Adrian International Film Festival returning to downtown April 21-22

ADRIAN — For the first time since 2019, the Adrian International Film Festival will conduct all its programs and screenings at various locations throughout downtown Adrian.

The Film festival, which started in 2018 but has had its in-person events limited by COVID-19 in recent years, will return April 21-22 to downtown Adrian.

Festival passes are on sale and can be purchased by visiting www.adrianfilm.org.

For those who have frequented previous Adrian International Film Festivals, or for those who have followed along with the growth of the festival through the years, the late April dates of the 2023 festival might seem a bit earlier on the calendar than that of previous festivals. That is due to festival organizers wanting to incorporate the city's colleges and university with portions of the festival weekend.

“We have two interns from Adrian College and Siena Heights University who will be helping us out with this year’s festival,” Michael Neal, president and program director of the Adrian International Film Festival said. “This is a really good event in which those college students who are majoring in those communications and television or film classes can check out what happens right here in the downtown.”

This year’s event will feature 28 films screened across three venues: the Adrian Armory Event Center, the Van Doren Suite at the Croswell Opera House and the AF Pass Holder Tent, which will be at the downtown Huntington Bank parking lot, a news release from the film festival said.

Pass holders will be able to screen films at each venue, attend both the opening and closing ceremonies, participate in the Audience Choice category, and enjoy beverages, live music and more throughout the weekend.

In recent years, because of the pandemic, the film festival has limited how many people could attend downtown functions and it has been conducted in a hybrid format with some films being shown in person while others have been streamed online. This year, however, marks the return of hosting everything throughout downtown Adrian.

“We are finally back to full force, which is great,” Neal said. “The last three years we have kind of been a hybrid event because of COVID. It’s year five for us as a regular standing festival in the city and we have definitely seen growth each year. We are excited to be back this year.”

Partnering with such venues as the Croswell Opera House and the Adrian Armory are a plus not only for serving as host sites for the film festival, Neal said, but it’s also a chance for Adrian to show off its flair and history to a number of out-of-town visitors and filmmakers traveling to the city.

“We are screening several films at some of the marquee locations around Adrian,” Neal said. “We couldn’t ask for better venues and better partnerships.”

Chaloner’s Cigar House and Mammoth Distilling are additional locations downtown that will serve as gathering spots for filmmakers and others to hang out in a more private and laid-back setting, Neal said.

The film festival relies on a planning committee, which consists of individuals local to Adrian, downtown business owners and representatives from the colleges and university to plan out each year’s event and work with the downtown venues to acquire space for showing the films.

The 28 films selected for this year’s festival have been narrowed down from at least 240 films, both domestic and foreign, that were submitted to the film festival’s committee for consideration, Neal said. Of the selected films, at least 15 of the producers, actors and directors have already committed to attending the festival in Adrian, which, Neal said, is a record-breaking number of film crews coming to Adrian.

“I think we are becoming a popular enough film festival that we’re starting to be on the radar of filmmakers around the world,” he said.

The categories of films that will be shown later this month include feature films, documentary feature films, short films, documentary short films and student films. Opening announcements for the festival begin at 5 p.m. April 21, with the first feature film starting at 6 p.m. at the Armory. The April 21 schedule is the lighter of the two days.

A near nonstop schedule of films is on tap April 22, beginning at noon and continuing until the closing ceremonies at 9:30 p.m. at the Armory.

Live music can be heard during the two days of the festival, with a jazz ensemble and a cover band performing at the AF Pass Holder Tent near Huntington Bank.

A complete schedule for the film festival can be viewed at the Adrian International Film Festival’s Facebook page or at www.adrianfilm.org. Both sites are also where people can check out some of the film titles that will be shown at the festival as well as view movie trailers and previews. The committee began announcing the names of the film selections during the final week of March.

The festival’s keynote speaker will be actor/producer Kirk Baltz, who has been in the moviemaking industry for almost five decades and has played characters in movies such as “Natural Born Killers,” “Dances with Wolves” and “Reservoir Dogs” from 1992, which will be one of the movies shown during the festival weekend.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Adrian International Film Festival returning to downtown April 21-22