It's opening night of the 2024 Milwaukee Film Festival — 15 days of more than 300 movie screenings.
The festival is celebrating its Sweet 16 by bringing a historic gem back to life. TMJ4's Sydni Eure spoke to Milwaukee Film programmers at the Oriental Theater who have spent a lot of time securing the Downer Theater for this year's festival.
The team says it was a complicated process but they accomplished it just in time. The first screening at Downer will be Friday afternoon, right after an official ribbon cutting ceremony that's open to the public.
Milwaukee Film leaders say it's the grand start to one of the larger film festivals in the country. There's a lot of excitement building around the event.
"Being here at the Oriental is always amazing of course, but then being able to have a big ribbon cutting ceremony for the Downer and bring everybody back to that historic gem in our city will be the best," said Kerstin Larson, Milwaukee Film's programming director. "And of course we love the Times Cinema and Avalon Theatre too so we're really excited to get started."
"During the show each reel gets loaded up onto the projectors and every 20 minutes we're basically switching from one reel to the next manually," added technical manager Kelsey Parks. "So, it's art of timing and calibration which is just a lot of fun to do."
"I always will stay toward comedies, to hear other people laughing at other things that I may didn't pick up on right away," says Ian Cessna, the school programs coordinator for the film festival. "It really helps increase the experience and everybody kind of learning and sharing it together."
"I am not a horror movie person at all but I was like 'I'll go watch this Norwegian zombie film' and I ended up really enjoying it," added Abbie Esterline, Milwaukee Film's programming coordinator. "It's not something I would normally pick for myself and I think that's something that people during the festival should try and do because you never know what you might find and enjoy."
The film fun kicks off tonight at 6:00 p.m. — and there's a bonus! If you buy tickets to the first screening, you'll also get admittance into the opening night party at the Villa Terrance. Who doesn't love a two for one deal? Click here for information on tickets and times.
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