Written by Julieta Gozalo
The 29th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International FIlm Festival (SLIFF), an annual presentation of the nonprofit Cinema St. Louis (CSL) kicked off its 2020 edition on Friday, November 5th and will run throughout the month of November until the 22nd.
While the Coronavirus pandemic cancelled many events this year, SLIFF “continues to provide the opportunity for St. Louis filmgoers to view the finest in world cinema — international films, documentaries, American indies, and shorts that can only be seen at the festival.” In addition to paid shows, SLIFF offers 57 free programs.
The festival began with a special event featuring the documentary short 8:46 (U.S., 2020, 28 min.) and a livestreamed Q&A with comedian Dave Chappelle and directors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Oscar winners of Best Documentary Feature for their film American Factory. The film captures a performance by Chappelle on June 6, 2020, at the Wirrig Pavilion in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The title references both the eight minutes and 46 seconds that police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd and Chappelle’s time of birth, which was coincidentally 8:46 AM. Chappelle pointedly addresses Floyd’s murder and the protests it inspired, and discusses the history of violence against African Americans in the United States. Bognar and Reichert’s other new documentary, 9to5: The Story of a Movement, played at SLIFF on Friday, Nov. 6.
SLIFF offers three forms of passes: 5-film passes, 10-film passes, and all-access passes. It is important to note that most SLIFF programs will be restricted to Missouri and Illinois, but select programs are available either in the full U.S. or throughout the world. For more information, go to cinemastlouis.org.
Here are some of the special events being offered at this year’s SLIFF:
SLIFF’s The Divided City program focuses on the racial divide in St. Louis and other U.S. cities. The program also offers an international perspective with the films Lost Lives and Mayor. The program is supported by The Divided City: An Urban Humanities Initiative, an initiative of Washington University’s Center for the Humanities that addresses one of the most persistent and vexing issues in urban studies: segregation.
Free Programs
SLIFF continues its tradition of offering a large selection of free events to maximize its outreach into the community and to make the festival affordable to all. In addition, for its 17th year, SLIFF presents the Georgia Frontiere Cinema for Students Program, which provides free screenings to St. Louis-area schools. Among this year’s 56 free programs are the following:
- All programs in The Divided City and Human Rights Spotlight
- 17 of the 21 programs in Race in America: The Black Experience
- Three Special-Event Live Streams
- Six Master Classes (and four film supplements to those classes)
- Masterclasses with Karen Pearlman, Black Eckard & Kristian Day, Ken Kwapis, Rachel Reichman, Beau Willimon, and Anne de Mare & Jeff Truesdell.
- 12 Documentary-Shorts Programs
- This includes Animals & Nature, Behind the Bars, The Black Experience, Family Matters, Immigrants & Refugees, Life Animated, Making Music, Method M, Queer Stories, Showcase Sampler, Star of the ‘70s, and Women’s World.
- SLIFF/Kids Family Shorts 1 & 2
- These two films are composed of different shorts tailored to children ages 4-8. Some of the shorts included are Burp, The Great Milestone, Hipposterous, Kindled, Lilly Goes to the Dogs, Master Moley by Royal Invitation, The Meteor & the Moon, Picnic in the Park, The Sad Little Fact, Skinny & Fluffy, and To Gerard.
Master Classes
Microbudget Filmmaking with Blake Eckard and Kristian Day
In this class on micro budget filmmaking, Blake Eckard will share the hard lessons he’s learned over two decades of writing and directing (and producing, shooting, editing, and sound-recording) DIY narrative features in his hometown of Stanberry, Missouri .
Directing with Ken Kwapis
Ken Kwapis, who grew up in Belleville, Illinois and attended Saint Louis University High, is a former Cinema St. Louis Award winner. This master class on directing will draw on material from his terrific new book, But What I Really Want to Do Is Direct: Lessons from a Life Behind the Camera.
Behind the Camera with Rachel Reichman
When she encountered the work of Antonioni and Bergman, Rachel Reichman was electrified by the emotionality and beauty of cinema. For a teenager in St. Louis, this was life-changing.
New Filmmakers Forum
The New Filmmakers Forum (NFF), a juried competition of works by first-time feature filmmakers, is an annual highlight of SLIFF. The featured films this year are Easy-Bake, Killing Eleanor, The Last Rafter, A Shot Through the Wall, and Small Time; the filmmakers will participate in a free roundtable discussion. The screenings and roundtable are hosted by the Missouri Film Office’s Andrea Sporcic Klund. The NFF Emerging Filmmaker Award — nicknamed the Bobbie in honor of the late Bobbie Lautenschlager, NFF’s longtime curator — is presented at SLIFF’s Closing-Night Awards Presentation.