Student Organizers Prepare for the Milwaukee Underground Film Festival

For the first time since the first Covid lockdown in the Spring of 2020, the Milwaukee Underground Film Festival will be taking place on its regularly scheduled dates, April 14-16, only one week before the Milwaukee Film Festival on April 21.

The festival is unique due to the fact that it also serves as a course at UWM and is almost entirely run by UWM Film students.

“When I came in as a teacher, I had already been working for film festivals,” said Lori Felker, an associate professor at UWM who runs the program. “Then I started working with students, and the exciting thing is that you take away all of the pretense and the gatekeeping. They’re all fresh. Every other film festival you have one lead programmer who has their favorite filmmakers.

“We’ll have all 18 or even 20 student programmers giving input, and it’s what young smart filmmakers like, as a democratic effort, so new filmmakers are found,” Felker continued. “So, I see new work through their [student programmers] eyes, and they program, and they make it function for themselves, which I think is good because they are their own audience.”

The process has been exciting for the students.

“It’s been almost inspiring to watch all these short films,” said student Bailey Kissack, when asked how the festival impacted her as a filmmaker. “I can try to pick up little bits and pieces of inspiration through the content that I’m watching.”

“There isn’t a burden if you want to try something else,” said Dewey Miller, a student organizer. “So, like if I wanted to not only be stuck in programming, but also work on the tech side, and not feel like: ‘Aw, I’m about to screw it up!’ Because, we’re all learning, and it’s just a good environment to be learning what goes on behind the scenes of a film festival.”

Over the past few years, MUFF has had to adjust, and course correct due to COVID-19. In doing so, it has had to take new approaches.

“Well I know that MUFF wasn’t able to happen at all last spring, and so that changed and we did it in the fall,” said Abbie Esterline, another student organizer. “I know as far as that goes COVID has impacted MUFF at least, because we’re not like a bigger festival where we would be putting everything virtual, although MUFF did do that in the fall from the spring.

Esterline goes on to add: “It’s been kind of cool to be able to be in MUFF in the fall and then help out with some things in the spring.”

When asked if continuing with a virtual option even after the pandemic, Felker said it may be too early to say.

“We’re talking about that right now,” she said with a laugh. “We didn’t do it in the fall, because we just had to put a festival on, and I couldn’t imagine thinking about both. This semester I think it’s easy enough to create a Vimeo showcase of the films.”