Wisconsin Film Festival

The Next Festival

The 14th Wisconsin Film Festival will run from Wednesday, April 18 to Sunday, April 22, 2012.

2011 Steep & Brew Audience Awards and the Golden Badger Awards

The Wisconsin Film Festival’s honors for films selected by the audience as their favorites, and for the juried awards for films with Wisconsin connections have been announced. Read about the winners here.

Attendence at the 2011 Wisconsin Film Festival was 35,858 tickets collected over five days.

How Do You Choose?

Armadillo

With 211 films in this year’s Wisconsin Film Festival, it can be a daunting task to whittle down your list to a manageable weekend full of movies. When we’re selecting the films for this year’s Festival, the goal is to pull together a very wide mix of motion pictures, to give you access to dozens of films that you’d never otherwise have the chance to see. It’s the perfect opportunity to explore and be adventurous.

Rather than focus solely on the kinds of films that already fit your tastes, consider the titles that you quickly skip over when reading the descriptions. The Festival might be exactly the right time to see — if these aren’t the kind you’d normally choose — a war documentary like Armadillo, an art-house specialty like Le Quattro Volte, or an action picture like Hong Kong’s The Stool Pigeon.

Le Quattro Volte

This year is also perfect for getting a ticket to a program of experimental films. The director of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, David Dinnell, and two UW–Madison graduate students, John Powers and Aaron Granat, have guest-curated several clusters of the most accomplished recent experimental and avant-garde films from around the world. They’ll be introducing these programs and providing insight into how this branch of filmmaking continues to create fascinating works.

Here in Wisconsin, many of us make a special effort to support local farmers — let’s support local filmmakers, too. Get a ticket to at least one feature or shorts program of films made here in Wisconsin. If you browse the online Film Guide, you can sort the list for “Wisconsin’s Own” titles.

The Stool Pigeon

However you put your own Wisconsin Film Festival together, whether it’s two films over the weekend or twenty, the Festival will be a success if you try at least one new kind of movie. It’s not about having all your 2011 picks become your most favorite films of all time, it’s about sampling the many different kinds of motion pictures that talented crews around the world have made.