Guest Blog Post by Nancy Morrow, Executive Director, McMinnville Short Film Festival (MSFF)
From February 18-28, we’re excited to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the McMinnville Short Film Festival – going entirely virtual for the first time ever! While COVID-19 restrictions necessitated the shift from our typical in-person festivities, pivoting to an all-virtual format means our film festival can be streamed from anywhere in the world. We love a good silver lining. Bringing our beloved McMinnville to the global film stage, by expanding the reach of our annual festival virtually, is something we’re really proud of for our community. Also, it’s a symbolic evolution of technology that didn’t exist when our festival was founded in 2011!
This year, we will screen 127 films over the course of our 10-day festival. View the festival schedule here: https://msff2021.eventive.org/schedule.The 127 films will be shown in 13 separate screening blocks, with each screening “open” for streaming from your home TV or computer over a specific 3- or 4-day period. There are also three screenings that are entirely free, and will be open for streaming over the entire course of the 10 days.
What’s more, the Opening Night on February 18, and the Closing Night Awards Ceremony on February 28, are also free and open to the public to stream live via avcast.me/msff! Yours truly will kick off the festival Thursday, February 18th with the Opening Night. Rounding out the 10-day celebration of films, the Awards Ceremony takes place Sunday, February 28th, hosted by Portland-based filmmaking entrepreneur Dr. PK Glazer, PhD, and is also free and open to all for streaming via avcast.me/msff.
Individual tickets to any of the 13 screenings are $10 each, and can be purchased via https://msff2021.eventive.org/passes/buy/general_admission_ticket. Each ticket purchase includes an automatic entry into a gift card raffle – gift cards generously donated by local McMinnville businesses. Purchase 3 or more tickets to individual screenings, and the price drops to $7/screening.
An All-Access Pass grants access to all 13 screenings for just $85, a $45 savings, and can be purchased via https://msff2021.eventive.org/passes/buy/all_access_pass. Plus, each All-Access Pass purchase includes 3 automatic entries per screening into the gift card raffle (for a total of 39 entries).
Additional donations to the McMinnville Short Film Festival via http://bit.ly/MSFFdonations are welcomed and appreciated. Through the generosity of supporters, our dedicated MSFF team, board of directors, and volunteers ensure that all donations are put to good use bringing this valuable arts & cultural event to all.
We realize our all-virtual format is a complete shift from MSFFs past, so our team is standing by to answer questions and help you navigate. We’re creating videos, tools, and how-to instructions, so you’ll be able to fest virtually with confidence. We hope you can join us!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR—NANCY MORROW
Nancy Morrow is the owner of The Gallery at Ten Oaks (McMinnville, OR) along with her husband Dan. They are newcomers to the art world and understand how it feels to take that first step into an unknown world. Prior to the gallery, they owned Movietime Video (McMinnville, OR) for 15 years. During that time they launched the McMinnville Short Film Festival and continue to run it to this day with Nancy as Executive Director. They have 2 grown children and have lived in McMinnville for 20 years.