Burlington is hosting the Snake Alley Festival of Film this week, showcasing a total of 116 movies from Iowa, across the U.S. and around the globe.
Capital Theater manager Kara Ewinger says this festival is unique in Iowa as it doesn’t contain feature-length films or documentaries, but instead, it focuses only on the short film format. “A lot of times, filmmakers start out making short films and then work their way up to feature films as well,” Ewinger says, “so we get a lot of beginner filmmakers as well as very experienced filmmakers who still love the short film format and what you can do in a very short amount of time to tell a story.”
The dozens of shorts will be shown in blocks that start this (Thursday) afternoon and run through Sunday night. “Film blocks run for an hour-and-a-half to two hours long, and your films, some last five minutes, some last 30 minutes,” Ewinger says. “We have a wide variety in every film block, so there’s something for everybody. If you don’t like one film, wait a few minutes and there’ll be a totally different topic and genre coming up next.”
The fest is being held in the restored Capitol Theater, which first opened in 1937 and reopened in 2012 after a major renovation. It seats 367, which she says fosters a certain type of intimacy for the audience, which often includes the filmmakers themselves. “Some festivals, you have very different movies playing in different spots throughout the town. Well, here, we have one theater and one big screen,” Ewinger says. “People can network and it’s just a great way to meet other filmmakers. We’ve had a lot of collaborations happen because of meetings coming from this film festival.”
Aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters adore this festival, she says, because they can get a hand in envisioning their projects. “We offer screenplay table reads for scripts that have not been produced yet,” she says. “These are very, very helpful for the screenwriter. They can hear the script out loud, performed and get feedback afterwards, and a lot of these scripts end up becoming short films of their own.”
Tickets are available for single film blocks, for full days, and for the full four-day festival.