(upbeat music) (upbeat music ends) - Hello and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Today, Matt Olien gets a chance to sit down with Emily Beck and talk about the upcoming Fargo Film Festival.

- Hello, and, yes, I am with my good friend, Emily Beck, the Fargo Theater executive director.

Welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

- Oh, pleasure to be with you.

- And, of course, you're also the director of the Fargo Film Festival, of which I'm involved in, and we're here to talk about the 25th anniversary.

We're gonna see film clips later.

But first, just tell folks again a bit about yourself, your background, and all that.

- Sure.

Well, I'm a North Dakota native.

I was born here in Fargo.

I grew up in Valley City, North Dakota.

And then, I came back to the FM community to study film at MSUM under the great Rusty Casselton and Tom Brandau.

And while I was studying at MSUM, they encouraged me to begin volunteering for the Fargo Film Festival, and I just fell in love.

I fell in love with the festival, with the Fargo Theater.

And when I finished my degree at MSUM, I wrote Margie Bailly (laughs) a letter, and I said, "If you ever have a job opening, please keep me in mind."

And she kept that letter on her desk for almost three years when a position did open up.

So I had some great experience working for the Marcus Theaters corporation, and I was able to take that knowledge that I gained there and kind of apply it to working at the Fargo Theater.

I started as a programmer there, and then, in 2011, Margie Bailly retired, and I stepped into the position of executive director.

- [Matt] And here we are.

- Yeah, here we are.

- So this is number 25.

Can you believe it's 25 years?

A and then B.

Just talk about how it's grown.

By the way, the dates are March 18th through the 22nd, next week.

We'll highlight those a few more times.

But just, 25 years.

- Yeah, it's one of the most beautifully unbelievable things I can imagine.

I think we're all just so grateful and so excited.

You hear about a lot of little festivals that start in communities like ours, and they make a go of it for a few years, but they're not supported in the way that we've been.

This community has had our backs, and they've made sure that the festival has grown and thrived.

And here we are, celebrating 25 years.

It's incredible.

- And it feels like the same people kinda come every year, but we get new people too, don't we?

- Absolutely, yeah.

We've managed some pretty steady growth over the last quarter century.

As you well know, we started as a three-day festival, and now we're up to five, and attendance seems to be growing and growing and it's been great.

- So tell me a little bit about the founding of the festival.

And, of course, this can almost be a conversation 'cause I was there at the first meeting in 2000.

But tell me about how this kind of got going back in the winter of 2000.

- Yeah, well, to build on what you just said, Matt, I am very privileged to be sitting across from one of our founders.

You were at that first meeting.

Yeah, it was you and Margie Bailly and Ted Larson and a few others.

Is that correct?

- Rusty Casselton, Tony McRae, Steve Stark, Tony Tilton, Marty Jonason, yeah.

So it was a wintry day and we had to get to Rocking Horse Farm, as I recall, and it was hard getting there.

But that's how it all started, and it went from there, and no one was really sure what was gonna happen.

But as you know, Margie was the huge catalyst, and Ted didn't live to see this.

But, you know, where would it be without Margie, I guess, is my question.

- Oh, I don't think anyone can say, certainly not where we are today.

(laughs) But it all just started with a vision, with a shared dream.

You guys all wanted to see something like this happen in our community, yeah.

- For this 25th anniversary, anything special planned that we can expect next week?

- Oh, absolutely.

We will be celebrating the whole week, but I think a few highlights include a panel discussion, including you, on Saturday, March 22nd.

We'll be having a panel discussion of our festival founders.

Some of the founders that are still with us will be getting together to tell stories about that first year, and you guys can share how the festival came to be and maybe some of the hurdles and the excitement that you faced along the way.

And then, of course, we're going out with a bang for our 25th, our closing night at seven o'clock on Saturday, March 22nd.

We'll be showing "The Breakfast Club" and we will be welcoming actress Molly Ringwald to the Fargo Theater stage to participate in a conversation about her career, and then she'll take questions from the audience.

- What does this festival do for the Fargo Theater?

It's a huge, huge thing, correct?

- Truly.

- Explain all this.

- It's our largest annual event in several ways.

It's one of the ways we fulfill our arts mission, of course, by offering independent film and celebrating filmmakers and giving them a platform.

But it's also our largest annual fundraiser.

The Fargo Theater is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, and we definitely rely on support from the community to keep that marquee shining.

And so events like the film festival that raise funds for us are just incredibly important.

- What are some of the highlights of the festival?

A lot of people coming, a lot of filmmakers.

Just kind of take me through a few things here.

- Yeah, so as you well know, Matt, it is five days of movies, movies, movies.

We're showing 107 films this year, I believe, were selected to screen, and we have 41 guest artists registered to come in from all over the country, and even a few international guests will be joining us as well.

There's almost too many to pick, but one of my favorite activities of the festival every year is the two-minute movie contest.

That'll be Friday the 21st at 9:30 PM, and every movie in that little program is either two minutes or shorter and that's always a blast.

- Take me through the night sessions.

Of course, people can watch movies in the morning, the afternoon, theater 1 and theater 2 both, correct?

- Mm-hmm.

- But take me through the night sessions, if you would.

- Sure.

Our opening night feature film, so seven o'clock on Tuesday the 18th, is a documentary called "Speak."

And this film just opened at the Sundance Film Festival, so it's off to a great start.

And it's a documentary feature that follows five high school oratory students as they prepare for a national competition.

And one of the five students featured happens to be Moorhead High's Sam Schaefer.

So Sam had cameras and the documentary crew following him for quite some time as he prepared for nationals, and he'll be with us.

And his coach, Rebecca Meyer-Larson, will also be joining us after the film on Tuesday night.

And they're gonna tell us about that experience of making the movie, all the way to premiering at Sundance and rubbing elbows with the stars.

I can't wait to hear from them what that experience was like.

The film is supposed to be uplifting and inspiring and just all around feel-good, which I think we all need.

- [Matt] Mm-hmm.

Wednesday?

- Yeah, Wednesday night, we have a narrative feature called "The Long Run."

It stars Nicole Rodenburg, who is a Fargo-Moorhead native, and she's now having a very successful career out in New York.

And her co-star is an up-and-coming London actor named Fred Thomas.

Fred's coming in from the UK, Nicole will be here, and the director, Mylissa Fitzsimmons, will be joining us for discussion about the film as well.

Thursday night is a collection of documentary short films with some filmmakers participating in Q and As.

Friday night is our fiction short films, both live action and animation, and, again, we'll have filmmakers here representing their work.

And then, like I mentioned, Saturday is "The Breakfast Club" with Molly Ringwald.

- And then, all day Saturday, that's kind of the best of fest, correct?

Explain what that is.

- Absolutely.

So starting at 10:00 AM on Saturday morning all day long, we will be showing award-winning films in both auditoriums.

No matter what you see, you'll see something that has won an award at the Fargo Theater from one of the categories, or Best in Show.

It is just knockout programming from morning to night.

- Are there any tickets left for Molly, and, if so, where are they?

I think I know the answer to this.

- As of this taping, there are about a dozen tickets left.

If you're watching this and you are interested in attending that, I would recommend going to tickets300.com right now and scooping up those last few tickets before they sell out.

- Talk about the avenue, the, what film festivals like this offer someone who isn't making a narrative feature film that's a blockbuster or a short film that doesn't get screened at Cineplexes.

Take me through the importance of film festivals for short filmmakers, animation filmmakers, and documentary makers.

- Yeah, that's a great question.

I mean, as you know so well, there is just kind of one type of film that's traditionally shown in multiplexes across the country right now.

It's the narrative feature.

And if you're working in those other genres, or those other fields, or those other runtime formats, you just don't have too many opportunities to show your work on the big screen for an audience outside of film festivals.

And that's a service that we can provide both to those filmmakers, but then also to those audiences that love those films.

- And I'm finding over the years, Emily, from talking to audiences, they really like these short films, like the short documentaries, the student films.

Why do you think that is?

Just because it's something different for them or they can move on to another film soon after that?

Take me through that.

- Yeah, I think to your point, I think it is something unique, something different that they don't get to see on a regular basis.

And just my personal opinion is that it's so impressive when a filmmaker makes, let's say a 20-minute movie that knocks your socks off.

When they can tell a story in a limited runtime and touch you profoundly, it kind of blows my mind a little bit, yeah.

- Can you talk about, I was on the documentary short jury this year, three films were on the Oscar shortlist.

Can you talk about those because I was blown away by that jury, I really was.

- And one of them ended up making it to the nominations list.

"I am Ready, Warden" was an honorable mention in our category, and then it received the Oscar nomination this January.

- [Matt] "A Swim Lesson."

- "A Swim Lesson" was one of our shortlist.

What was the third one?

- Zooey Zephyr.

Montana.

- Oh yeah, "Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr."

Just an incredible program of doc shorts.

- That's gonna be good.

Talk about the volunteers.

How the volunteers work, it's impossible to do it without the volunteers.

Take me through that as well.

- Yeah, well, we're a little family, and you are part of that family, I'm so lucky to say.

There's a team of almost 70 volunteers that work year-round putting this festival together.

As you know, we always take couple weeks off after one festival before we start preparations for the next.

But after those couple weeks of reprieve, we open up submissions and we divide into our committees and we get to work watching films, and then the juries make the selections around the holidays usually.

They decide, of the submitted films, what makes the cut, what wins awards, and unfortunately what isn't selected to play.

The volunteers also serve a lot of really important roles during the festival.

Again, as you well know, you host sessions, you take tickets, you do all sorts of things; we sell merchandise, all sorts of operational things that are critical to the success of the festival.

I don't know where we'd be without you guys.

- Can you talk a little bit about the history of the Fargo Theater and also that these films are gonna be shown...

Some of these filmmakers have never had these movies shown in an 800-seat arena.

- And we hear every year how meaningful it is to them, and that is so deeply rewarding.

The Fargo Theater was opened on March 15th, 1926.

So, as of this recording, we're just days away from our 99th birthday.

The theater first started as a cinema and vaudeville, and we've been going strong ever since.

We continue those traditions; we still show new release films, specialty films, and we host live events on our stage, everything from touring professional acts to local performing arts groups, like the FM Symphony or the FM Ballet.

They all come and perform at the Fargo Theater.

- What are the seven categories of films people can see?

- Again, we try to offer something for everybody with the Fargo Film Festival.

The seven categories are animation, documentary feature, documentary short, experimental, we have narrative shorts, narrative features, and we also have student films.

- Okay.

Talk about the various passes festival goers can get.

Can they just pay for one session?

Multiple sessions?

How does this work?

- Yeah, we have people that will take the entire week off of work and just spend five days in the dark watching movies.

But we also have a lot of fans that will buy a ticket to just maybe one morning or one evening.

So we have a variety of tickets and passes at fargofilmfestival.com.

Hopefully something for everybody, whether you wanna spend the week with us or you can just dip a toe in and catch one or two sessions.

There are options for everything.

- Okay, sponsors are a huge thing, I know you want to get to that as well, that make this possible.

- Yeah.

Earlier, I mentioned our support from the community, and that's one of the reasons we're able to celebrate this 25th anniversary.

Our sponsors have our backs, the community has our backs, folks like Bell Bank, Informed Communications, and Border States, they come to the map for us.

They provide in kind or dollars to help keep our programming going, to help us bring artists to the community, and to offer educational opportunities like those panel discussions.

- You got a couple lunch panel discussions, as we talked about.

When are those?

What venue are they at?

How can people see those and what times and days?

- Yeah, we have two luncheon panel discussions this year.

It'll be Friday, March 21st and Saturday, March 22nd.

They both run from 12 o'clock noon to about 1:15 or so.

They're held at the Radisson Blu in downtown Fargo in the ballroom there.

Tickets are $20.

You can buy them in advance at the Fargo Theater.

We also usually have tickets available at the door for those.

- And who's on the Friday panel?

I'm on the Saturday panel with Margie and some others, but who's on the Friday panel?

- Oh, we have a great lineup of filmmakers.

The Friday panel is focused on short-form filmmaking and how you can make a splash on the festival circuit.

So our goal is to try to offer some information to local filmmakers as they produce short films and how they can break through with festival programmers and directors as they're taking their film out into the world.

The lineup of folks on that panel includes Sam Chou, whose film "The Death of James" won an award with our festival.

And there's several others as well.

- Can you talk a little bit about...

I think sometimes the public doesn't realize how hard it is to make a movie: financing, sometimes doing it on your own.

Tell me the hoops and hurdles these young filmmakers go through just to make a narrative short, or a student film, or even a narrative feature.

Our friend, Tom Brandau, once said, "Making a narrative feature isn't for sissies."

That's exactly what he said to me in an interview.

But how hard is it to make a movie?

- I would say that probably applies to any independent filmmaking out there.

You know, they gotta be scrappy because they have to find their own funding.

They have to find casts and crews that are willing to work on a shoestring budget.

I think it's quite a challenge for these independent filmmakers.

And again, if they're making shorts, there's no real expectation it'll ever get picked up to run, you know, in theaters across the country, and only a handful of them are ever nominated for Oscars.

So they're driven by passion, and you see that.

- But it can be a springboard to a career; look at Mike Flanagan.

Mike Flanagan, the horror director, came here when he...

He was editing reality TV shows when he first came here, and now...

It can be a springboard, right?

- Yes, absolutely.

If the right person at the right film festival... Say you have a short playing at Sundance and the right director, the right executive sees your film, oof, you're off to the races.

- We talked about the volunteers.

How does someone become a volunteer or inquire?

I know during the festival there's like a sign up thing that they can do.

Tell me how that happens.

- Yeah, if you're at the Fargo Film Festival and you're loving it, please come on over to our merchandise table, we'll have a signup sheet.

And then, in April or May, we will have some orientation meetings for our new volunteers, get everybody ready to go and prepared.

And then, yeah, we run in year-long cycles, so you kind of volunteer throughout the year in various ways.

- I know you said 100th birthday of the theater is next year.

- Mm-hmm.

- What's planned for that?

I know you've always got some capital campaigns going on.

Tell me what you have planned for the 100th birthday.

- (laughs) Well, much of this is still top secret.

But we do have a couple committees with our board and some community leaders, of course, to do some fundraising for some improvements for the theater.

And then, we're definitely gonna have a celebration.

There will absolutely be some programming: hopefully some live music, some films, some special guests.

We wanna celebrate.

Getting to 100 years is remarkable.

- How does the theater exist?

Tell me about your structure, your board, how that works.

- So we're, like I said, a 501c3 nonprofit organization.

So we are governed by a volunteer board of directors.

There's 15 of them that give their time and talents to help manage the theater.

And then, there are four of us on the full-time staff.

And we have, let's see, about a dozen part-time people that do everything from make popcorn to project films to helping with our technical elements during concerts.

- What is the film festival week like for your staff and you?

I've seen you on Saturday at the end and you guys all look like you need sleep.

Tell me what that week is like.

- Yes, we're probably all kind of zombies by the end of the week there, but I guess joyful zombies?

It's a bonkers week, it's long hours, it's a lot of hard work, but I think we all do it 'cause we love it.

So I think that's what keeps us going.

And then, the next day, the Sunday after the festival, we all just sleep for a long time.

(laughs) - If someone hasn't been to the Fargo Film Festival before, why should they go?

- I think there's a couple of reasons why someone should check it out.

First and foremost, if you love movies, you're gonna see something that speaks to you, or moves you, or makes you laugh, or scares you, or inspires you.

Then, of course, the other reason is to be a part of a great community event where people come together, all walks of life, all sorts of people, all ages, but we're kind of united by one thing.

We all love movies.

- What's the best part of your job?

- Oh, that's a great question.

The best part of my job are the people.

I love the people I work with.

I love our volunteers.

I love our team.

Yeah, I'm so grateful to be a part of this community.

And you were one of those people that really welcomed me in when I started and made me feel a part of it; so I hope you know, my friend, I'm forever grateful for that.

- I know, and you do a great job.

Okay, when is the festival again?

How can people get tickets?

- The festival will run Tuesday, March 18th through Saturday, March 22nd.

Tickets are now available at fargofilmfestival.com.

If you need Molly Ringwald tickets, you would need to go to Tickets300; so that's tickets300.com for those tickets.

- And people can also stop by the theater, right, to get their passes.

- Absolutely.

Come on by the Fargo Theater box office; we'd be happy to help you in person too.

- Okay.

Emily, thank you so much for being here.

Looking forward to it next week.

Okay, now let's take a look at film clips from the seven winning films in the seven different categories for the 2025 Fargo Film Festival.

- Just sit here on the steps, Peanut.

You're okay, babe.

You're gonna sit here.

Day one, the main thing is we're getting to know each other.

This is Kane.

Kane, this is Dean.

This is Blake.

Blake, this is Reon.

And you know what my name is?

- Um.

- My name's Bill.

- Bill.

- Yeah, I'm here to help you guys swim.

The most important concept that they grasp on the first day is, "I can be independently safe."

That is holding the edge.

And at first, that's terrifying.

"No one's holding me, I'm alone."

And then, it's like, "Hey, I can do this and I can get back to the steps."

And also, if a kid falls in the pool, they're by an edge.

All they need to do, grab that edge, and then they can save their life; they can get back to safety.

There he goes!

(water splashing) Whoa!

(Kane laughs) And the students are getting to know, and it doesn't matter what age they are, it's all "What is this?"

And they're either "What is this?

Ooh, this is great!"

or "What is this?

I gotta get outta here!"

(boy gasps) (window clicks) (fox barks) (fox growls) (soft music) (fox grunts) - Wait.

(soft music crescendos and builds) Stop!

(lively music) (fox grunting) (boy panting) (lively music drops off) Where did you go?

(joyful fanfare music) (fox grunts) (joyful fanfare music ends) (catchy music) - I'm a fox that wears a dress.

- You can talk?

- But I like to call it drag.

- [Boy] You can sing?

♪ Take that fact, ignore the rest ♪ ♪ And I'll try my best not to brag ♪ ♪ Don't look so confused ♪ ♪ This isn't about you ♪ ♪ I've never been too fussed about ♪ ♪ What I can and cannot do ♪ - I know it's been a couple of weeks, but this is something that we're all still processing.

It's a lot to handle, and I bet a lot of you have a lot of questions: why, why being the main question.

Indescribable events like this can leave a void inside of you if you don't take the time to talk about it or take the time to heal.

While I really appreciate you all being here so soon after, I will totally understand if you need to stay away for a little while.

So given the circumstances, I am gonna make a change to this year's curriculum.

For your final project, I want you to write whatever you were feeling throughout the semester.

- [Lou] Here's the San Francisco Quake.

Wanna see what that'd look like?

The Beatles coming to America.

That's the original news reel.

And the trailer to the Metropolis is on there.

This might be the one that has a nitrate trailers on it.

Well, America wants to know what you're gonna do with all this crap.

- [Filmer] So how much do you think you could have made off of this, Lou?

- All this stuff?

It's tough to say.

People in the industry today don't know anything about this stuff, so it's probably worth very, very little.

If I had somebody who was 30 years old, they wouldn't want any of it.

(deep music) (birds chirping) - Mom.

- Hi, sweetheart.

- [Child] I had a bad dream.

- Oh no.

Come here, bubbo.

(gentle music) (sink water splashing) (gentle music continues) - [Speaker] Once he got his license, that's when he told me New York is the place for him, not here.

But I said, "No, not with you and that we have no job.

I just don't feel safe, just get up and go."

Pretty much, he left after that even though when you're old.

- Well, that's all we have on "Prairie Post" this week, and, as always, thanks for watching.

(bright music) - [Announcer] Funded by the members of "Prairie Public."