Wexner Center's 'family film' festival adds literary feature
The Wexner Center for the Arts’ Zoom: Family Film Festival has always been a reliable destination for quality family movies.
This year’s festival, to take place Friday and Saturday at the arts center on the campus of Ohio State University, is no exception: Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 comedy “Modern Times” will be shown, as will a selection of short films for children.
But attendees this year will find not only visual stimulation but literary nourishment.
Starting this year, the festival has been rebranded as the Zoom: Family Film and Book Festival.
“The thing that pulls it all together for me is storytelling,” said Jean Pitman, community, youth and family programs manager at the Wexner Center. “It has to do with world-making, world-building.”
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What is the ideal age for the festival?
The Zoom festival is intended for all ages. “Four is probably the age where you want to start — 3 or 4,” Pitman said. “And then all the way up to 99.”
What's scheduled for Friday?
This year’s Zoom festival kicks off with a classic movie: At 7 p.m. Friday, the Wexner Center will present Chaplin’s “Modern Times,” which features the writer-director-actor attempting to reckon with technological advances — all in comedic fashion, of course.
“There’s something evergreen and fresh about the comedies (of) Charlie Chaplin (and) Buster Keaton,” Pitman said. “There’s a cleverness to it that is just so enchanting and really entertaining, too.”
The screening is free, but tickets are required.
What's on tap Saturday?
Both literary and film events are scheduled for Saturday. The Heirloom Café will be transformed into a coloring and ’zine studio from 10 a.m. to noon; the café itself will be open until 2 p.m. “We’ll have a studio setup with lots of materials . . . lots of paper and binding, and we’ll have instructions for that,” Pitman said.
All materials are nontoxic, she added.
At 11 a.m., stretches and yoga exercises will precede a screening of short films from the 2022 New York International Children’s Film Festival.
Then, at 1 p.m., Columbus artist and illustrator Keturah A. Bobo will be joined by her family members to participate in an on-stage discussion about her work, including the children’s book “I Am Enough.” All in the audience can feel free to ask questions.
“We’re going to get to have a little peek into her sketchbook, which is always so interesting,” Pitman said. “Just to see that whole family engage in making art, in making work, in earning a living, in working together to make something that didn’t exist before — it’s great. I think it’s super inspiring.”
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The festival ends with ice cream
Finally, at 2 p.m. Saturday, the Heirloom Café will host a free ice cream social courtesy of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams.
“We cannot not do ice cream,” said Pitman, who hopes the whole festival will be creatively inspiring to all in attendance.
“We are living in a time that’s just really challenging and it’s very easy to look more on the bad side of things or the stuff that isn’t going right,” she said. “I just think we really need to plug into our imagination.”
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At a glance
Zoom: Family Film and Book Festival will take place Friday and Saturday at the Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N. High St. The festival is free, but tickets are required for the 7 p.m. Friday screening of “Modern Times,” and an RSVP is requested for events on Saturday. For more information, visit wexarts.org.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Wexner Center Zoom: Family Film and Book Festival returns
