Get ready for your close-up, Macon. When the Macon Film Festival begins July 20, all cameras will be on our city.
The four-day event is expected to draw 3,500 attendees to its seven venues stretching from the Museum of Arts and Sciences on Forsyth Road all the way into downtown Macon.
Now in its 12th year, the Festival “celebrates independent films while promoting filmmaking for entertainment, inspiration, education and economic development,” according to its website.
The festival will kick off with the screening of a new full-dome film, “Stardancer’s Waltz,” at the Museum of Arts and Sciences’ Mark Smith Planetarium. The 10-minute animated film by Diana Reichenbach was inspired by a concerto movement included on “Concerto for Violin, Rock Band and String Orchestra,” an album by R.E.M. member Mike Mills and Grammy-nominated violinist Robert McDuffie, both of Macon.
For the next three days, from mid-morning until well after dark, 56 films from the U.S. and abroad will be screened for festival-goers. Films will compete in 10 different awards categories, with prize money totaling more than $9,000, according to the website. One film will receive the coveted Melvyn Douglass Best in Show Award.
Many evening Special Screenings include Q&A sessions with actors, directors and producers. The festival also hosts workshops related to filmmaking, which are free and open to the public.
“This year the Georgia Tourism Industry is celebrating the ‘Year of Film,’” said Julie Wilkerson, president of the festival’s board of directors. “We are proud to focus on the filmmaker this year by hosting the filmmakers for three of our Special Screenings as guests. We want to introduce filmmakers to Central Georgia, as well as introduce Central Georgia to these artists.”
For more information about the festival, including a full schedule of screenings, visit MaconFilmFestival.com.