Big exposure on the big screen.
Columbus resident Ryan Furr is excited about that for his first short film debuting at the 12th Annual YES Film Festival Oct. 23-25 at YES Cinema in downtown Columbus. And he’s excited that people can physically come together, though with masks and social distancing, to see that 3-minute work.
Irony about that chance to gather is the fact that the mini-flick, titled “Isolation,” is a quick take and a video essay of sorts about the quarantine earlier this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic when people gathered mostly in their homes.
“People crave connection,” Furr says in part of the film.
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So, no wonder he’s excited about the fest.
“I think it’s really cool to see YES still doing the festival, and making the effort to still be able to pull off something like this,” said Furr, known by many people locally for his video production work at Ryan Furr Creative and his music. “From what I’ve seen, it has become a really cool event for the community.”
A total of 759 ticket buyers — slightly down from 2018’s record of 919 people — last year would agree about the event that highlights a variety of narrative feature films, shorts and documentaries and attracts moviegoers locally and from nearby areas such as Indianapolis and Bloomington.
“This year, we would LOVE to surpass that mark (from last year),” said Diane Doup of the Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center that operates the nonprofit YES that funds some of the center’s programs.
And at a time when some theaters are closing their doors, the leaders of YES and Columbus native Diane Mason, the festival’s volunteer artistic director, believe the festival still has a significant place among local arts events that bring far more than entertainment.
In fact, under Mason’s direction, the gathering has highlighted everything from humor to heartwarming heroes, from social justice to trailblazing women. And Mason emphasized that movies are far more meant for the theater screen than the computer screen, since some fests this year have been forced to go virtual.
“It’s more of a shared experience,” said Mason, a documentary filmmaker, said of the festival at YES’s two theaters.
And what better way of sharing the drama of film than through features such as “The Perfect Candidate?” That’s a true story about a 20-something Saudi Arabian woman who inadvertently becomes a candidate for her municipal council in her homeland.
“I got off to a scarily slow start because of the lockdown,” Mason said, speaking by phone from her home in Florida. She added that a lot of films she hoped to land have had their release delayed.
Ideally, she would like attendees to find slivers of optimism and hope amid the movie mix.
“This year, one of the main things I’d like for people to take away is just the idea that YES is back in the theater,” she said, referring to its approximate four-month closing in spring and summer because of the coronavirus. “I think we’re offering a lot of variety with regard to topics.”
The short documentary, “The Lost Astronaut,” focuses on Ed Dwight Jr., who, in 1963, was poised to be NASA’s first African-American astronaut. But it never happened, leading to his wonderfully out-of-this-world quote in the film: “How … do you get famous for something you didn’t do?”
“These kinds of stories are just so good,” Mason said. “One of the things I would like to see happen is that people have a chance to walk out of the theater smiling.”
Or perhaps reveling in love amid adversity.
For instance, one Indiana story, featured in the documentary “Invisible Sky,” highlights a 2006 Bloomington plane crash in which a grieving and angry father fights for years to clear his young pilot/daughter’s flight record.
At least a couple other films in the festival make elements of injustice or righting societal wrongs a central theme. One is the documentary “One Night in January: Counting the Cost of Homelessness.”
“That’s just another reason,” she said, “that we need film festivals.”
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What: 12th Annual YES Film Festival, including narrative features, documentaries and shorts on a wide range of topics. There are 22 films, plus one music video.
When: Oct. 23-25.
Where: YES Cinema, 328 Jackson St. in downtown Columbus.
Tickets: $7 for single tickets or $35 for an all-access pass.
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