Boat-in movies set for Fort Lauderdale fest
Event, with pandemic tweaks, runs Nov. 6-22
How do you throw a major film festival during a pandemic? In Fort Lauderdale, it means boat-in movies.
Screenings for water-borne audiences is just one of the socialdistancing ideas on a blueprint for the 2020 edition of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, according to FLIFF president Gregory Von Hausch.
The 35th annual festival will run Nov. 6-22 and, barring some kind of magical disappearance of the new coronavirus, will include sharply reduced capacities in theaters, in-home viewing, dinnerand-a-movie nights in local restaurants and drive-in screenings.
The boat-in movies are perhaps the best illustration of the resourcefulness Von Hausch has employed while organizing an event he has helmed for more than three decades. Who knew film festival planning would have to go through the Coast Guard?
“We’ve had obstacles, but they have been great, for the most part,” Von Hausch said on Tuesday.
FLIFF boat-in movie screenings will include at least one at Lauderdale Yacht Club, with one or two more at locations that Von Hausch is still confirming.
Lauderdale Yacht Club is nearly finished with a new 37,000-square-foot clubhouse and will co-host a test run of the boatin movie concept with FLIFF in mid-September, Von Hausch said.
Open to the public, the movies
will be shown on a twosided screen that allows viewers to be anchored offshore and seated on the grass by the clubhouse.
The set-up is similar to a recent beachfront screening of “Jaws” hosted by FLIFF.
“At night on the water, it was just beautiful. We know the concept will work,” Von Hausch said.
The festival is tentatively scheduled to begin in its usual spot at Hard Rock Live at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood, with the traditional red-carpet scene likely light on the chummy celebrity buzz that has been a staple of opening night at FLIFF. Hard Rock Live holds 7,000, but FLIFF will sell only about 750 tickets.
Von Hausch said he has almost completed a lineup of more than 200 features, documentaries and short films that he will have plugged into a schedule by Labor Day. He’s also lining up filmmakers and actors to take part, nearly all of them likely to do their audience Q&As in virtual, interactive sessions via Zoom.
FLIFF’s annual glossy catalog will be a digitalonly publication this year to allow festival organizers to adapt quickly to lastminute COVID-19 issues.
The annual reveal party for the FLIFF poster and promotional trailer is set for Aug. 27 at the FLIFF Drive-in Cinema space on the water across 17th Street from the Pier Sixty-Six Hotel and Marina. The evening will include live bands and food trucks.
The 2020 festival will include at least six drive-in screenings at Pier SixtySix, but maybe more. Von Hausch said the FLIFF Drive-in Cinema consistently sells out and he has been fielding inquiries from other cities who want to host drive-in screenings during FLIFF, including
Coral Springs, Sunrise and
Dania Beach.
FLIFF also has acquired several large, inflatable movie screens that will be used to partner with local restaurants on a dinnerand-a-movie night, with the cost of the film added to the bill.
The Tipsy Boar in Hollywood, Bokamper’s Sports Bar & Grill on the Intracoastal and sister property Bo’s Beach on Fort Lauderdale beach have signed on. Von Hausch says he’d like to find a dozen other restaurants to host screenings.
Von Hausch has hosted festivals that were rattled by hurricanes and overshadowed by post-Sept. 11 gloom, but the challenges of 2020, with COVID-19 and the fear of physical proximity, are unique.
“This stands on its own. Not just for us, it’s every arts group, every business, every person. I’m not going to be so selfish to only see it through my own eyes. What they’re going through, we’re going through and vice versa,” he said. “I’ve tried to make it as easy for them, the public, as possible and still have a little joie de vivre, something special, being our 35th year.”
For updates on the 2020 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival and related events, visit FLIFF.com.