In 2009, the Milwaukee Film Festival had its inaugural run. That year, MKE Film screened more than 100 films at three venues. In 2017, more than 300 festival-quality films were screened across five Milwaukee venues. Festival attendance has increased every year since its inception; in 2017, attendance hovered around 84,000, and about 4,000 of those folks were our beloved MKE Film members.
Milwaukee Film Festival started in 2009 and takes place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Mom & Dad’s Nipple Factory from Emmy-Winning director Justinsuperstar (Double Digits: The Story of a Neighborhood Movie Star) will kick off its 2023 festival tour as the opening night film at the Milwaukee Film Festival on April 20, followed by stops at Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival and Doclands in Northern California.
The 2021 Milwaukee Film Festival which ran virtually May 6-20 with over 200 films, wrapped with the awards – with “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America” directed by Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler taking the Audience Award for Best Feature.
The 2020 Milwaukee Film Festival runs all-virtual from October 15 – 29, featuring 197 film titles. Opening the festival is “I Used to Go Here” directed by Kris Rey, featuring Gillian Jacobs and Jemaine Clement, a heartfelt crowd-pleaser about a 30-something writer who should be celebrating her success, but with all of her friends getting married and having kids, she feels like she’s missing out.
Milwaukee Film will hold two 15-day virtual film festivals this fall including the 12th annual Milwaukee Film Festival (MFF2020), which although virtual, will take place during its previously announced dates of Oct. 15-29. The second Minority Health Film Festival (MHFF), presented by the Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin regional health network, will expand to 15 days, running from Sept. 10-24.
Celebrating a decade in the community, Milwaukee Film today announced that the 2018 Milwaukee Film Festival will take place from October 18 to November 1, 2018. The annual 15-day festival will include feature films, shorts programs, education screenings, post-film conversations, panels, and parties.
“We couldn’t have reached this incredible milestone without the warm embrace of the Milwaukee community,” states Jonathan Jackson, Executive and Artistic Director of Milwaukee Film. “Over the past ten years, we have strived to bring the best independent and international cinema to the city, and our amazing audience, members, donors, and sponsors have repaid us in kind, allowing for this period of unprecedented growth. We look forward to bringing the best in film to you for decades to come.”
Festival organizers hope the later dates will expand programming opportunities to gain access to premieres from such renowned festivals as the Toronto International Film Festival, Festival de Cannes, and Telluride Film Festival.
The Call for Entries for the 2018 Milwaukee Film Festival will open in January 2018.
Stumped[/caption]
The 2017 Milwaukee Film Festival announced the full lineup for Spotlight Presentations, including the multiple award-winning Opening Night film Stumped, directed by MFF alum Robin Berghaus, and Closing Night film Landline, directed by Gillian Robespierre (Obvious Child) and starring Jenny Slate and Jay Duplass.
Milwaukee was first introduced to STUMPED director Robin Berghaus when her short film of the same name screened at the 2014 Milwaukee Film Festival. Following the rehabilitation of quadrilateral amputee, Will Lautzenheiser, as he coped with his trauma through stand-up comedy, Berghaus expanded the film into a feature when Lautzenheiser took a chance on a risky double arm transplant surgery. A documentary both funny and deeply moving, STUMPED tells the story of a truly indomitable spirit. Both Berghaus and Lautzenheiser are scheduled to attend the screening.
Celebrating the art of cocktails and a U.S Premiere, the documentary Schumann’s Bar Talks has world-renowned bartender, Charles Schumann, taking audiences on a tour of some of the world’s finest bars.
The 2017 Milwaukee Film Festival will take place at the Landmark Oriental Theatre, Landmark Downer Theatre, Fox-Bay Cinema Grill, Times Cinema, and Avalon Theater from September 28th – October 12th.
FILMS
OPENING NIGHT
STUMPED
(USA / 2017 / Director: Robin Berghaus)
Will Lautzenheiser thought he was on the verge of realizing his dreams, teaching film classes at Montana State University, when what he thought was an extreme pulled muscle suddenly escalated into something far more severe—a bacterial infection that forced doctors to amputate all of his limbs in order to save his life. Instead of letting this unimaginable setback defeat him, Will took his trauma head-on, performing stand-up comedy to cope with his new normal. But as Will begins to adjust to his new life with the help of his loving partner, Angel, news breaks of a risky, experimental double-arm transplant that offers him the hope of reclaiming his independence. A medical mystery tucked in a comedy nestled in a deeply moving personal portrait, STUMPED is a funny, character-driven exploration into cutting-edge medicine that happens to coincide with the story of a truly indomitable spirit.
CENTERPIECE
The Blood Is at The Doorstep
(USA / 2017 / Director: Erik Ljung)
It’s a scene Milwaukee natives will not soon forget: Dontre Hamilton, an unarmed Black man resting in Red Arrow Park, shot 14 times by a police officer in broad daylight, leaving behind a devastated family to pick up the pieces and bringing a community already struggling to maintain positive police-community relations even closer to the brink. Filmed over a three-year period, The Blood Is at the Doorstep focuses intimately on the Hamilton family’s strength in the face of unspeakable tragedy, as we follow mother Maria and older brother Nate as they turn to community organizing as a means of honoring Dontre’s memory while still doggedly pursuing answers, with public outcry intensifying the longer none are given. A heart-rending portrait of justice deferred from director Erik Ljung, illuminating one family’s remarkable ability to channel their grief into fuel for activism and community building, and a sobering reminder of the chasm that so often divides us.
https://vimeo.com/205828363
CLOSING NIGHT
Landline
(USA / 2017 / Director: Gillian Robespierre)
It’s 1995 in Manhattan, and the Jacobs sisters are struggling to get along. Older sister Dana (the ever-effervescent Jenny Slate) is acting out in response to her recent engagement to the stable, straight-laced Ben (Jay Duplass) while younger sister Ali (fantastic newcomer Abby Quinn) is living a life of drugs, parties, and promiscuity despite still being in high school. But when the sisters discover evidence of their father’s (John Turturro) infidelities, it brings them closer as they attempt to expose him without alerting their tightly wound mother (Edie Falco) in this warmly ingratiating portrait of family dysfunction from the creative team behind Obvious Child. Cannily observed ’90s nostalgia intermingles with a wittily acerbic screenplay to bring back to life an era when families couldn’t hide their animus behind the glow of a cell phone screen, a celebration of life and family in all its imperfection, and the ways in which our endless mistakes only serve to bring us closer together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aIu1zB4o9c
AlphaGo
(USA / 2017 / Director: Greg Kohs)
Think Kasparov vs. Deep Blue on steroids and you’ve got the story behind the engrossing documentary AlphaGo. The game: Go, an ancient board game played the world over, with nearly infinite complexity. The players: Lee Sedol, a South Korean Go player widely considered the world’s best, facing the titular AlphaGo, an artificial intelligence developed by Google’s DeepMind whose modus operandi is to play the game beyond human capacity. What follows is a gripping battle of man vs. machine, a cerebral competition unlike any in human history!
The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography
(USA / 2016 / Director: Errol Morris)
Acclaimed documentarian Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line) turns his camera on lifelong friend and photographer Elsa Dorfman in this entertaining and profound portrait of a portraitist. From her start in literary circles, where she photographed cultural titans of the day to her eventual discovery of her preferred format—large-scale 20-by-24-inch Polaroids of her subjects, always taking two, allowing them to choose so she could keep the titular B-sides—Morris warmly illuminates Dorfman’s analog process for our digital world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZSTFnUaKsM
I, Daniel Blake
(UK, France, Belgium / 2016 / Director: Ken Loach)
Trailer: youtube.com/watch?v=ahWgxw9E_h4
I, Daniel Blake, the 2016 Palme d’Or winner from director Ken Loach (The Angels’ Share, MFF2013) is a work of startling empathy and relevancy about the working class coming together as a community. It’s the story of one man’s struggle for dignity as he navigates byzantine British bureaucracy in an attempt to maintain welfare benefits as he recovers from a heart attack. As this old dog attempts to learn new tricks to get by (using computers and smartphones), he befriends a single mother and her two children on this gripping journey toward compassion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahWgxw9E_h4
The Lost World (feat. Alloy Orchestra)
(USA / 1925 / Director: Harry O. Hoyt)
Alloy Orchestra returns to the historic Oriental Theatre, and this time things are going to get prehistoric! This silent adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic tale of a ragtag crew in search of a dinosaur-filled land untouched by time is a rip-roaring adventure that’s fun for the whole family. Combine Willis O’Brien’s pioneering stop-motion effects (eight years before his work on King Kong!) with the vibrant electric accompaniment only Alloy Orchestra can provide and you have the recipe for an unforgettable night at the movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6aabhIo6Bk
Schumann’s Bar Talks
(Germany / 2017 / Director: Marieke Schroeder)
U.S. premiere! Charles Schumann is a bartender par excellence—known the world over for his iconic Munich-based Schumann’s Bar— and best-selling author of a cocktail guide the New York Times called “the drink-mixer’s bible.” Here Schumann is your tour guide through some of the finest bars the world has to offer, traveling from New York to Tokyo with numerous stops in between to explore the fascinating history and rich culture behind these monuments to social imbibing, a pursuit all Milwaukeeans agree is in need of extensive documentary study.
Stop Making Sense
(USA / 1984 / Director: Jonathan Demme)
The Milwaukee Film Festival’s annual screening/dance party/best concert film ever made/unforgettable filmgoing experience returns for yet another year! The late, great Jonathan Demme combined forces with David Byrne and the Talking Heads to make cinematic history, the rare concert picture that makes you feel like you’re in attendance, experiencing the performance for the first time. From the stripped down “Psycho Killer” opener all the way to its joyous “Crosseyed and Painless” finale, Stop Making Sense is certain to burn down THE house yet again.
https://vimeo.com/5804404
Roller Life[/caption]
The 2017 Milwaukee Film Festival today announced the full lineup for the 9th Cream City Cinema program, that showcases the best new work from Milwaukee-based filmmakers and awards three juried cash prizes totaling $12,500.
This year’s program is comprised of four shorts programs and six feature films, including the documentary Roller Life profiling Milwaukee’s own Brewcity Bruisers; the coming-of-age period piece Scott Road; and the return of the popular The Milwaukee Music Video Show, featuring music videos for notable local artists WebsterX, The Fatty Acids, and IshDARR.
In addition to the Cream City Cinema lineup, films with local ties can be found in other programs throughout the festival. These include Mark Borchart’s short documentary The Dundee Project, which will screen prior to Love and Saucers in the Cinema Hooligante program; Across the Line, an immersive virtual reality short playing as part of the VR Gallery; and Dear Coward on the Moon, which will have its world premiere during the festival in the Spotlight Presentations program.
The 2017 Milwaukee Film Festival will take place at the Landmark Oriental Theatre, Landmark Downer Theatre, Fox-Bay Cinema Grill, Times Cinema, and Avalon Theater from September 28th to October 12th.
The Cine Sin Fronteras program returns to the 2017 Milwaukee Film Festival for the second year, showcasing the rich and vibrant Latinx diaspora from around the world. This year’s program includes seven feature films and the new shorts program CSF Shorts: Menos es Más.
The films come from eight different countries and include Carpinteros (Woodpeckers), the first Dominican film to screen at the Sundance Film Festival; Chavela, a portrait documentary chronicling the dramatic career of legendary singer Chavela Vargas; and Dolores, a documentary exploring the extraordinary life of one of America’s most important labor activist.
The 2017 Milwaukee Film Festival will take place at the Landmark Oriental Theatre, Landmark Downer Theatre, Fox-Bay Cinema Grill, Times Cinema, and Avalon Theater from September 28th to October 12th.
Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992[/caption]
The Black Lens program returns to the 2017 Milwaukee Film Festival featuring documentary and fiction films by African American filmmakers that explore a range of topics rooted in the black community and are relevant to all.
The lineup includes Academy Award winner and Milwaukee Film Board Member John Ridley’s new documentary Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992, a 20th anniversary, 35mm screening of the classic film Love Jones, and two shorts programs titled Black Lens Shorts: Family Matters and Black Lens Shorts: Lost & Found.
Geraud Blanks, Black Lens co-programmer states, “Adding additional films, including two shorts programs, means a greater diversity of voices and perspectives. We have more women and mixed-race directors, writers, and producers than ever before, in-large part because of our ability to expand our programming this year. The added room also made honoring Love Jones and bringing Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992 back to Milwaukee possible without eliminating deserving films from emerging filmmakers.”
“The addition of a second shorts program is exciting, as it helps us to strengthen the mission of Black Lens,” states Donte McFadden, Black Lens co-programmer. “We want to make Black Lens a destination for African American filmmakers to screen their work. The shorts program allows for us to introduce many emerging filmmakers from across the country and allows Milwaukee residents the chance to see films that they wouldn’t see anywhere else.”
The 2017 Milwaukee Film Festival will take place at the Landmark Oriental Theatre, Landmark Downer Theatre, Fox-Bay Cinema Grill, Times Cinema, and Avalon Theater from September 28th – October 12th.
Milwaukee Film has signed a 31-year lease to operate the Oriental Theatre beginning July 1, 2018, signaling tremendous future growth for the organization and ensuring that the Milwaukee Film Festival will be a part of the community for years to come.
“The Oriental Theatre is a treasure. I have visited hundreds of cinemas worldwide and the Oriental Theatre is my favorite. It is magical to see 1,000 of our members fill the main house at our monthly screenings,” says Jonathan Jackson, Artistic & Executive Director of the nonprofit Milwaukee Film. “Our nine-year-old organization securing long-term control of this cinema is a momentous occasion. We have cemented our permanence in Milwaukee and intend to greatly expand our cultural, economic, and educational impact on our community.”
Opened in 1927 as a “movie palace,” the Oriental Theatre is not only a beloved local landmark, but has also been recognized nationally as a top ten movie theater by Entertainment Weekly and USA Today. Milwaukee Film seeks to revitalize the space through investments in the infrastructure and upgrades to the projection and sound, creating a superior customer experience and making the Oriental Theatre a state of the art historic cinema. While designs have yet to be completed, the organization is committed to maintaining the existing aesthetics and character of this iconic Milwaukee building.
In order to support the growth of the organization and successfully meet the demands of running a world class film institution, a fundraising initiative has already begun. A total of $3 million of a $10 million goal has been raised so far, with Chris Abele, Milwaukee County Executive and Milwaukee Film Co-Founder and past Board Chair, making a personal contribution of $2 million.
“From day one, every person involved in Milwaukee Film – from staff, to volunteers, to the Board, to our dedicated 3,600 members – has been driven by the goal of not simply creating a film festival, but creating one of the best and biggest film festivals in the world,” states Chris Abele. “This announcement brings us closer to that goal. It isn’t the culmination or an end point, it’s the start of the next chapter.”
In addition to Abele, Milwaukee Film Co-Founders, the Herzfeld Foundation, led by Herzfeld Foundation President and past Milwaukee Film Board Chair Bill Haberman and Herzfeld Foundation Vice President and Milwaukee Film Board Member Carmen Haberman, has committed $1 million to the initiative.
Milwaukee Film deeply appreciates its sustained nine-year relationship with Landmark Theatres, noting that the organization’s remarkable growth could not have happened without renting the Oriental Theatre for its monthly member screenings and the annual film festival.
Beginning with Jackson’s vision of the enormous opportunity that would be provided by Milwaukee Film operating the Oriental Theatre, over the last five years Milwaukee Film’s Board of Directors and staff thoroughly vetted the idea and financials of operating a year-round, non-profit cinema, developing a business plan one year ago that was unanimously approved by its now 32-person Board of Directors.
In 2004, Boris Gohkman, father of Tim Gohkman, Director of New Land Enterprises, purchased the Oriental Theatre building after a several year pursuit. The trust and faith of Tim Gohkman in Milwaukee Film’s vision has been unparalleled.
“We are excited to partner with Milwaukee Film because it presents a truly unique opportunity to fuel Milwaukee’s cultural renaissance,” states Tim Gohkman. “As a key Milwaukee institution, Milwaukee Film is uniquely positioned to energize North Ave., Farwell Ave., and the entire city with year-round programming. For years, I have considered the Milwaukee Film Festival my favorite annual event in Milwaukee, I just can’t wait to see what they do next.”
At the Oriental Theatre, Milwaukee Film intends to program the best of international and American independent fiction and documentary films, including traditional weekly releases mixed with repertory selections, event cinema engagements, programming for families, and various themed film festivals and series throughout the year as well as the annual flagship Milwaukee Film Festival.
The 7th Annual Milwaukee Film Festival concluded its 15-day run and ballots were tallied to determine the winners of the 2015 Milwaukee Film Festival Allan H. (Bud) and Suzanne L. Selig Audience Awards. The winners are Romeo is Bleeding directed by Jason Zeldes (pictured above) for Feature Film, and Grounded (Au Sol) directed by Alexis Michali for Short Film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjdh-TmRQCQ
Romeo is Bleeding is about how an explosive adaptation of Romeo and Juliet allows poet/mentor/creative director Donté Clark to face the gang warfare and budget cuts that are plaguing his community.
Grounded (Au Sol) is a warm-hearted, tear jerking story about a distraught woman and a sympathetic airline employee who helps her circumvent rigid airport regulations for the sake of her daughter.
The 7th Milwaukee Film Festival announced its 2015 Jury Award Winners on Sunday, with awards given out in both the Competition and Cream City Cinema programs. No One’s Child directed by Vuk Ršumović is the winner of the Herzfeld Competition Award. No One’s Child, based on a remarkable true story, takes us deep into the mountains of Bosnia, where we’re introduced to a feral child living among the wolves. Upon his discovery in 1988, he is sent to a Belgrade orphanage. There, he struggles to relate to his peers until a friendship allows him to embrace humanity, only for the Balkan War to put pressure on his caretakers to return him to his homeland.
Lemon directed by John Roberts is the winner of the Cream City Cinema, this is the second win for John Roberts, who also won the award in 2009. In Lemon, a girl saves money to buy a bicycle, but is swindled by an old man.
The Look of Silence directed by Joshua Oppenheimer is the winner of the Documentary Jury Award. A critically acclaimed companion piece to the breathtaking look into the heart of darkness that was THE ACT OF KILLING (the sensation of MFF2013), THE LOOK OF SILENCE approaches the 1960s Indonesian genocide not from the perspective of its perpetrators but the survivors.
Brico Forward Fund top honors were awarded for continued production of a feature documentary based on local filmmaker Erik Ljung’s Mothers For Justice, a short film included in the 2015 Cream City Cinema’s Milwaukee Show II. Mothers for Justice follows Maria Hamilton, mother of Dontre Hamilton who was shot by a police officer in 2014 in Milwaukee’s Red Arrow Park. In 2015, Maria Hamilton founded the organization Mothers for Justice dedicated to uniting mothers who have lost children in police related deaths and demanding further investigation and accountability from law enforcement.
2015 MILWAUKEE FILM FESTIVAL JURY AWARDS
Abele Catalyst Award Donna and Donald Baumgartner
Herzfeld Competition Award ($10,000 cash) No One’s Child (dir. Vuk Ršumović)
Cream City Cinema ($5,000 cash) Lemon (dir. John Roberts)
Cream City Cinema Special Jury Prize The Sound Man (dir. Chip Duncan)
Documentary Jury Award ($5,000 cash) The Look of Silence (dir. Joshua Oppenheimer) Shorter Is Better Award ($1,000 cash) Giovanni and the Water Ballet (dir. Astrid Bussink)Shorter Is Better Special Jury Prizes We Can’t Live Without Cosmos (dir. Konstantin Bronzit) De Smet (dirs. Thomas Baerten, Wim Geudens)
Kids Choice Short Film Award ($1,000 cash) A Place in the Middle (dirs. Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson) Kids Choice Special Jury PrizesPapa (dir. Natalie Labarre) Johnny Express (dir. James Woo)
Pitch Us Your Doc! Contest Winner (initially announced October 3) Wingman Dad (Elizabeth Ridley)
Brico Forward Fund Winners Mothers for Justice (working title) (Erik Ljung) $25,000 cash and $10,000 from Independent After her black, unarmed, schizophrenic son, Dontre, is shot 14 times and killed by a Milwaukee Police Officer in a popular downtown park, Maria Hamilton attempts to rally grieving mothers from across the country to join her in a Million Moms March on Washington D.C. The Night Country (Oliver Franklin Anderson) $10,000 cash, $15,000 from North American Camera, $15,000 from the Electric Sun Company and $10,000 from RDI StagesSmoke from an industrial fire brings the residents of a small Midwestern town into communion with spirits preying on their fears and desires on a stormy summer night.
When Claude Got Shot (Brad Lichtenstein) $10,000 cash, $6,000 from RDI Stages, $5,000 from the Electric Sun Company, $5,000 from Independent When Claude Got Shot’s story of three strangers brought together by gun violence humanizes and disrupts the narrative about so-called “black on black” crime in America. Never Home (working title) (Pang Yang Her) $5,000 from Independent Why do cities continue to struggle in treating those with Sexual Assault within minority communities? Through the journey of Joua Yang, a Hmong American women sexually assaulted at the age of nine, Never Home examines a survivor’s strength to both unravel cultural confusion and use her story to help other heals from their past. Just Eat (Laura Dyan Kezman) $5,000 from North American Camera Just Eat opens up the guarded world of the estimated 30 million people affected by eating disorders in our country. We follow the stories of prominent researchers, grieving parents fighting for recognition, and the diagnosed sufferers, crying out for help. Lunar Man (Kyle V. James) $5,000 cash for script development After stealing a time-travel suit on a desert planet, a lawless miner must seek help from a beautiful young hunter to help him escape from a dangerous group of bandits called The Sharks.