Editor’s note: March is our Boulder Art issue. See all our arts coverage for the issue here.
This week, the Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF) enters its 16th year with an expanded event that kicks off on Thursday with a few films and a gathering at Galvanize and runs through Sunday evening.
Founded by longtime Boulderites and sisters Kathy and Robin Beeck in 2004, the fest will show 88 films total over the three-day event, including a new adventure film section, which in many ways reskins the lovely Boulder-born Adventure Film Fest that ran for 14 years in Boulder, but disappeared from town in 2019 due to funding and other issues.
The sisters backed into the film fest career through Robin’s work as a filmmaker. Her most notable film, says Kathy, is “Grandpa’s in the Tuff Shed,” a documentary about the frozen dead guy kept on ice in a Tuff Shed in Nederland. (BLDRfly’s working on coordinating a special airing of this 60-minute doc — stay tuned).
Saturday is the fest’s power-packed day with films starting at 10 a.m. and running up to 10 p.m. at five venues in and around downtown (+ one in Longmont) Boulder Theater, First Presbyterian Church, First United Methodist Church, Boulder High School, eTown Hall.
ETown Hall will host the adventure film division, a collection of approximately 30 films (most of them short films) organized by some of the same people who produced the Adventure Film Fest.
We spoke with Kathy for about what to expect this year at BIFF:
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Highlights + appearances at this year’s BIFF
Opening night film: “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band”
“Resistance” (a film about famous French mime Marcel Marceau). Film’s star Jesse Eisenberg will be in attendance.
“Out Stealing Horses,” based on The New York Times bestselling book by the same name about happiness, freedom and tragedy.
Closing night film: “The Social Dilemma,” a documentary by Boulderites Jeff Orlowski, director, and Larissa Rhodes, producer. The two will attend the screening and answer questions after.
Header image: From “Surface,” an adventure short airing at BIFF this year.
