Central Michigan International Film Festival condenses days, locations of scheduled films

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Film lovers will not have to travel as far to get their movie fix during this year’s Central Michigan International Film Festival.

As a member of the film committee, a faculty-based board that oversees the Film Society at Central Michigan University, assistant professor of libraries Stephanie Mathson said this year’s film festival will offer fewer films, but in closer-to-campus locations, to achieve a better focus.

“With fewer films, we’re hoping to create a more focused event,” she said. “We have half the films that we did last year, but again, I think we really tried to get quite a variety of drama, comedy, foreign films and documentaries.”

The festival has been condensed from a two-weekend event into a five-day event, starting Wednesday and ending Sunday, showing 13 films at three locations.

Films will be shown at Celebration! Cinema, 4935 E. Pickard St., the Charles V. Park Library Auditorium and the Bovee University Center Auditorium.

Eric Limarenko, faculty adviser for the Film Society at CMU and manager of video facilities, said this is a change of venue from last year, when films were also shown at the Broadway Theatre, 216. E. Broadway St.

“When we cut the number of films and cut the number of days, it sort of made sense to cut the number of locations,” he said.

By reducing the number of showings of a certain film from three to one, Limarenko said, he hopes students and community members will make more of an effort to attend that one showing.

“To have it spread over two different weekends … it spreads the audience,” he said. “We felt by condensing it and focusing it on a long weekend that we could basically get more butts in the seat(s).”

Another new feature of this year’s film festival is the Michigan Filmmaker Day.

Limarenko said about six Michigan filmmakers will be in the Charles V. Park Library Auditorium Saturday to show their movies and host question and answer segments for attendees.

“I felt it was important since there’s been such a politically-charged environment with Gov. Snyder taking away the tax incentive in this state,” he said. “I felt it was important that we spotlight the talent in this state.”

As president of the Film Society at CMU, Mount Pleasant senior Nicole Shackelford said the film society is in charge of selecting movies.

“A lot of it is what we think other people would like and what we like to watch,” she said. “We did a more director-based film selection this year.”

Celebration! Cinema manager Chris Couling said although the movie theater has to plan around the films that will be shown in the theater, it is not a big issue.

“Being a movie theater, of course we’re interested and excited to have something to do with the film community of Mount Pleasant,” he said. “It’s just a couple of shows a day, it’s not a huge deal for us. We know ahead of time that we’re going to be doing the film festival, (so) we kind of plan around that.”

Tickets are $5 a movie or $20 for a book of five tickets. Ticket information can be found at www.cmfilmfestival.com.