Refreshed, Renewed, and Retooled Madison Film Forum Planned for 2018
You’ve probably noticed that the Madison Film Forum content has trickled to occasional program notes and screening calendar updates.
I originally planned to ramp up the content after helping out with two projects this summer, Arts + Literature Laboratory’s OFF THE WALL series and an underground film series. After missing a string of deadlines I had set for myself, I realized it would be best to take a step back, think about what the Madison Film Forum website could and should be, and come back to it with some momentum to carry us into 2018.
I won’t completely disappear for the rest of the year. I’ll continue to write freelance articles and reviews for Isthmus, which you can keep track of here. I’ll maintain a presence on social media, specifically Facebook and Twitter, where I will share posts about local screenings.
The tentative plans for the renewed Madison Film Forum site, however, will shift away from comprehensive coverage of local screenings. I will mix program notes and occasional reviews for local screenings with video essays on topics that may or may not be related to local film culture. In a nutshell: I want to write more, and upkeep less. I will abandon the difficult-to-maintain screening calendar, despite my personal affection for it.
The new version of the site will also be less “newsworthy” and driven by local programming schedules. There are a few article ideas from this past summer that are no longer “timely,” but I still might take a crack at writing. I had planned to survey a few short films featured at the Milwaukee Underground Film Festival in April to highlight the degree to which the Wisconsin Film Festival has ceded its relevance as an experimental venue over the years. Then the MUFF passed into the distance before I could write it. The idea is no longer timely, but still relevant. I also missed my tight window of opportunity to review Neighborhood Food Drive when it played at the Micro-Wave Cinema Series. I’d like to correct that.
The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art has contracted me to program next summer’s Rooftop Cinema series, another reason for this hiatus. I have some big ideas, including ways to transform conventional program notes into a dynamic experience through the Madison Film Forum website. I hope to follow up on the ALL and underground projects mentioned above and help facilitate more film and video programming town. I just need to make some time to make that happen, which means time away from the Madison Film Forum.
This isn’t really much of an “announcement,” it’s just an update to explain what’s going on. I’m not even going to share this link on social media. I’ll just quietly put up the “Gone Fishin'” sign and see if anyone notices (because there hasn’t been that much incentive to check in lately). But if you did get this far, thank you very much for your continued support of the Madison Film Forum, and I look forward to chatting with you again soon!