This story is featured in CityBeat's April 3 print edition.
The Yellow Springs Film Festival is back with a special one-day “Mini Fest” this April to act as a preview of sorts for the second annual festival in October.
Yellow Springs, the small bohemian village east of Dayton, is famous for its historic liberal arts college, Antioch, its eclectic mix of shops and restaurants and as being home to comedian Dave Chappelle — but the Yellow Springs Film Festival is set to become another hallmark of the already popular destination town.
This year will mark the second edition of the Yellow Springs Film Festival, launched last October to welcoming and enthusiastic audiences at three days of events across the village.
Last fall’s inaugural festival included narrative and documentary films like the Tribeca Film Festival documentary The Cave of Adullam and the world premiere of actor Steve Zahn’s directorial debut, Lynn’s Fire. The festival also included stand-up performances from comedy great Fred Armisen and several Q&As with filmmakers, musicians and industry insiders that included both Armisen and Zahn, as well as Wu-Tang Clan’s Raekwon, Academy Award winner Steven Bognar and several others. The festival also featured a gallery retrospective as tribute to Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker, activist and longtime Yellow Springs resident, Julia Reichert, who passed away in 2022 after a battle with cancer.
“The genesis of the whole project was to facilitate bringing some really interesting films, events and people to the Southern Ohio area to try to contribute to the art scene as much as possible,” Yellow Springs Film Festival founder Eric Mahoney told CityBeat in a recent phone conversation.
The festival was a major success with multiple sellout crowds and all of the variety of events well-received by attendees. “It really resonated with the village a lot and, actually regionally, it did really well. We had people from all over the country,” Mahoney recalls. “It’s something we’re very much looking to scale and build and make a mainstay year after year here moving forward.”
As part of that growth, the festival is branching out with the upcoming one-day Mini Fest on April 6 that will feature four films and special guests throughout the day at the Little Art Theatre in the heart of Yellow Springs.
The event starts at 12:30 p.m. with the screening of Thelma, a film that recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film stars June Squibb, who Mahoney describes as “a 94-year-old powerhouse lead actress,” along with Parker Posey, Malcolm McDowell and Richard Roundtree.
The Thelma screening is followed by a 3 p.m. screening and talk with the first special guest of the day, director and author Nelson George. George’s short film, A Great Day in Hip Hop documents legendary photographer Gordon Parks’ late ‘90s photo session of 177 hip-hop heavyweights that was a continuation of Parks’ earlier tribute to the 1958 Art Kane photo, A Great Day in Harlem, featuring jazz greats taken on the same Harlem brownstone stoop decades before.
Mahoney calls George “a seminal New York artist” and says he and George will discuss the photo session, New York’s relationship to jazz and hip-hop and upcoming work, including a sneak peek at George’s newest documentary on basketball legend David Thompson.
The day continues with a recent feature from the Venice Film Festival and this year’s SXSW Festival, Gasoline Rainbow, at 5:30 p.m., followed by a Q&A with the film’s directors, brothers Bill and Turner Ross.
Thank You Very Much, the documentary about comedy genius and actor Andy Kaufman that won Best Documentary at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, will play at 9 p.m., closing out the day. Mahoney describes Thank You Very Much as, “a great, great film on a really unique artist.”
The Mini Fest is an addition to the festival’s regular programming. “I think we were so excited about the festival last year and looking forward to this year — we just didn’t want to wait to put something else on.” He also mentions people in the community asking about the festival, and using the event to, “keep the festival on people's radar and to reiterate that we’re here to stay and we’ll be doing one-off events outside the festival too.”
Possibly the most exciting part is that the festival will try to make one-off events like the Mini Fest a regular thing, and, additionally, that they are looking to take events to cities throughout Ohio as a type of outreach. Mahoney mentions talks with the Wexner Center in Columbus and his ties with the Dayton area, but also mentions a closer possibility. “We’d love to get down to Cincinnati to do something,” Mahoney says. “Those kinds of things are percolating.”
Mahoney’s past and interests help guide festival programming. He grew up in Dayton and became involved in the music scene, playing in touring band Murder Your Darlings and later moved to Columbus. Mahoney calls music his first love. “That’s why I still look to program music docs and have musicians in the mix because it really still is something that’s very important to me.”
He later moved to New York City where he pursued another passion. “I also had an equal kind of love for cinema and started working for directors on television series and things like that and got into making my own docs and producing.” His credits include the moving 2019 documentary on the influential ‘90s alternative band from Dayton, Brainiac, called Brainiac: Transmissions After Zero, and the 2015 documentary on golden age folk singer and activist, Joan Baez, called Joan Baez: Rebel Icon. He’s also worked as a producer.
Mahoney has also created the podcast Kon-Tiki, where he discusses movies with people like director Jim Jarmusch, comedian Todd Barry and musician Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips.
Mahoney says that the lineup for the Yellow Springs Film Festival in October has not been finalized yet.
“The lineup is not yet solidified,” Mahoney says. “Those decisions tend to be made much, much later in the year because of people’s scheduling and film distribution. A lot of the films I’m chasing right now, for instance, I don’t really know if they’re going to get picked up or when they would be streaming. It’s really important for me to bring films, for the most part, that aren’t available to watch anywhere else, so trying to do that is a little bit of a delicate dance at times.”
Though the details of the festival haven’t been finalized and announced yet, the second-annual Yellow Springs Film Festival will be held Oct. 4-6.
Tickets are available now for the individual film screenings held during the Yellow Springs Film Festival’s Mini Fest. Info: ysfilmfest.com.
