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1st Annual Gowanda Film Festival

June 15, 2019

The Village of Gowanda was treated to a unique opportunity on Saturday, June 15, 2019. That afternoon, the First Annual Gowanda Film Festival was held at the village’s historic Hollywood Theater. As the long process of theater renovation nears completion, the film festival came as a glimpse at the new future of the theater. Prior to its closing and rehab activities, the theater had been reduced to being just a movie house. The vision for the future is to become a full ranging regional center for the creative arts. This will include everything from theater to concerts and on to movies, both mainstream and independent. The film festival, a Gowanda first ever of its kind, was a major step towards the future goal.

With the labor intensive and financially draining work on abundant infrastructure issues completed, work on the final stages of rehab to the main “house” area of the theater is currently moving forward with rapid progress being made. The expectation is that the theater rehab will be mostly completed by the end of this Summer. While there may be a few features that will still need to be added, it is believed that the Hollywood will, at that time, be able to make the first steps towards its new future.

Despite an initial announcement of the film festival that came just 3 month ago in March, 6 films were entered and presented at the festival.

The first film was “It Came From the Woods” by Tennyson Hendershott, from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Set at a state park, the film revolved around a group of new park ranger recruits. In the course of the film, a creature that originates in the woods, at first, appears to be threatening and dangerous. Upon further examination of the situation, the creature seems to be less of an intrusion than some of the unruly human visitors to the park.

Highway Semiotics by Stephen Crompton was the next presentation. This extremely short film was an examination of the use of billboards as a medium to express a given narrative. This includes a brief overview of the strategy behind how the elements of the billboard were put together in certain ways to produce an effect.

Moving on to the third presentation, the Anderson Phillips documentary, “"The Chilling History of Ski Wing Resort". Initially there is a brief mention of a incident caused by as chairlift malfunction that had resulted in skiers being thrown off as the lift moved in reverse. After that, the main focus of the film turned to the murder of an employee of the Allegany, NY ski resort. The worker had stumbled upon a robbery in progress and had attempted to intervene. During the struggle that followed, the worker was fatally wounded. This particular entry in the film festival can also be currently found on YouTube by searching for the title.

The fourth film, “"The Waves: Bait for Some Blondes" from Lyman Films was next. This follows the journey of a group of friends who form the band, ‘The Waves’. It discusses how the group began just play music without a direction and how, through the energy exchange back and forth with their audience, they found the motivation that pushed them forward and focused their vision. While not put forward in the film, the title refers to a song by ‘The Waves’ entitled “Bait for a Blonde”, which can also be found in a YouTube search.

At this point there was a short break. Pizza, popcorn, pop and water were available at the concession stand.

Following the break, another Stephen Crompton film, "Sweet Love" was screened. This was a biographical documentary about a year in the life of Alvin Bojar. Specifically, in 1972, Bojar had been the writer & producer for the making of the soft-core porn spoof movie, “Fongaluli”. He also acted in the production. “Fongaluli” involved a scientist who finds a strange plant that turns a lobster into a woman, an effect that wears off in time. Primarily “Sweet Love” takes the form of a narrative by Bojar, now retired and living in Palm Beach, but there are a few brief clips from the referenced movie. While those glimpses did contain some non-sexual nudity, it was similar to what can be seen in National Geographic or most art museums.

From that, we moved to the final film of the day, "The First Date", an offering from September Brothers Productions. At an hour and 20 minutes this was an extremely long film. The film’s official synopsis on the Internet Movie Database reads “Tired of the online dating world, a hopeful woman decides to give it one last try with a mysterious stranger who shares her love for scary films”. It is classified as a horror comedy. During the date, woman meet a man who has his own home movie theater where no less than 8 short films are shown, some dealing in negative date topics including obsession and stalking. Others included a spooky doll, and urban legend clown, a super hero, a mad scientist and a role-playing game scenario. After it all, the host is revealed as a collector of more than just films with the woman being the next in line. This film is available on stream from both Amazon and Vimeo as a 99-cent rental.

The winners from the 2019 film festival are as follows: Best Picture and Best Cinematography went to “It Came From The Woods”. The film was also voted the Audience Choice. Anna Dominguiez was selected as Best Actress, also from “It Came From The Woods”. Best Actor went to Paul McGinnis for “The First Date”. That film also took Best Editing. Best Director was Stephen Crompton for “Sweet Love”. Best Original Soundtrack went to “The Chilling History of Ski Wing Resort”.

All in all, it was a collection of very diverse films. Looking forward, with a full year before the next Gowanda Film Festival, it is hoped that more individuals in western NY will put together a film of their own. The Gowanda Film Festival’s website can be found at:  https://www.gowandafilmfest.com/. There is also a Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/GowandaFilmFest

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