The 2017 season of film festivals is well underway, Every year, from March 1-May 1, give or take a few days either way and also the week of Presidents Day in February, film fans in the metro area begin salivating. Because they know that well over 100 films, most of them never seen in the Boston area as yet, are about to make brief but explosive appearances.
Now, eCB has always encouraged the festivals we cover extensively in our annual BSAF coverage – in chronological order that’s Salem Film Fest, Boston Turkish, Boston Underground, Irish Film Festival, Reel Abilities Boston, Wicked Queer, Boston International , and Independent Film Festival Boston – to stake a claim to a particular weekend and stick with it. Right now, the season always begins with Salem and ends with IFFB. Those are pretty much set in stone. But the other seven fluctuate dates quite a bit. Most of the festivals run through a weekend, and maybe one or two days on each side. But it’s hard to get an exclusive weekend anymore – there just aren’t enough to go around…although there REALLY ARE…you just have to time things correctly.
The last several years, everything has worked out, and most festivals didn’t have more than one or two small overlaps. But this year, for the first time in several years, there are multiple festivals running against each other on successive weekends – this weekend is Turkish, Underground, and Irish, next weekend is Turkish, Wicked Queer, and ReelAbilities. Now, some of the programming overlaps – a number of festivals go in with each other on certain films, but more often than not they don’t. And it becomes a ridiculous task to try and schedule time for all of them. Somehow, our little two-person operation has to try and cover EVERYTHING. And that doesn’t even include the two film series that also schedule staggered screenings on various dates throughout the festival season – The DocYard and Belmont World Film. Hell, it gets SOOOO busy in the spring that we completely MISSED another festival we were completely unaware of, the Global Cinema Film Festival of Boston, which happened the second weekend in March. We’re very vigilant about this stuff and our coverage — how the hell did we miss this for multiple years?
That is why we devised the annual Boston Springs A Fethival specials on our Subject:CINEMA podcast every year. We wait until the season is over, put together a killer pair of shows which air on a Subject:CINEMA “Double Feature” weekend, and let ‘er rip – Show one covers the festivals themselves, and show two covers the films inside each festival. That’s EIGHT festivals (nine with Global) and the two film series PLUS coverage of Boston Sci-Fi, which happens every Presidents Day week, culminating in their notorious “Thon over the actual Presidents Day Weekend.
So how do we help you, our readers, out?
One, we cover the daily schedules of each festival as it happens – a little info about the films, where and when they’re screening, where you can get tickets, and such.
Two, we try to attend as many films as we can in person, and what we don’t get to in person, we try to secure screeners for the films we’re most interested and those we think our listeners and readers will be most interested in.
Third, you get the Boston Springs A Fethival shows on Subject:CINEMA (this year, they’re scheduled for May 20-21) and a HUGE PDF Download with ALL our fest coverage in it.
All in all, we’re THE most comprehensive coverage of the spring festival season in MetroBoston. We’re damn proud of what we do too – we do our best to bring you the most complete coverage around.
So…how do you keep up? Well, subscribe to the eCinemaBoston site first – you’ll get email updates at the frequency of your choice when new posts go up. The “Subscribe” info is in the right column sidebar. Second, spread the word that we’re here – be sure to keep an eye out for and follow eCinemaBoston on Twitter, and retweet our tweets to your film loving friends; you can also follow us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/popcornnroses (our original name).. Third, subscribe to Subject:CINEMA NOW, before you forget – Subject:CINEMA is the second-oldest film-centered podcast currently on the interwebs – were in our eleventh year of film coverage, and the show covers everything. It’s available from multiple sites – you can get us on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, YouTube, Roku, and many other places. Subscribe through your favorite podcast service or podcatcher, and you’ll be up to speed with SC and all of our other great shows – Front Row Five And Ten, Catastrophe Vortex, Tuesday Digidex, Three Minute Weekend, Platinum Roses’ Garden, and Cavebabble – as well. Check out the info on the show on the right sidebar.
So be here tomorrow morning as the fun begins – coverage of this weeks’ offerings at Boston Turkish and Boston Underground begins then, and will be joined by Irish Film Festival on Thursday. Then stick around for all the coverage yet to come! We think you’ll be glad you did, and happy you make eCinemaBoston your #1 source for Boston-related film!