Film Festival brightens winter days: organizers offer 10-day film event in three venues.

• Author: Pounds, Nancy
• Position: Alaska This Month

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Imagine clutching your passport as you prepare for a journey to faraway lands to experience adventures out of the routine and in foreign countries--all the while seated in a movie theater savoring specialties from the Bear Tooth Theatre Pub and Grill or maybe just Junior Mints.

A movie ticket to this year's Anchorage International Film Festival, which runs Dec. 5 to Dec. 14, is your boarding pass.

The film festival runs at three venues in Anchorage--Bear Tooth Theater, Fireweed Theatre and the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. The awards ceremony is set for Dec. 13 at the Middle Way Cafe, and there is a day of family films offered at the Z.J. Loussac Public Library's Wilda Marston Auditorium.

Featuring almost 150 independent films from around the world, organizers arranged for fewer venues this year to improve movie-goers' access between locales, said Rand Thornsley, one of three members of the festival's management committee. He also serves as director of film programming at the Bear Tooth. The Bear Tooth, with its cultural, musical and film offerings, meshes well with the film festival, he said.

Organizers hope to draw 10,000 people to the various film showings, Thornsley said. "Anchorage embraces it because it's one of the hip and cool things to do in Anchorage in winter," he said. "We feel it ties into our business in a big way."

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FILM AS AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL

"I believe film is one of the best ways to educate people all over the world," said. Michele Miller, executive director of Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association (AMIPA), which sponsors the film festival. "Film is an art form that teaches us about each other. Film informs, enlightens and educates the community by providing a vivid reflection of the rich cultural diversity of the world beyond our doors."

This year's event will feature an opening gala at the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum and an opening film at the Bear Tooth, she said. Workshops are conducted on festival weekends, Miller said.

Bear Tooth and other businesses and organizations are expanding their role in the event, Miller said. For the first time the Bear Tooth will show festival films throughout the event, not just on a few days.

"Everybody is starting to embrace it," she...