Fest 101:

A Q&A with Chris Opper

by SAM WATSON sam@ppulse.com

Winter in Door County is the perfect time to hunker down with a good movie. But at this point in the year, the cabin fever might be setting in, and the indentation on your couch might be getting uncomfortably deep. If you’re looking to change your surroundings while keeping the movie binge going strong, take yourself to the Door County Short Film Fest on Feb. 17-18 at the Gould Theater.

This year, two full-length lms will accompany the short- lm marathon. During intermissions, festival director Chris Opper will discuss the production process with featured lmmakers.

The Peninsula Pulse chatted with Opper early through this Q&A. Responses have been edited for clarity.

Sam Watson (SW): How did the lm fest start?

Chris Opper (CO): Back in 2009, my friend Joel Kersebet owned a co ee shop, Base Camp, in Sister Bay. I have a background in lmmaking, so we would have a lm night in their basement, where we’d show lms from UW-Milwaukee. It was a very small space – maybe 20 or 30 people t in the room.

We both enjoyed it, but it tended to be more abstract lms coming from UW-Milwaukee, and Joel liked more narrative lms. So I said, “Well, I’ve thought about putting a lm festival together.” And when you say stu like that, you automatically become the director.

SW: Why did you make the switch to the Gould Theater this year?

CO: We always wanted to get into a bigger space. We moved from Base Camp to the Sister Bay Town Hall a er two years, and even there, it was always pretty crammed. Usually we’d have around 100 people in there – maybe 200 or 300 over the weekend. At rst we never thought we’d have enough people to ll an auditorium. It seemed too big. But we have a good number every year.

SW: What lms are you especially excited about in this year’s lineup?

CO: There are several locally produced ones that I’m really excited about. We have The 500 Project which was lmed on Washington Island. It’s such a good movie, and the fact that it’s local just adds to it. Then on Saturday night, the feature closing out the festival is Confessions of a Sailor. The director started making the movie around 2010. Then his computer crashed, and he had to start from scratch and try to recover some of the original footage. It’s taken this long to put it back together.

SW: If you’ve never gone to a lm festival before, what should you expect?

CO: When you go to a lm fest, you have to know that these are movies made by people who are still learning the cra . And the beauty of short lms is that if you’re not enjoying this particular movie, just stick around another six or seven minutes, and we’ll be moving on to the next one.

9 pm: Fireworks show. Some of the best viewing spots are Otumba Park, Stone Harbor Resort, Bayview Park, Graham Park, Sawyer Park, Sonny’s Pizzeria and any public waterfront in Sturgeon Bay. Film Fest continued on page 6

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