Starting Thursday and running through Sunday, the Berkshire International Film Festival is once again highlighting dozens of films from across the globe.
“We have nearly 60 films: short films, narrative feature films and documentary feature films. We have them from all over the world, from Chile to China, from France to Germany. And then of course, we have fantastic selection of films from right here in our own community," said Kelley R. Vickery, the festival’s founder and artistic director. “One is called ‘Hello Bookstore’ by Adam Zax. And that is a fantastic film about Matt Tannenbaum in our beloved bookstore in Lenox. And it's a slice of Matt's life. He's been in the in Lenox specifically for 40 years. And it's the film starts pre-COVID. But actually, as it ends up, goes through COVID to present day.”
Another film with a local focus is Patrick Toole’s “Speak What We Feel.”
“It’s about the incredible educational program by Shakespeare & Company and the fall festival that was created by Kevin Coleman years ago, with Tina Packer as well," said Vickery. "And this is a beautiful inspiring film about the fall festival going into our Berkshire community schools and presenting a play each fall by the schools. It's a beloved program. It's transformative program. And this film is really inspiring about what is happening with our students, our high school students and [Shakespeare] & Co in our community.”
“Sproutland” is a film by Cynthia Wade about the late Steve Meyerowitz – a Great Barrington resident and health food pioneer better known by his sobriquet.
“It’s a narrative that is about Sproutman, who was a dear, dear person in our community, a health guru, who sadly passed away suddenly a few years ago, and this film is a narrative fictionalized version of the impact he had in our community and grieving and loss,” said Vickery. “Those are wonderful highlights in our community, but we also have incredible films about Lino Tagliapietra, the great glassblowing guru from Italy. We have a wonderful film called ‘Calendar Girl,’ about the Ruth Finley story who kept the calendar for the fashion community in New York City. We have environmental films, ‘Fish and Men’ and ‘To Which We Belong.’ And then just a fantastic selection of narrative features, as I had mentioned before from all over the world, so you have a great selection of foreign and regional and domestic feature length and short films at the festival.”
Vickery says the decision to transition to a virtual format wasn’t easy.
“We run a very tight festival, with hundreds of people, many coming in from outside Berkshire County," she explained. "We wanted to be responsible with the surge of COVID that we weren't putting people indoors from 9:30 in the morning to 9:30 at night, with lots of people coming in from outside Berkshire County. So we made that decision. And I'm very thankful and grateful to the, really, the unbelievable support and understanding of the community.”
Last year, the festival moved to a drive-in format to safely conduct the screenings. This year, the plan was initially to mount a hybrid festival.
“When we decided to pivot fully to a virtual, we were very fortunate that we had been using a company called Eventive," said Vickey. "And they are an online platform that many, many film festivals not only in the United States but around the world use. So we were able to pivot to that. And now our passholders will have the opportunity to watch any of the online curated films online, through their Eventive platform at any time over the BIFF weekend and any day. So they're not held to a schedule any longer.”