my favorite topic is movies. And we're going to talk about the opening tonight of the
Milwaukee Film Festival with Jack. And Jack, I told you I forget the name. Hold on, don't
say anything. Fair. Yeah. All right. All right. I think by the end of the, we get done.
I'll have it down. Jack is a programmer for the Milwaukee Film Festival, one of six programmers.
And you, everybody's got their categories. And your categories are the genre,
queer, which are LGBT feature and short films. And shorter is better. It's the collection
of short film programs within the festival. Okay. Those are the, at the Academy Awards,
when they give out the awards for short film subject or whatever, that's what we're talking about,
right? That's right. Okay. I always feel bad for those people.
I'll tell you why. Everybody wants to get, oh, come on. Now it's short subject.
I could get through with it. Come on. Let's give it a blow through. They can get through
the best picture of the year. And I feel bad because they put just as much time and effort
and their own money and a lot of times into these short films as the majors do. I mean,
to them is just as important. This is how it all begins. All these big directors always started out
somewhere making short features in Steven Spielberg's case. It was his bar mitzvah. He filmed his
bar mitzvah. Everybody starts somewhere. And I, some of these films are really, really good.
They're short. That doesn't mean, you know, nothing has to be two and a half hours to be good.
Short might be better. Yeah. So how do you get the films for the festival? If the people come to you,
do you have to search them out? And why does that happen? Yeah, absolutely. First, I want to say,
you're short. Yeah. I think people have looked at short film festival or, you know,
as you said, the Oscars as a bonus feature and extra thing, but they are a main course on their
own. They are act with memorable moments, incredible narratives. But for the films that come to us for
the festival, other two ways, folks can submit their films to us, begin incredible submissions
from around the world. And we also look at what other film festivals are showing. We have a look
at what the sun dance is doing. Big festivals like South by South West or Berlin,
we have a look there and they didn't touch those filmmakers. Do some sleuth in it, but it's a nice
mix of submission and film that we go and seek out. Now out of all the movies, you have, yeah,
I assume you have to watch all of them before you put them in, right? I assume you look correct.
Okay. How many do you have to look at before you can get your selection? In other words, how many
do you toss away that you couldn't use in the film festival? Overall, we viewed about 1200 films,
which includes films that were submitted and films that we've seen at different festivals.
Okay. So, you know, Roger Ebert once said they were talking to Cisco and Ebert about what a great
job you have. All you do is watch movies all day. He said, yes, but for every good one, we have to
sit through three bad ones at six hours of bad movies to get two hours of good. And it's very
difficult to sit through bad movies all day long. So some of them aren't good, but you picked a
cream of the crop. And how do they get into the festival now? How do you prove who mixes them up?
Who decides what theaters they're going to play out? Because you only got what 15 days? Is it festival?
Yes. Yeah, we got we got a whole half a month. But yeah, it's this incredible dance of moving
thing, everything around, making sure the right audience that most members of the right audience
can find that film for them, you know, dancing around holidays or games. You know, we don't want to
put, you know, big baseball movie right during a, a brewer's game or something like that. But yeah,
it's a fantastic dance of, you know, we have 200 something times lost to shuffle around there,
but it's always so much fun. I'm glad you mentioned baseball because tonight's opening night
of the festival. And the opening movie, which is always the exciting one, is Yook, the Bob Yooker
Documentaries, you know, open tonight. Which theaters had that by the way?
But we have the Oriental Theater in our main house. Yeah, the, now for real though,
the Oriental Theater is, I think, 99 years old. And it was an old movie palace. And those
palaces were built huge. And the main auditorium is the part of the old movie palace part.
Then you have two smaller cinemas where the balcony was, correct? Is that how it works?
That's correct. Yeah. And to the side that the balcony is still open, will the open tonight?
Okay. That's good. So Yook is there. Is it sold out? I know they were, when I talked to,
when I talked to Ms. Ehrlich, Robin Ehrlich, she said they were pretty close.
Yeah, I would say there's a chance that you might get in. There's going to be a stand-by line.
So that if any seats are still empty, you might get in, but it's going to be tough. This one is
a hot ticket. Yeah. A documentary celebrating the life of Bob Yooker, opening night at the
fell of the festival tonight at the Oriental Theater. All right. So talk about some of the films
you selected at the festival. Yeah, absolutely. We were talking about the Oscars a little bit earlier.
The last year we had three films that were nominated for different categories in the short film
categories. We had two in live action. One of them that we had at the festival went on to win.
An animated film was also nominated. I think we're going to have the same
luck and power this year. The films are so fantastic. I definitely want to talk about
in the let's get animated category. We have a new film that's called Paper Trail.
It's from a two-time Oscar nominee named Don herself. The film is just bursting with creativity
and exactly why I love short films so much. In ten minutes by the end of it, I was sobbing
and I cannot wait for everyone else to experience that. It's a film about the life of a man
told only through the paper that was left behind in this one. So you see his birth certificate,
sort of a stop-motion storytelling there. Then you see the first watercolor painting that he made
with his fingers and we keep on going through his life. It's a beautifully told story. I cannot
wait to experience that with an audience. You know, and just because you never heard of a movie
doesn't mean you don't want to see it. I never heard of a movie that won best picture of the year
a few years ago. It was a film called No Mad Land. Excuse me. Excuse me. No Mad Land.
I don't know if you remember that. You won best picture of the year and I saw it and then I saw
it three more times my wife and I. It was so good. I never heard of it before. It won best picture
and I said, what is this movie? And sometimes you find a gem that you will never forget.
Not every movie has to be Super Mario Brothers Galaxy or Hail Mary Project or whatever. Project
Hail Mary. You find some really good gems and movies that it will move you and you'll never
forget them for the rest of your life. And that's why these film festivals are so good. Some of
the biggest movies came out of like Robert Redford's Festival out in was a Utah Colorado.
I figure we're Sundance. Sundance Utah will not be in Colorado. Yeah. Sometimes some of the biggest
festivals tell your ride and so forth and now the Milwaukee Film Festival. They bring out some of
these films that you once you see him, you'll never forget them again. And that's why they have
title say I never heard of that before. Well, good. Now go see it. Maybe it'll be your favorite movie.
Let's make it a Jack Ferrier, one of the programmers from the Milwaukee Film Festival,
which opens up tonight, which is April 16th. I'll say any case people are listening on the podcast.
April 16th. And you're opening up with you, the Bob Euker movie, but you have programmed
several feature films. Let's talk about some of the ones you picked.
Oh, absolutely. I want to start with one of the wildest films that we've got at the festival.
It's called A Useful Ghost. This is the film that comes to us from Thailand. It is about a man
who's mourning his wife and discovers that she has returned by possessing vacuum cleaner.
And things just go wild from there. It's a wonderful blend of blend rather of fantasy and horror,
comedy or about six things. It's exactly that oddball film festival selection you'd expect to see.
And one that's going to be fantastic to be in a past crowd. And we're selling really well for
that one. Now where did you find that? Yeah, that came to us from some other festivals that
have been around. It's pretty early in its life. And yet to be at a lot of screens in the United
States. So we're excited to be one of the first to show it. Yeah. Is this what happens
that when you make a movie, you try to get it into as many festivals as possible to get word of
mouth? I think so. I think it's a strategy a lot of films take is to get people that are
super passionate about it to start those whispers going around in a film community or on social media
and get people excited for when it comes through eventually. Give another one that you chose for us.
Yeah, I want to talk about my brother's killer. This is a documentary about the murder of,
I mean, Billy London, who grew up in a world Wisconsin. For years, his murder was tied to
this urban legend that his murder was Jeffrey Dahmer. It was not this documentary is a tribute
to his life and kind of uncovers what really happened on the month that he died. We get answers
about how and why he died is a powerful documentary. We're going to have the director with us
in person talking about their experience of making the film. It will be unforgettable.
I think I remember that. I'm pretty sure I remember that name. Now, that was going to be my other
question. Do you have like round table set up in front of the theater so people can, so you can
chat with the directors of the production people with stars of the movies? Yeah, we're going to have
some events specifically for filmmakers and for some of our other folks that are coming around
for happy hours and everything. But yeah, the film festival will encourage people to talk to
each other in line, talk to the person next to you and get that engagement there. It's a rare
chance that during these Q and A's that you have a chance to ask the filmmaker a question that
you have. So there will be Q and A's for some. It's not most of the films at the festival this year.
Now, give us a film or two for the ones you didn't pick that somebody else was in charge of that
you're really excited about seeing. Oh, I love this question. I am so excited. I'm a big fan of horror
and genre films or programmer for that. Kerson Larson does an amazing job. There's a new film called
Hokem, which stars Adam Scott. It's going to open theatrically. I think in just a few weeks,
but it's one that we're getting an early look at. I don't know much about it. And that's one of
my favorite things about a film festival is that you could have very little idea of what you're
about to see and you're going to get taken on a ride. Oh, I love it. Yeah, give us one more.
Definitely. Another one that I'm excited for to definitely hear people's reactions. It's called
Andre is an idiot. He's a doctor. But a man named Andre who did not get screened for
calling cancer and goes on to discover that he has it. Deal with it in all the way that he knows
how to make a joke and to have fun and to be jovial and to go through life. I think it's a really
a cathartic experience for that audience. It's really funny. You know, I have a good friend of mine
who we go to church with. His name is Andre. Like you say, hey, look at this. There's a new movie.
Andre is an idiot. Yeah. So what made you get into film out of the how old you are,
but what made you get into films and get a love for it? Because I do. I mean, I could tell you how
I get into it. Well, how do you get into it? Oh, man, the first thought that I can remember really
being obsessed with and just studying the bonus features of the DVD was the Lord of the Rings
movies. At the kid growing up, I was seven or eight years old, but really what made me fall in love
with film that a new way was watching the live action short film nominees. There's the Sundance
Theater back in Madison where I grew up. It was just so fascinating to sit in a room for 100
minutes. You're told six or seven stories. You have no idea what you're about to experience.
And it's just a beautiful, beautiful, you get that center of beautiful filmmaking. Oh,
I just love it. It's incredible what we can do through visual media.
I started out when I was a little kid. My mom and dad took us to a lot of movies.
I lived in New York. So we went to a lot of these big Manhattan movie palaces. We got to see
you know, Radio City. We went all those places. The Paramounts and the big cinema
theaters that were in New York. We had two cinema movie theaters. I always went to the movies.
And I just grew up loving movies. I never can get into the business of it because I just
was a love of film. And to this day, I have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of movies on beta,
VHS, laser disk, DVD, Blu-ray. I've got them all. And I never stop watching them. I just love
movies and the more the extras, the better. I just read, we're going to have a story on this in a
few minutes. I'm going to talk about it. Eight Steven Spielberg movies are coming out on 4K.
His eight biggest movies that he ever made with over 25 hours of extras. They're going to be on
4K. And probably Blu-ray too. He was going to put out a 4K set. They put the Blu-rays in there too.
Every every the eight of the biggest Steven Spielberg films. So people say, well, physical media is
dead. It's not dead. It's still putting it out. People was still buying it. You know, and including
me, I'm always buying movies. All right. So let's talk one more time about the film festival. The
Milwaukee Film Festival opens up tonight April 16th when it gives a date for our podcast. People say
they don't go running out to me here this year from them. It opens up with you. The documentary
about Bob Euker. Is this a world premiere, by the way? This is a little premiere of the film.
Oh, wow. I'm honored to have it. Wow. Yeah. What a what a Milwaukee legend, Bob Euker.
You know, I saw him sitting into the airport once all by himself. I was, um,
I think it was at this airport. I'm not in this airport of LaGuardia. I forget where it was.
And I saw him sitting there. The airport was empty. It was late at night. And if we sit in
there, all by himself, I said, hello, he said, hey, how you doing? And that was it. Nobody was
around him. I think he was waiting for a plane or waiting for somebody. And that was my big Bob
Euker story. I said, hi, hi, Bob. He said, hi. You know, this is a big high sound. And that was it.
All right. So if people want to get tickets, they can go to M K E film.org, M K E film.org,
all the films are listed there. You pick and choose what you want. And if it's not sold out,
you can get tickets for it. And it's going to play one of two theaters, the downer or the
Oriental. Those are the only two theaters, right? That's right. Yeah. So a Milwaukee film,
the Milwaukee film festival runs for 15 days. But let me do the math here on this here. It runs
through the 30th. It runs to the end of the month. Okay. From now to the end of the month,
the 18th annual film festival, when do you start working on next years?
Oh, we start working right now. We are looking at films already. We're looking forward to in the
fall. We have our dialogue stops. Mentary festival. We never stop looking for great films
for Milwaukee audiences. Well, I got to tell you some that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade,
they say, when do you start working on the next one? The day after Thanksgiving.
We started those days off here. Well, good luck with it. I know a lot of people are excited
about it. We gave away some tickets on the air and the people were so excited to win them.
And they said, we can pick any film. I said, any film that's not sold out, you can pick.
You know, obviously if it's sold out, we can't put guns on his lap. But you'll find a seed.
Okay. It's mkifilm.org mkifilm.org. Check out the list. And maybe pick out a film that
Jack Faria picked out for the Milwaukee Film Festival. Thank you very much for talking to us.
I really do appreciate it, my friend. Thank you for having me.