Celebrating Resilience at our Summer Film Festival!

PHAME’s first ever Film Festival is happening on August 28 at the Alberta Rose Theater—and we’re so excited to share this event with you.  The festival is a culmination of the work that PHAME students, teachers, and community partners created together during the pandemic, keeping our art, music and community thriving during challenging times.  And even more exciting—it will be one of the first live public performances of Chameleonica, our new mixed ensemble band launched in 2021.

We never would have guessed in March 2020 that we would have enough films and videos to support an entire two-hour film festival two years later, but here we are actually having to turn away work because we don’t have time to show them all.  The creative output over the last two years from our community has been nothing short of awe-inspiring.  With innovation, bravery and collective vision, our students and staff embraced the tools they had at home, learning new techniques and skills and finding new ways to have fun with art. We danced in backyards, drew on our kitchen tables, and made music from whatever we could find in our cupboards.  And we maintained our community through this creativity—something that underlies every film you’ll see at the Film Festival.   

The Festival will feature a variety of art forms, including animation, dance, poetry, music, and storytelling.  We’ll be screening the two films that were commissioned by Artist Repertory Theater for their Mercury Festival this spring, and films made in partnership with the Oregon Ballet Theater and the Oregon Symphony.  And break out the popcorn and drinks—we’ll go back in time to visit Lost in the Woods, our first animated short film, created in the summer of 2020.

Speaking of drinks, if you buy your ticket for the Film Festival at the Patron Level, you will also get a stainless steel PHAME branded drink cup to enjoy your beverage in!  It’s a great way to take home some swag and support PHAME at the same time.

However you decide to come—online, in person, or in person at the Patron Level—we’re looking forward to seeing you there.