RESOURCES:
Interational Film Festival-Ypsilanti (iFFY)
TRANSCRIPTION:
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and we're feeling a little "iffy" this week. I'm David Fair, and I mean that in the best way possible. iFFY is an acronym for the Independent Film Festival Ypsilanti, and the sixth season of this creative local endeavor runs from this Thursday through Saturday at the Riverside Arts Center. To steal words right from the mouths of festival organizers, it's a celebration of short films made or produced in the Michigan region, shorts programs curated by local film and arts enthusiasts, and free in-person creative workshops that aim to help hone the rising filmmaking talent in our community. It's quite an undertaking to launch a festival with the idea of adding to the cultural fabric of a community. Two of the people taking that on are here with us today. Donald Harrison is co-founder and board chair of the festival. And thanks for stopping by! Much appreciated, Donald!
Donald Harrison: Always great to be here, David!
David Fair: And Micah Vanderhoof serves as festival co-director! And I appreciate your time as well, Micah!
Micah Vanderhoof: Thanks for having us!
David Fair: Well, this has to be both an exciting and pressure-filled time in the days leading up to the festival. Are you two exhausted?
Micah Vanderhoof: A little bit.
David Fair: That's kind of what I figured. We're going to get into the inner workings of the festival in a moment, but first I want to hear the story of how we got to a sixth season. Donald, what about Ypsilanti said to you initially, this town needs a film festival?
Donald Harrison: Well, as many of the listeners know, Ann Arbor is up to year 63. So, it's one of the oldest and longest running in the world. And I ran that for four years a while ago. And I always felt like Ypsilanti could and should have its own film festival and was surprised nobody had started it. And so, yeah, the idea has been around a long time. At one point, I even taught a class here at EMU about film festival management. And we used the example of starting a film festival in Ypsilanti. So, once I went off on my own and became an independent filmmaker, the idea just kept percolating. And one of my friends finally said, "Let's do it! Let's get it rolling!" in the fateful year of 2020.
David Fair: Yeah, your timing was impeccable.
Donald Harrison: It was! It was!
David Fair: Film festival and pandemic.
Donald Harrison: I remember listening to your show with Leslie Raymond and she was saying, "Yes, we think it's going to happen." And then, the next day, everything got shut down. So, we went virtual. And then, first two years, we were a drive-in event.
David Fair: If the name Donald Harrison is known to you, it's perhaps you best recognize him as the director and producer of "Welcome to Commie High" about Community High School in Ann Arbor, a well-received film that continues to have legs today. Micah, I'm interested. You are local. What brought you to iFFY?
Micah Vanderhoof: Well, so I actually got to know Donald through the Ann Arbor Film Festival when I was an intern there. I was working on print traffic amongst other things. And so, I worked there for a little bit as a student. And then, I graduated and went out to Portland and worked for the Northwest Film Center for about five or so years and worked on the Portland International Film Festival. which also had a convenient shutdown time. It was also scheduled right in the middle of the shutdown. It actually didn't end up recovering after that. And so, I moved back to Michigan and came out here to work for the U of M and then saw that Donald and Martin were up to "iffy things." And I was like, "This looks like exactly up my alley!" So, I got in touch--
David Fair: And here we are!
Micah Vanderhoof: And here we are! Exactly!
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and we're talking with Donald Harrison and Micah Vanderhoof from the iFFY Film Festival that kicks off at Ypsilanti's Riverside Arts Center on Thursday. Now, launching and establishing a community cultural event is quite an undertaking and to make it stick and then become a part of the creative fabric is a step further. Donald, how high are the hurdles to doing that with iFFY?
Donald Harrison: You know, in some ways, it's not the highest hurdles to get something started and to do it, but to sustain it and to keep it going and to grow it is much more of the hurdles. And I know, for us, the first year we got to be in-person, year three at the Riverside Arts Center, was so rewarding. We'd spent a lot of years in time getting this thing established. And so, we were still pretty limited though. We couldn't have full audiences. So, year four and five were very rewarding and gratifying. So many people would come in and just say, "Thank you for doing this!" And so, we hope that that continues this year. We hope that people, if they haven't heard about the festival, that they get excited to come watch and celebrate independent movies together in downtown Ypsilanti, a city with no movie theater. And for us, the more that we get those responses, the more it helps motivate us to want to do all the work that it takes year-round, actually, to make something like this. You know, we're not that big. It's a small, three-day, but very sweet, welcoming, accessible festival. And we're doing it for the community. So, the more the community comes out, gets excited, meets each other, makes those connections, and says, "Yeah, this is great! Keep doing it," the more it's going to encourage us to do the extra lifting that we need to do to keep it going and growing.
David Fair: And, Micah, as you and your team plan and strategize the programming, obviously, the idea is to make this year's festival the best it can be. But do you have that eye towards establishing the festival in the community consciousness as something to look forward to every year, so that it grows to a place where maybe it's outsized the Riverside Arts Center?
Micah Vanderhoof: Definitely! It's always our hope to kind of keep it growing and keep it really tied in to what folks in Ypsilanti are looking for. This year, we've got more feature-length films than we did in previous years, and we're hoping to kind bring in a wider array of short programming as well. So, I think this year is going to have more of a diverse appeal to different folks. As usual, there's free workshops and free aspects to it as well. So, we're hoping to keep it as accessible as possible and broad in the base.
David Fair: I don't want to give short shrift to the Riverside Arts Center, I said outgrow it, but what an amazing venue! And what an opportunity to be able to see a film inside that venue! So, please don't take my words the wrong way. Donald, this three-day festival is designed, as Micah mentioned, with engagement and interaction in mind. What do you hope to offer with those workshops and dance parties that are going to supplement the films themselves?
Donald Harrison: You know, for me, I make films. I love films. But to me, in many ways, it's a reason to connect with others and bring people of a like mind together. And so, for us, we have a horror-related film that Micah programmed, which we're very excited about on Friday night, an animation program. We have a couple of really important documentaries, really trying to just bring in as diverse and wide an audience to connect with each other, to meet each other. Anybody who's excited or passionate or curious about making movies or just loves movies, it's really fun to get together. We're constantly meeting people who make film and media in our community who we had never met before. And so, for us, it's trying to do as many things that we think are going to help reach new people and people who normally wouldn't be doing film festivals, right? Like, this is a great film festival for somebody who's never been to one. It's so welcoming and accessible. And, yeah, we really are trying to respond to what we see people saying that they want more of each year.
David Fair: Well, we're just days away from the iFFY Film Festival. It begins Thursday and runs through Saturday, April 19th at Ypsilanti's Riverside Arts Center. We're talking with Micah Vanderhoof and Donald Harrison. We're part of the team making it possible. And, Micah, a lot of the buzz that I hear out in the community is about the 26-hour filmmaking marathon. Now, what does that entail?
Micah Vanderhoof: Yeah. So, we actually just had the marathon this past weekend. It entailed a number of teams, many of whom are first-time filmmakers and first- time marathoners, getting together and making short films--so under four minutes, kind of in the four-minute mile spirit--in 26.2 hours.
David Fair: And this is from scripting to acting to filming to editing and having a finished piece.
Micah Vanderhoof: Exactly! From start to finish! Every year, we announce at the kickoff three different elements that we keep secret until the kick-off moment. And so, you don't know what elements to include. And so, that's how it keeps everyone at the same start line. That helps us have a kind of also themed screening at the end of it. And the screening for that is going to round out the festival at the end on Saturday night at 9:00.
David Fair: And I just have to imagine that's a thrill a minute. I mean, you have four minutes to tell a story, and these people worked so hard and so long to make that happen. That component alone is worth attending the festival. Donald, how quickly after the end of the 2025 edition does planning start for the 2026 edition?
Donald Harrison: Oh, David, that's a great question! It won't happen immediately, but, actually, a lot of the planning does start now, and it starts really during the festival because it's so exciting when you're in the theater, when you are in that environment, the adrenaline, it's already running now, just being on the air with you. The adrenaline is already running for the festival, but we're going to have a lot of ideas, a lot of people that we're going to talk to at the parties and the lobby and all that are going to be saying, "Oh, what if this? What if that?" And, to me, so much of the beauty of an event like this is what it sparks in people's imagination, not just what you see on the screen, but those conversations that you might have you didn't expect to have. And so, for us, yeah, the planning has already started, but in earnest, we'll take a break, and then, come this summer, we're going to really get down and look at what a season seven would look like. And for us, it's also a really important inflection point because we have some people transitioning in and off of our board. We have an amazing crew that we've had these last few years, and everybody has day jobs. And so, we're a heavily volunteer-driven event, and you are only as good as your people. And so, we're gonna be very interested in who do we meet that's passionate about what we're doing. Are there new people to the area who want to get involved? Are there backers and foundations and donors that wanna help us have an even bigger impact than what we currently are capable of doing?
David Fair: Well, I'd like to thank you both for coming in and sharing time and conversation today! I, for one, am very excited!
Donald Harrison: Great! Thanks for having us, David!
Micah Vanderhoof: Yeah! Thanks for having us!
David Fair: That is iFFY co-founder and board director Donald Harrison and festival co-director Micah Vanderhoof. Again, iFFY is going to be held at the Riverside Arts Center in Ypsilanti Thursday through Saturday. Tickets are available now. For more information, simply visit our website at wemu.org. We'll get you where you need to go, so you can get "iffy" yourself. I'm David Fair, and this is 89.1 WEMU FM Ypsilanti. Celebrating sixty years of broadcasting from the campus of Eastern Michigan University!
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