Winterland Film Festival delayed, but still making it happen

With a desire to keep the brand alive despite the significant setback that the COVID-19 pandemic caused, the Winterland nonprofit group has pivoted to new ideas several times over the last year.

The new nonprofit originally planned the main launch of the Winterland Film Festival and Technology Summit here for March 2021, however, organizers have since delayed their major event for one year. Winterland isn’t sitting idle while planning the main launch though, the nonprofit is hoping to put on several smaller events throughout the summer.

Winterland co-founder and president Anderson Rosenthal calls these events “micro-launches” and says Whitefish and the Flathead Valley should expect several of them coming from the organization over the spring and summer months. In fact Winterland already hosted its first mini event last summer — a boat-in film screening on Whitefish Lake.

After realizing COVID wasn’t going away and needing to delay their main launch, Rosenthal and co-founder Morgan Delaney decided on the pop-up event to keep the Winterland organization moving forward.

“We had a lot of stuff in place (before COVID), but then the thought was, wow we can’t suddenly just be dead in the water here — what can we do to keep the brand alive and keep Winterland out front and get public awareness?” Rosenthal recalled. “So we had the idea in the summer to do this boat-in theater. I was trying to think of ways that we could be socially distanced but also do a fun event; we sort of miraculously pulled it off in two weeks.”

The event was a success — The Lodge at Whitefish Lake hosted the movie screen on its shoreline and numerous boaters anchored near the shore, tuned into the FM station and were given free snack boxes from the Winterland’s floating concession stand as they viewed “A River Runs Through It” on the big screen.

That pop-up event is inspiring the nonprofit group to think outside the box as they plan to host many micro-launches before the main festival kicks off in March 2022. Although Rosenthal said there are no set dates as of yet, film enthusiasts can expect another boat-in screening this summer as well as, most likely, a traditional drive-in movie event, and various tech talks, comedy nights or other get-togethers that will generate interest in their objectives.

In addition, Winterland recently partnered with the Bigfork Independent Film Festival to help its directors expand the already successful event.

According to BIFF founder Steve Shapero, since the festival in Bigfork is focused only on Montana films with just a one-screen venue available, he didn’t see a way for it to grow without partnering with another festival. Winterland made sense to partner with because it is a large festival that can provide expanded marketing and technical resources which will improve the in-person viewing experience.

“By partnering with a large festival like Winterland we leverage their marketing power to draw more people from Whitefish and Kalispell than would normally attend which provides us with financial resources to grow,” Shapero said. “Representatives from Winterland have already helped us with the planning of BIFF 2021; their active support provides us with opportunities to expand, including additional community activities, that we never had before.”

For Winterland, the partnership means another event to get their brand seen by the public and an excellent selection of Montana-related films to fill out some of their programming.

“We realized it would be really perfect for us because with our programming at Winterland we had already planned on doing a block of Montana-based films — Montana filmmakers, Montana writers, Montana locations,” Rosenthal said. “Now to have BIFF, which already has established their Montana-based festival, it’s a really easy plugin to just put that right in that block.”

BIFF 2021 is set for Oct. 8-10 at the Bigfork Center for the Performing Arts and Winterland will be assisting in the running of the event and adding its own flare to the festival.

The idea for Winterland came about in 2018 when Rosenthal and Delaney met at a party in Bigfork. Both had a similar idea about bringing a film festival to Whitefish.

Both from northwest Montana originally, Rosenthal and Delaney pursued college and the start of their careers out of state before returning to Montana. Rosenthal has been a producer throughout her entire career, starting with big brand advertising before moving into documentary films and other content creation. Delaney is a freelance producer, writer and filmmaker whose work has been seen on the Discovery Channel, the History Channel and most recently a 60 Minutes episode.

Their vision for Winterland keeps Whitefish and its community at the forefront of everything they do. They want the festival to have a positive cultural, educational and environmental impact on the community while also driving the economy during non-summer months.

“What will we do for Whitefish — that was the question we asked ourselves in the beginning,” Rosenthal said. “We want to be very engaged with the town, and the Flathead Valley.

“Whitefish has always been arts friendly, there’s never been a festival but we already knew there was an audience here for that. Plus the technology summit that we’re doing with it and some of the filmmaking workshops we’ll be doing, we want to bring not only more art and culture, but we want to bring this sort of educational platform,” she added.

In addition to film screenings, they are also planning technology workshops, guest speakers and panel discussions. The festival also has a sustainability initiative and will have a zero single use plastics regulation.

“We want to have a festival that leaves the lightest footprint on Whitefish,” she said. “We’re going to upcycle and recycle, and have it be a very green festival.”

The Winterland Film Festival is expected to take place during March every year, coinciding with the school district’s spring break, because that is when the Whitefish Performing Arts Center is available to them.

The creators of the Winterland Film Festival and Technology Summit chose its name and branding to tie in Whitefish’s ski town identity, according to Rosenthal. Although the winters can be long in this town, she says, they want to bring in a fun and highly anticipated festival that reflects the nature of northwest Montana.

“We’re bringing in a northwest Montana flavor and programming, we’ll have our own identity based on the region,” Rosenthal said. “Really seeking out Montana-based writers and filmmakers, wanting those Montana stories.”

For more information on the Winterland Film Festival and Technology Summit visit https://winterlandfilmfestival.com/