Grand Rapids Feminist Film Festival
Wealthy Theatre, 1130 Wealthy St SE, Grand Rapids
Sept. 13, Noon to 8 p.m.
grfff.org
When Lydia VanHoven and her colleagues at the Bandit Zine set out to create Grand Rapids’ first-ever feminist film festival last year they weren’t exactly sure what kind of response they would get. As it turns out, roughly 400 people showed up for the event, far exceeding expectations.
“We were initially going to just do Grand Rapids Feminist Film Festival as a one-time event,” VanHoven said. “But since the response was so positive we wanted to make it an annual thing."
VanHoven and her colleagues quickly set out not only to bring the festival back for a second year but to improve on its previous iteration.
“This year’s film fest is an evolution of last year,” VanHoven said. “Because of the incredibly positive response we were able to get more sponsorship funding to make a full day of films as opposed to just four hours.”
The festival will return to the Wealthy Theatre on Sept. 13 for a day filled with free films, panels, workshops and local feminist groups and vendors. From noon until 8 p.m. films made by and for feminists will screen in the main theatre. The films are less than 20 minutes and focus on topics such as feminism, sexuality, gender and social justice. While last year the festival screened 30 films from a pool of 150 submissions, this year the festival will be curated from over 1,000 submissions from all over the world.
“It means a lot of people have heard about our little film fest,” VanHoven said. “And a lot of people want to see marginalized people on screen.”
While these films are being shown, workshops and panels will take place in the smaller Koning Theatre, featuring such diverse topics as how to talk about sex in cinema, forming feminist spaces in geek culture, navigating male-dominated careers and more.
“We are super excited about the panels because we really feel they will enrich the film-viewing experience, giving viewers a look behind the scenes of what it takes to make a feminist film and what marginalized groups need to fight against when being featured by the media,” she said.
VanHoven is enthusiastic about GRFFF’s growth and evolution as a unique feminist-centered event and hopes to continue bringing such events to Grand Rapids. She’s also encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive response of the surrounding community.
“It solidifies the fact that people in Grand Rapids and surrounding areas have a passion for film and a want for more feminist events,” she said.
