Oct. 30–Nov. 10, 2019 • four locations • get tickets for the DFF here
I’d like to talk to you about something that gets hidden behind the scenes a lot of the time. Mike’s Camera is not just a few buildings full of cameras and printers. Mike’s Camera truly “is” the people who work at each of those stores, and Mike’s Camera wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the people in the surrounding areas that keep the aesthetic community vibrant and producing.
Still family-run in Boulder, CO, we’re deeply-enmeshed in the cultural development of Colorado (and since we grew into California, we’ve tried to maintain that same level of involvement there, too). We support numerous charitable endeavors, including those promoting that wild child working to make life worth living—that is, art!—but it’s not something that people hear about frequently.
I, for one, am proud to be a part of an organization that redirects earnings back into my community, rather than into the pockets of disunited shareholders, and I’m pleased to note that one of the events we sponsor is coming up very soon: the estimable Denver Film Festival. It’s not just a monetary thing; we donate our unique production capabilities, too, and as the official print sponsor of the SIE FilmCenter, you’ll see quite a few posters and flyers connected to the Festival that came straight from our expert printers. Printed personally, mounted and trimmed by hand, each one is a palpable presentation of love!
This year’s Festival takes place from Wednesday, October 30th through Sunday, November 10th. Click here to check out the schedule and buy tickets now, or read on for a little more about the DFF, and why movies matter to our collective soul.
“It’s funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.”
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
Since time immemorial, humans have dedicated countless hours of labor and resources toward one goal: the manipulation of physical objects to capture a personal vision. Whether that vision is to produce an exact replica of the creator’s understanding of a subject (quasi-“objective”) or to communicate the spiritual gravity of subjective or imagined experiences, the box of tools is generally the same. Jumping forward to recorded history, movies are some of the most advanced expressions of a craft that began with organized grunts and stained handprints.
Videography combines the visual precision of photography with the narrative power of motion, and is a tool that, as classic page-to-silver-screen protagonist Alex DeLarge noted above, can be used to inject distilled experience into an audience more effectively than experience itself sometimes, especially by a skilled director.
In 1978, a small group of people who recognized the power of film got together in Denver and organized the screening of 78 movies from around the world over ten days in May. Forty-one years later, the organizers own their own theater (the Sie FilmCenter, next to the Tattered Cover) and support the art of the motion picture through every season. True to their roots, the Denver Film Festival is still the biggest event of the year.
The attractions include a long list of domestic and international movies to be screened, a massive display of VR experiences (on the cutting edge of what “movies” can mean*), live discussions on art and the industry by expert insiders, and even an interactive theater escape room. Everything a hardcore film buff could enjoy will be there, and there’s certain to be at least one thing for everyone to enjoy. Shakespearean Star Wars, anyone?
*Some of which are free to the public!
