Wow. It is indeed over ... at least, the film presentation part of the festival. Attendance must have been one of the best I've witnessed in my 7 years at ImageOut. Positive audience feedback and comments about the films, events, special guests, and the whole festival operation were generous and encouraging. Thanks to all our loyal patrons, sponsors, donors, members, guests artists, hardworking volunteers, and the theater staff in all of our venues.Even the "strange" episode at last night's final film just made this year's festival even more special, in a way.
As we tally the paper ballots in the next few days, I will post some of the more interesting and colorful commentaries (anonymously, of course!) I read to share with the blog visitors. Of course, you can continue adding comments to any of the posts here as I am sure the filmmakers will continue to check how their films did here in Rochester.
On behalf of all the ImageOut Board and our volunteers, thanks again. You are all fabulous!
Just a reminder that our ImageArt! exhibition is still open to the public until Oct. 25. Have a look if you haven't yet.
~MG
photos by Matt DeTurck
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6 comments:
Last year's festival, I thought, couldn't be topped. However I think this year was just as good as far as the movies are concerned. We saw 20 films this year, and I can't imagine any festival ANYwhere offering a more diverse selection of excellent movies than our ImageOut Festival did.
My sincere appreciation goes out to everyone involved in this year's festival. I cannot imagine a more well-oiled machine than ImageOut has become, and beleve me folks...it doesn't just happen by itself. The thousands of man/woman hours put into this event by everyone concerned is why the festival that we as patrons enjoy, can be such a wonderful time. The member events, the opening and closing parties... it was all just terrific!
Thank you to everyone who was involved in any way. You rock!!
I want to second Bobs comment on how well the festival ran, and how deeply appreciative I am to all the volunteers who help put past, current and future festivals together. Without the help of everyone involved from donors to ticket collectors to previewers to participants, this festival would not be the gem that it is today.
One comment on the format of the festival, since that has changed a bit this year: For those that may not have noticed, there were slightly fewer films this year, most notably weeknights had only two films vs three, the start times were a little later, and gaps between movies were a little longer. Being a festival pass holder, I loved the new line-up, as it meant I wasn't fighting traffic trying to get to films, nor was I rushed to run out to get food between features as I have been in the past. I hope you consider doing the same for next year, even if you do try to throw in a few more movies. :)
Overall, the festival was great. I saw 28 of the programs (out of a possible 30), and my only regret is having to miss the two I couldn't attend due to work. I look forward to upcoming special events and next years festival. Again, thanks, and keep up the great work to all those involved!
This year’s festival line-up was top-notch. For whatever reason—probably my own reluctance to believe the hype—after reading through the program the first time, I felt that the bulk of this year’s festival was likely to present a rehash of tired-out themes that have been explored overmuch in past years. I should have given more credit to our filmmakers and programming committee—I wouldn’t have skipped a couple of programs that I later heard were exceptional.
Every time I think we’ve done the “Let’s celebrate gayness” theme one too many times, I get hit with another one that reminds me why we continue to celebrate it. Thank you for submitting a few of those reminders this year.
It was good to try out a new venue, namely RIT, but I don’t think that Ingle Auditorium is a very good choice for film and video. The screen is too small, the sound was terrible, and the steps are treacherous for many in our audience. I had no trouble finding it, but only because I was able to download and print the RIT map at work, where I have printers that handle 11”x17” with no difficulty. Next year, if we go back there, it would be good to furnish a link to that map (a PDF file that is hard to find from the RIT site, but easy to find by Googlinig “rit download map pdf”).
If we go back to the U of R next year, I do hope a dry run will be performed with the staff there. It was an embarrassing failure last time we were tried it&emdash;the student staff was clueless about the equipment in Hutchinson Hall.
Back to this year’s festival: I have enjoyed the opportunity to share others’ experience of the festival via this blog-spot. I have witnessed other weblogs that have manifested as nothing but infernos—one flame after another—but there was a very good balance here on the most controversial subjects; mostly positive on others.
It was fun to see everyone again, plus a good number of new (to me) faces. ImageOUT is the only place I ever see some folks anymore, which makes it that much more of a unique pleasure every time the leaves begin to turn.
Thank you.
I love ImageOut every year but having volunteered helped me to see it in a different way. I learned to really appreciate the way people work together to make this such a big event.
I also love ImageOut for the films, speakers, guests, and the showcasing of our city as a more than viable choice to live for the LGBT community. Having loved movies as far back as I can remember, it is so satisfying to see ourselves on the big screen. It is also great to see the depth of films and shorts chosen to be in the film festival year after year.
As Woody commented, the breaks in-between the weeknight films were much appreciated. We were able to actually eat real food instead of just cookies or popcorn for dinner. Not only is ImageOut great for the LGBT community here but it's fantastic for your diet!
That schedule really works as I was able to see 30 programs.
I am looking forward very much to volunteering again next year and also sitting at opening night in a darkened theatre.
I can't believe it's already been a week since ImageOut ended! It's a lot of fun to be a volunteer and be a part of the ImageOut crew.
I just want to thank everybody...everybody involved in making this a great festival. I just hope that we can continue to expand our audience.
And yes, I do agree with the other posters that it's good to have some break between films.
Looking forward to the next special event. And there is another film festival coming to Rochester in May! Something called 360 | 365. I'll definitely have to check that out!
Stefan,
That 360 | 365 festival is the new name of the High Falls Film Festival. Best wishes to them!
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