Through the wonders of modern technology, The Annapolis Film Festival’s (AFF) audience will be able to see the 2020 Annapolis Film Festival in the comfort and safety of their homes March 27-29, 2020. Because AFF was unable to “physically” host the 2020 Annapolis Film Festival with its loyal area audiences due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the non-profit film organization is bringing its Eighth Annual Film Festival to viewers through a virtual presentation. The Annapolis Film Festival is providing a good portion of its 2020 programming on its new secure streaming platform, The Annapolis Film Festival Channel, in partnership with FilmFestivalFlix.com.
Patti White, Festival Director and Co-Founder said, “The Annapolis Film Festival team has worked hard over these eight years to connect our community by bringing people together to share conversations around independent and new pre-released films that entertain, inform, and enlighten our viewers. We are greatly disappointed to miss this celebratory time of being together as an inclusive community and enjoying these diverse films as well as meeting our industry guests. It is a favorite time that we have come to cherish in our town. Our goal is to keep everyone home, healthy and entertained.”
The Annapolis Film Festival Channel will include shorts, documentary features and narrative features, as well as discussions with filmmakers.
“Over the last year, the AFF team has put great effort into bringing this festival to our community, and this enables us to keep the ‘voice’ of our festival alive,” said Lee Anderson, Festival Director and Co-Founder. “This new platform will allow us to champion the filmmakers and films we have selected and carefully curated programs that we have put together for our festival audience”, adds Anderson.
Ticket buyers or pass holders will be “onboarded” to exercise their pass or ticket benefits through the virtual film festival on the new Annapolis Film Festival Channel! “This secure platform is like Netflix where viewers will create their own private username and password. Existing ticket and pass holders will receive a coupon code for their passes or tickets,” says Anderson.
Individual tickets or multi-film weekend passes are available for anyone wishing to purchase them beginning Monday, March 23, 2020. Most of the Festival’s strong programming lineup remains in place for the virtual festival and can be found at www.annapolisfilmfestival.com/AFFchannel.
AFF has been working tirelessly over the past week to prepare for this virtual festival, coordinating with each film distributor and filmmaker to bring as many films as possible on board for the virtual festival.
Because certain film distributors have strict contractual agreements, some believe streaming of any kind, pre-release, could jeopardize their theatrical releases, AFF (and all other festivals using these platforms) will not be able to screen some of the films. Unfortunately, Military Wives, the planned opening night film, fell into that category. Most of the Festival’s strong programming lineup remains in place for the virtual festival with over 70 films involved.
The entire AFF team has been working on the nuts and bolts of creating the AFF channel along with Benjamin Oberman, founder of Film Festival Flix and his Los Angeles-based team. Starting this Monday, 23, 2020, access to the AFF channel can be found at www.annapolisfilmfestival.com/AFFchannel or by logging in to www.filmfestivalflix.com.
White added, “Our hope for our festival supporters and our entire community is to stay safe, stay well, and whether this storm with the good will and generous energy that is so characteristic of our community.”
