The Colony Short Film Festival marks its 12th year of showcasing local and international short films in downtown Marietta, March 1–3 at the historic Peoples Bank Theatre.

This year’s short film festival includes 20 films from 13 states, including Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Maryland, as well as an international submission from Brazil. The films represent a variety of genres, from inspiring documentaries to intense fictional pieces.

On the evening of Thursday, March 1 at 6 p.m., the film festival will open with a reception and art exhibit, featuring recent work by Jolene Powell. Powell is a McCoy Professor of Art and Director of Gallery 310 at Marietta College. Although she lives in the Mid-west, she has spent several summers painting the coast of Maine and most recently completed her fall 2016 sabbatical at Nes International Artist Residency in Iceland.

Thursday’s opening feature is a screening of Loving Vincent, showing at 7:00 p.m. Originally envisioned as a short film project by its creators, Loving Vincent came to be the world’s first fully oil-painted feature film and was released in the fall of 2017. Loving Vincent brings the artwork of Vincent van Gogh to life in an exploration of the complicated life and controversial death of one of history’s most celebrated artists. More than six years in the making, with the help of 125 specially trained painters, Loving Vincent is a uniquely animated film composed of 65,000 painted frames. The film’s story is drawn from meticulous research and inspired by van Gogh’s masterpieces, subjects, and some 800 of van Gogh’s personal letters.

On Friday, screenings of the Colony Short Film Festival’s Official Selections will begin at 7 p.m., followed by a filmmaker’s panel discussion and Q&A session.

On Saturday, the film festival continues with a talk by Niv Klainer, the director of last year’s Best Student Film at the Colony Short Film Festival, Don’t Think About It. Klainer will screen segments of his films and will tell his story of finding his way in the American film industry. Klainer is a graduate of Tel Aviv University and attended the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem. After the premiere of his short, Mr. Kurzweil is Dead, at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006, Klainer moved on to develop his first feature film, Bena, at the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The film was a French-Israeli co-production and had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009. During the past decade, Klainer has been living in New York City and Chicago, working as a writer, director and editor. Don’t Think About It is his latest short. It has been selected for 45 festivals and received 12 awards.

Festival screenings continue Saturday afternoon at 2:30 and 4:00, followed by a filmmakers discussion panel and Q&A session at 5:15 p.m.

The festival concludes with an encore screening of the festival’s award-nominated entries at 8:00 p.m. and presentation of awards at 10:45 p.m.

Admission is $8 on Thursday and $10 on Friday and Saturday. Weekend passes are $25. Student and senior discounts are available.

Full event information and ticket details are available on the Colony Short Film Festival website at http://colonyfilmfestival.com. Tickets are available online at peoplesbanktheatre.com or by calling the box office at 740-371-5152. Walk-up hours at the box office are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The Colony Short Film Festival is a program of the nonprofit Hippodrome / Colony Historical Theatre Association, which also manages the historic Peoples Bank Theatre at 222 Putnam Street in downtown Marietta. The Colony Short Film Festival is made possible in part by state tax dollars allocated by the Ohio Legislature to the Ohio Arts Council (OAC). The OAC is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally, and economically.
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