Do you have your tickets for the Phoenix Film Festival? Arizona film lovers shouldn’t miss the return of the festival, which takes place August 12-22 at Harkins Scottsdale 101. I spoke to festival organizer Jason Carney to find out the facts about this year’s films and events. ALSO READ: 4 Upcoming Marvel Movie Releases To Watch In 2021 Ryan Bordow: How Long Is The Festival This Year And The Best How Can People Get Tickets If They Don’t Have Them? Jason Carney: Our dates are August 12-22. You go to PhoenixFilmFestival.com and click on “Festival”; that gives you all the movies and tickets. There is an “Events” page on our website that provides you with all the information you need about special events. Tickets are on sale. Our opening film is actually sold out, which is pretty exciting. Fun to come back to and start with a big crowd on the opening night. Ryan Bordow: How do you calm people down about COVID? Jason Carney: We got rid of the lines. The lines that used to meander through the lobby packing up the lobby – we’ve eliminated the whole piece. People can pick up a voucher for the movies, go to Harkins to get the ticket and choose their seat, and skip the lobby gathering. Our schedule is also a bit broader to allow a little more breathing room and plenty of time to clean. There isn’t a big tent for the party pavilion this year, which is partly a heat issue, but partly also because it wouldn’t be a good idea to cram people in there on the opening night as we normally would. Our staff and volunteers are all masked unless they show hard evidence of their vaccination cards, and even then, many of our people are masked in the theater. We will know a lot about who is who, who is safe and who is not; and Harkins employees follow the same rule. I’m pretty confident in what we did to make everyone have a good experience. Ryan Bordow: You mentioned that the Party Pavilion is not open this year. What other activities can people look forward to? Jason Carney: We’re going to have a few more nightly parties, but they’re going to be a little more relaxed. We will be working with the Cien Agaves restaurant right in front of the theater to open up the terrace and some seating inside. But there are still dampers to some of our normal big events: There are no big live bands, certainly no karaoke – maybe never again karaoke. [Laughs] We’ve shrunk our big filmmaker panels on stage to filmmaker talks, where we only have a few filmmakers and a more casual environment. We do this in a storefront called LivGenerations, which is like a showroom for luxury senior living, so a really nice place. It’s a good size but has a living room feel to it. All the energy is a little different this year. Ryan Bordow: Sounds like a relaxing movie trip. Do you have a number about the number of screenings for this year? Jason Carney: We’re going to have 288 screenings over 11 days. 99 feature films, 115 or so short films. The variety is really huge this year. And with our Community Spotlight program, we also have films from Asian American, Black, Native American, Latin American, and LGBTQ communities. There’s a really great movie called A Shot Through the Dark that is directed by an Asian-American woman. It’s about an Asian-American police officer who runs through a building, chases after someone, shoots his gun through a wall and kills a black teenager. It has an experienced cast and it is just under 90 minutes. I really enjoyed this movie. Our graduation film is a great LGBTQ film — Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, which is about a teenage boy who wants to be a drag queen in the UK. It was originally a musical in the West End. It’s a really great film to feel good, to end the festival happily with good music. Ryan Bordow: It seems like Arizona has a really great festival to look forward to!
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