Washburn University WiFi Film Festival is returning for its sixth year.
This year’s festival theme is “Community and Belonging.”
Festival director Matt Nyquist said the theme means a lot “in terms of making sure everyone involved feels that they’re apart of the community and feel belonging through both Washburn and the film festival.”
When will the WiFi Film Festival begin?
This year’s two-day festival will begin 10 a.m. April 20 with films screening until 5:30 p.m. in the Edge Room of The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, 1515 S.W. 10th Ave.
Workshops with Andy Farkas, LoLo Laren and others will take place from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Menninger, Anton and Learning Center rooms of the library.
At 3 p.m. April 20, Emmy-nominated Sue Vicorya will lead a women’s panel discussion on the topic of “The Art of Making a Film.”
Nyquist said each workshop is different and the instructors set the tone.
“But they tend to be very interactive,” he said. “The filmmakers tend to really want to interact with the group there and really try to find out what they want to hear about and tailor their specific topic to them.”
A filmmaker talk featuring director Allan Holzman will follow at 5:30 in the Rita Blitt Gallery of the Mulvane Art Museum on the Washburn University campus.
The awards ceremony will be at 2 p.m. April 21 on Facebook.
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What films will be show at this year’s festival?
Filmmakers are being notified Sunday if their films were selected for the festival, Nyquist said. About 30 films are usually chosen to be shown on the full festival day.
The WiFi Film Festival was created by the Washburn University mass media department in fall 2018, with the first festival occuring in spring 2019.
For more information about this year’s WiFi Film festival, visit its website.
Keishera Lately is the business reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. She can be reached at klately@cjonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @Lately_KT.