A New Hope: The begining of the end for Arkansas Shorts?
A week ago, I woke up early, like a kid celebrating a second Christmas, full of glee for a weekend marking the start of Arkansas’s 2024 film season.
Ready for the annual Arkansas Shorts film festival, a slate of fresh, locally produced movies gracing the screen at the Malco Theater in Hot Springs, I brushed my teeth, jammed my suitcase full of clothes, and slid on my favorite pair of sunglasses. I was locked and loaded, ready to make my way to the Happy Hollow Hotel.
I opened my apartment door, took one step out and was greeted with whiteness. A field of snow covered the ground. For a brief moment, that childlike Christmas-y feeling intensified, until the adult in me realized that I would be driving two hours in the snowy, slushy rain, all the way to my hotel.
As I headed down south, braving the winter weather in discontent, I passed by wrecks, jackknifed trucks and abandoned vehicles on the side of the road. I was blaring mood appropriate music, listening to morose songs from dead artists, trying not to become another victim to the deceptive snow. I took the time, during this miserable drive, to reflect on the events of the previous afternoon, specifically the Filmmaker Forum event that the Arkansas Cinema Society held at the Museum of Fine Arts.
ACS’s executive director, Kathryn Tucker, and Brandon Chase Goldsmith of the Fort Smith Film Festival, hosted the forum. Around 30 or so filmmakers, ranging from actors to directors to producers, sat around, unsure what to expect from this sudden call to action. Tucker explained that she wanted the film community to have monthly meetings, not to just share projects and events, but to also give filmmakers a place where they could state their grievances, especially since last year wasn’t the smoothest for the local film community. Most of this meeting covered the new movie tax incentives and rebates, which I think went over most of the audience’s head. Beyond the technicalities, I think filmmakers wanted to be reassured that things were happening on the state level to help Arkansas inch towards a viable film industry, which it currently does not have.
Goldsmith then announced that the next forum is going to take place in Fayetteville. In fact, he reassured that these will be monthly meetings, and that they will be taking place all over the state to ensure that no region is overlooked. People will be allowed to attend meetings via Zoom to make sure that everyone can participate no matter what town the physical forum is taking place. Hopefully these gatherings will have a positive impact on the community and help iron out some of the tensions from the last year, especially the double booking of film events.
By the time I had reached Hot Springs, the rain had washed away the majority of the snow. All that remained was a half-melted snowman outside the Arlington. I wondered if the weather would affect attendance. Who would be crazy enough to drive in these conditions to watch a few dozen short films? The answer is filmmakers,
as the Malco was packed. Arkansas Shorts, somehow, always pulls in a great crowd, rain or shine.
This festival has changed quite a bit over the last 17 years. I recall in the late 2000s attending the Hot Springs Documentary Fest, and there were people handing out fliers for one of the earliest Arkansas Shorts events. It was a genuine grassroots effort. By the time I was in grad school, the festival had evolved into one of the most prestigious events for local filmmakers. They would only accept around 10 films a year, and it felt like it really meant something if your short made it on the lineup.
Then things slowly changed again, as more and more films were accepted into the festival. International shorts were then incorporated, and now the Inception to Projection program, which is full of first time filmmakers and fledgling artists, has become a big part of the festival. Change is not always a bad thing. Even though there are more films in the festival than there were a decade ago, the goal of these screenings has evolved to help foster the next generation of filmmakers.
The festival’s director, Jennifer Gerber, took to the stage and made the announcement that the festival was once again going to go through another drastic change. This year, the festival showcased its first feature-length film, “The Magician’s Raincoat,” shot in Hot Springs over the last year. I found this strange for a shorts festival to screen a 90-minute film. Gerber said starting next year, Arkansas Shorts will no longer exist. The festival intends to start screening more feature-length films. This news seemed to be met with mixed, unsure reactions, but then again when is change never met with that kind of reaction.
I was able to corner Gerber at one of the after-parties to ask her about next year’s festival. She reassured me there was nothing to worry about, as she plans on making this a slow transition. Next year will still screen a majority of shorts and maybe one to two features. I asked her why she’s taking the festival in this direction.
She answered by saying that she felt that Arkansas really hasn’t had a proper features festival ever since the Little Rock Film Festival went kaput back in 2015. And she wants to attempt to bring back that feeling, that kind of magical experience for Arkansas filmmakers.
If anyone can bring back that type of festival to life, it’s Gerber. With every festival that she has headed over the past few years, she has always made them better. She has always been able to bring in a good crowd. She has always put Arkansas filmmakers first. And I, for one, am looking forward to this new evolution to see what she does next.
Arkansas Shorts is a bit of a mental marathon, and after three full days of watching short films, some good, some not so good, I was ready to head back home. I gathered up a few bottles of fresh spring water and drove out of town, no trace of the dreary winter storm that started the weekend. There was nothing but clear skies and a sense of optimism all along the way.