcher paper covering an entire classroom wall. That’s nothing, though, compared to how MFF has invited the renowned Anvil Orchestra to give the film a live musical accompaniment on April 28. Light and shadow are Murnau’s subjects, even more than blood and plague, and there’s really nothing like Max Schreck’s spindly, subhuman performance as Count Orlok. Those long ears, fingers and teeth have become iconic, but familiarity hasn’t diminished how Orlok still feels like danger incarnate.
The Frankenstein myth, rather than Dracula, has inspired “Dead Lover,” which the festival has slotted into its twisted Cinema Hooligante strand. If that’s not your thing, the fest has a dozen other divisions, including stories about Black, Latin American and queer experiences. There will also be many documentaries, locally-produced fare, short film packages, children’s movies and international features.
Among new works from distinguished filmmakers are David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds,” Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Cloud,” Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Alex Ross Perry’s “Pavements” and Errol Morris’ “Separated.”
The festival runs April 24-May 8. The full lineup and ticket information are online at mkefilm.org/mff.