FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WOWO) — The Eighth Annual Hobnobben Film Festival will kick off this Thursday evening, October 19, at Cinema Center with a celebration of Indiana and local filmmakers. Opening Night will begin at 6:00 pm with a reception catered by Bahn Mi Pho Shop at Cinema Center, 437 E. Berry St. Filmmakers and the public are invited to attend. At 7:00 pm, the festival officially gets underway with a series of 13 Opening Night Shorts, followed by a screening of the feature-length film, Liminal: Indiana in the Anthropocene, featuring an original score and live musical performance by Fort Wayne’s own Metavari. Liminal is a meditative documentary that uses drone footage to showcase the impact of our economy on the Indiana landscape.
Friday is full of feature-length and short films, panel discussions, and filmmaker workshops. One of the highlights of the day is an 11:00 am screening of The Bright Path: The Johnny Bright Story, a 57-minute documentary that follows the life and journey of Fort Wayne native Johnny Bright, a star football player at Drake University. As a walk-on in 1949, he shattered college records. But in 1951, an act of violence by an opposing player put an end to his college career. Despite facing racial challenges, Bright persevered, becoming a Hall of Fame athlete and an award-winning educator.
Several of Bright’s family members will be present for a Q&A following the screening of the film. Bre Johnson, a Fort Wayne native and granddaughter of Johnny Bright, is one of those family members. “The Bright Path does a terrific job of telling the Johnny Bright story,” she said. “[Director] Jerald Harkness and his team layered colorful historical context with the heartbreaking accuracy of what it meant to be a Black athlete in the 1940s and ‘50s. This film highlights Bright’s achievements as both an athlete and an educator.”
Other Friday highlights include a block of shorts entitled Human Stories: Cool People Edition (featuring films about beauty salons, bowling alleys, and Black women’s relationships to their hair), Iranian Filmmaker Showcase, the feature-length drama Bloom, the Hobnobben Awards Ceremony, the German feature dramedy Everybody Wants to Be Loved, and an After-Party at JK O’Donnell’s, 121 W. Wayne St.
Saturday is also chock full of feature-length films, panel discussions, and workshops. The Editing Workshop with PUNCH Films will follow CEO of PUNCH Films, Derek Devine, and editor + colorist Christine Taylor as they discuss how they stay on top of editing technology and software. Safe Place, an eye-opening short documentary about a southern Indiana man who endured a fatal night of torture after being arrested for a routine traffic stop, will screen at 12:45 pm, followed by a panel discussion.
Also on Saturday, in combination with Fort Wayne Fright Night, there will be multiple science fiction and horror blocks, including Saturday Scaries, Saturday Scaries: Slightly Later Edition, Nothing Better Than Revenge, Dark & Twisty & (Sometimes) Pretty Fun, and Content: Dystopian Worlds, Time Travel, Capitalism, and Scrotums.
To close out the festival on Sunday, Hobnobben will show No No Girl, a feature-length film that delves into the aftermath of Japanese-American incarceration during World War II. Other highlights of the day include: Elephant (Poland’s answer to Brokeback Mountain), Not Just a Picky Eater (a feature-length documentary about a rare eating disorder), and a block of emotional films entitled Catharsis: The Process of Releasing Strong or Repressed Emotions, which will be followed by a panel conversation.
All festival films will be shown at Fort Wayne Cinema Center, 437 E. Berry St., in either the Main Theater or the Spectator Lounge. Workshops will be held in the Fort Wayne Dance Collective studios upstairs in the same building. This year’s festival will screen a record 144 films, representing 30 countries, and 27 different languages. More than 20% of the films have an Indiana connection. Festival passes are available for purchase at hobnobben.org. Single day passes are $30 each, except for Opening Night (Thursday, October 19), which is only $15. A 4-day pass is $60, and an All-Access VIP Pass is $150. For those who cannot attend the festival in person, virtual tickets are available.
