Port Orchard Film Festival returns this weekend

PORT ORCHARD — While its aspirations are relatively humble — there’s no Cinemascope viewings within miles — the Port Orchard Film Festival’s second go-round will take over the Dragonfly Cinema May 4-6 with a lively slate of celluloid offerings, headlined by a setlist of evocative documentaries, animation and a guest appearance by off-the-wall film critic and kitschy TV movie host Joe Bob Briggs.

Joe Bob Briggs will bring his unique take on B-movie magic to the Port Orchard Film Festival May 4-6 at the Dragonfly Cinema and around town. (POFF photo)

The film festival is still in its infancy. Debuting last year with a successful two-day run at the Dragonfly, the fledgling film fest has added a third day to the schedule. Festival director Amy Camp said the event last year was well-received, particularly so in the South Kitsap community.

There was no shortage of entries from repeat filmmakers and first-timers. Camp said 136 films were submitted to the screening committee this year. The offerings are as diverse as before, she said.

They will be grouped in genre blocks. As with last year, there will be science fiction and horror collections, as well as family-themed films and inspirational offerings. Many of the productions making the festival’s run list are long-form documentaries, she said.

“We got a lot more long films this year,” Camp said, in contrast to the plethora of shorts sent in last year from across the globe.

And like last year, the entries came from filmmakers across the globe, including Sweden, Korea and Hong Kong. Domestic productions from Lousiana, Alabama and elsewhere in the U.S. also flooded Camp’s mailbox.

One filmmaker, in particular, had an email address that’s familiar to followers of television and motion pictures: Hollywood “it guy” Shia LeBeouf. The actor and director, along with co-directors Nastja Ronkko and Luke Turner, submitted an inventive documentary that chronicles their internet-driven hitchhiking journey across America. Enlisting the power of social media, the filmmakers punched in their coordinates each day over a month and invited readers to give them a ride. Where that took them on their journey was the subject of the film.

Called “#TakeMeAnywhere,” the documentary wanders a bit from the usual celluloid premise, but Camp said the end result is remarkable.

Port Orchard Film Festival Director Amy Camp and Dragonfly Cinema owner-operator Nick Taylor have assembled an ambitious slate of films submitted for the show’s second year. (Bob Smith | Independent 2017)

“It was an amazing concept that I loved,” she said. “It was so cool to see different walks of life and different kinds of people just sharing their time with these filmmakers and showing a little bit of themselves. The film wasn’t so much about themselves but the people they met who live in this awesome country.”

Camp said she’s not sure how LeBeouf and his co-directors found Port Orchard’s little film festival, “but it’s really amazing. We’ve gotten on the map a little bit, I guess.”

In lieu of expensive visibility campaigns to solicit entries from filmmakers, the festival director and Dragonfly Cinema owner and operator Nick Taylor reached out through social media channels, personal contacts and the Pacific Northwest’s rich cadre of filmmakers.

“This time around, we started everything earlier,” Camp said of their efforts to organize a second film festival.

She posted submittal notices on Facebook filmmaker pages and forums, as well as directors’ websites.

“I reached out to a lot of my friends across the country and sent them our call for submissions. And whenever I traveled, I took my submission posters with me. We also used lots of word of mouth.”

In an attempt to bring in filmmakers from every economic and creative stratum, the festival organizers chose to keep the submission price reasonable.

“We didn’t charge a ridiculous submission price,” Camp said.

“We want to make this affordable and not just get one viewpoint from those who could afford it. We wanted [the submittals] to be widespread and capture different viewpoints.”

The cinematic viewpoints they received, she added, were visually expressed at a high level of quality.

“It’s been impressive to see the high caliber we’ve maintained from last year and how the word has spread about our film festival,” Camp said.

Returning filmmakers are a confirmation that the festival is building upon its past success.

“I feel like we’ve maintained that,” she said. “We’ve been able to show that we’re a quality film festival. We accept films from any budget standpoint — and we’re able to recognize great art.”

Camp said the film festival has a number of thought-provoking documentaries, particularly these three films:

— Headliner film “A Brave Lament” (2:30 p.m. Sunday), which tells the story of a wounded family suffering from the loss of a child and how they emerged from the all-encompassing pain with the help of their community. When the film festival’s screening committee finished watching the film, Camp said there was a long pause while everyone mentally digested what they had just heard and seen.

“Usually we will quickly begin talking about the film we had just seen, but this time there was silence. It was just so powerful.”

“Little Rebel” will be shown as part of the 1:15 p.m. May 6 Inspirational Block of films at the Port Orchard Film Festival. (POFF image)

— “Little Rebel” (1:15 p.m. Sunday Inspirational Block), a short documentary that Camp calls “absolutely heartwarming” about a disabled woman who, after emigrating to the U.S., endures a poignant and private struggle to get a law degree. “It’s amazingly well shot and an absolutely inspiring story.”

— A third documentary, “Approximada” (1:15 p.m. Sunday Inspirational Block), shot on Orcas Island, features a man who built a one-of-a-kind boat — in the middle of the woods. “It includes absolutely gorgeous shots,” Camp said. “The story includes people who found it while hiking in the area. They ended up helping him and the whole community was brought together by it.”

Click here to access the full film festival schedule. Organizers also provide information on the festival’s Port Orchard Facebook page.

To contact the Dragonfly Cinema, 822 Bay St., call 360-519-4333 or visit its website: Dragonfly Cinema.

The film festival’s online program details an extensive list of discounts offered by Port Orchard’s downtown merchants.

EVENTS:

Friday, May 4

Port Orchard Film Festival After Party: 8:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.

Features live music from XLR8. Nauti Mermaid, 736 Bay St.

Saturday, May 5

The Many Paths of Filmmaking Panel: 2 p.m.

Joe Bob Briggs (aka John Bloom), Aaron Drane, Amy Hesketh and James Sunshine. Slaughter County Brewing Co., 1307 Bay St.

Autograph signing by Joe Bob Briggs: TBD

Jak Aktion Comics and Games, 839 Bay St.