Bill Hargreaves jolts the memory. Back as a kid, riding his bike a mile, maybe a mile and a half. Plunking down $1.25 for a matinee.
Other than a few cult classics along the way — think “Beastmasters” and “Dark Crystal” — the titles are a blur. But for Hargreaves, even as he focused on earning a living via the publishing business or, more recently, his Evergreen Plant Service, his interest in the big screen never waned.
“I’ve always loved movies,” said Hargreaves, the executive director of the 4th Annual Yountville Int’l Short Film Festival that runs Feb. 11-15.
Hargreaves, 48, screened short films for eight years at Jessup Cellars before expanding to the 16-block, 100-film festival that, as expected, is virtual this year, compliments of the pandemic.
Until this re-direction, it’s been about location, basically. In the heart — or at least one of the main aortas — of the wine country, Yountville was ideal for connecting grapes and great films.
“That’s how we came up with the concept — pairing films and wine. It’s easy to do with a short film,” Hargreaves said. “Pair one wine with one short. Four films and four wines a night. Short films is a great genre.”
And the perfect genre, agreed Hargreaves, for a short attention span generation.
With the short film format, “if you don’t like a film, in another 10 or 20 minutes, you get another one,” Hargreaves said.
The filmmakers also can take an hour to develop characters.
“When you only have something like 15 minutes, they have to get to the point,” Hargreaves said, adding that he and the rest of the committee whittled the roughly 1,000 entries to the lucky 100.
“A lot of films don’t make the cut,” he said, while the survivors “are really world-class amazing films. People put a lot into this. The programming is really strong.”
The festival is programmed in blocks roughly 80 minutes long each that include five or six films. Each block is a different genre.
“That’s another nice thing; there’s something for everybody,” Hargreaves said. “You can pick a genre.”
Normally, the time between screening blocks allowed visitors to venture through the quaint North Bay town. Virtual tourists can only close their eyes and imagine.
“We’ve been working on our platform once we knew it was not going to be possible to be live,” Hargreaves said. “And we have a great virtual platform. We can still offer everything except the experience of being together.”
Yountville’s been a “destination festival,” Hargreaves said. “That definitely will be missed.”
One silver lining of going virtual: “We’re not bound by geography,” Hargreaves said. “We can reach out to different areas.”
A semblance of real-time remains with musical entertainment and a chat room, Hargreaves said, “so you still get a bit of that live festival experience.
At $15 per film block or $49 for the entire festival, “we felt it’s a good way to make it accessible,” Hargreaves said.
The film fest does “give people something to do” Valentine’s Day weekend, the event director said, though it’s more by coincidence than planning. The festival traditionally runs the weekend after the Super Bowl, which moved the big game to Feb. 7.
It was back in November when “we definitely had to pull the trigger” whether to go ahead with a virtual festival or cancel it, Hargreaves said.
“We realized we wouldn’t be able to safely bring people together,” he said. “So we said, ‘Let’s put our effort into bringing a nice virtual experience.”
Fortunately, Hargreaves continued, some wine partners remained onboard, offering to sell and ship wine that includes an all-access festival pass.
The 4th Annual Yountville Int’l Short Film Festival (YISFF) will be held virtually from Feb. 11-15, offering 16 dedicated screening blocks, musical guests, and filmmaker Q&A sessions.
For more information or to secure passes, visit YISFF.com.
