Film Fest Tucson returns to all in-person screenings this fall

You won’t need your laptop or Roku on your television to enjoy the lineup for this year’s Film Fest Tucson.

Organizers announced this week that the festival, being held Oct. 13-15, will be 100% in person this year, with screenings taking place at venues across downtown and at Main Gate Square.

The festival was canceled in 2020 and went with a hybrid format of live and online screenings in 2021 due to the pandemic. Fest director Herb Stratford said it will be good to get back to normal this October.

“I think there is a group experience that is lost when people are not together,” Stratford said. “It’s the communal experience of laughter, sorrow and appreciation for the human condition when gathered together in a dark room.”

Venues this year will include the Scottish Rite Cathedral, AC Hotel by Marriott Tucson Downtown and the outdoor screening area at Main Gate Square.

Films are still being chosen. When all is said and done, the festival will have 30-35 screenings scheduled. But Stratford already has some early favorites.

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Among them is “The Pez Outlaw,” a documentary about a machinist from the Midwest who finds out he can smuggle rare Pez dispensers from the factory in Europe and sell them in the States for big money.

“Gods of Mexico,” another hot pick, follows native residents of rural Mexico as they try to maintain more traditional ways of life amid the country’s efforts to modernize.

There will be a screening of the 1928 film, “The Passion of Joan of Arc,” with live music and vocal accompaniment, and a sit-down conversation with Academy Award-nominated animator Bill Plympton.

Stratford said he is excited to bring these films to live, local audiences.

“Cinema is designed as a group experience and we are all hungry to get back to that after COVID,” he said.

For more information on the festival, visit filmfesttucson.org.