FESTIVAL FORMAT CHANGE

Early call changes festival format

BY LANCE SCHWARTZ • DIRECTOR OF INSTITUTIONAL COMMUNICATION

One of the first campus events at Bethany directly affected by the pandemic was the Speechless Film Festival. Now in its eighth year, the Festival was moved to a completely online format for 2020. The Festival draws participants from an international audience, and the move online allowed the diverse collection of films to be presented throughout the same weekend the event was to be held in Mankato.

While the Festival takes place in the spring, the organizing committee began receiving films, moving them through the judging process, and preparing the showcase experience already in August 2019. When the decision to move online was made, the work for an in-person event had already been completed.

Festival organizers lamented the loss of camaraderie and discussion that takes place during the weekend and its variety of associated events, but they saw an opportunity for a new way to incorporate audience participation via an online community. They chose to use a relatively new technology called Discord for an audience participation chat experience. Discord made its debut in 2015 as a popular group-chatting app that was originally made to give gamers a place to build communities and talk. Discord has since branched out to include communities from all over the Internet including writers and artists.

Assistant Professor of Media Arts Amanda Quist talked about the response to the online community chat.

“Having no idea what to expect, we were surprised by how many people participated actively on Discord. It brought a totally new energy to the event that didn’t distract from, but rather, kept people engaged with the content. Being able to talk about the films as they were screening was a fun and lively experience totally unlike watching them in the theater. Our community was also super supportive of the filmmakers who were watching and chatting live.”

Festival winners were announced in advance on the Speechless Film Festival website and through social media. One of the film directors, Koya Kamura, echoed support from her home in Japan. Her short film “Homesick” was one of the featured films.

Kamura said, “I just want to thank you very much for this opportunity to show the film despite the actual context. So happy you didn’t shut everything down and fought for the festival to exist no matter what, in digital version. Thank you so much! I was contacted by another director that had a film in the Festival, and I am so happy to see that even if it’s online, the Festival is about connecting people. And it worked!”