Big Water Film Festival - Bay Theater - Ashland - Wisconsin

15th Annual Big Water Film Festival
January 6-February 3, 2023
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Thank you, everyone, for a great Film Festival this year!  We had absolutely stunning films that moved us and entertained us and educated us.  Thank you to ALL of our filmmakers.  Once again, picking winners was not easy.  We are very proud to add these films to our list of BWFF Award Winners:

Audience Favorite.  American Heart.   Chris Newberry.

Best Feature.  Wicker Kittens.  Amy C. Elliott and Mike Scholtz.

Best Documentary.  The Starfish Throwers.  Jesse Roesler.

Best Short.  Contorsion. Ingrid Chikhaoui.

Best Short Short.  Ice Dream:  Protect our Water.  David Doering.

Young Filmmaker.  Deliver Us from Evil.  Robert McDermott.

Honorable Mention- Feature.  Fragmented.  Douglas Elford-Argent.

Special thanks to Ryan Suick and the Bay Theater and to Pho Sai Gon for providing us such great service, to our sponsors, to our volunteers, and to all of our filmgoers.

American Heart showings and conversation on Friday. Thanks to a generous sponsorship from Ashland’s Memorial Medical Center, we are able to offer a special free showing of American Heart on Friday, November 7, at 1:00 p.m. at the Bay Theater, followed by a conversation with the director, Chris Newberry, and editor, Bill Kersey.  This discussion will be specifically directed to health care professionals, although all are welcome.  The regular showing of the film as part of our first block on Friday at 4:00 p.m. will also be free to students and employees of WITC and MMC, with an ID.  Don’t let this special conversation aimed at health care professionals mislead you– this film is a wonderful film that is an eye-opener for anyone concerned about the lives of immigrants and refugees in our country, with beautifully detailed portraits of three immigrants from Ethiopia, Burma, and Cambodia.

Discount for Chick-uamegon participants!  Runners and walkers and bikers in the Chick-uamegon Women and Girls 5k and 10k events will get $1 off the price of any ticket at BWFF.  Just show your proof of registration or bib at the door.

Great food and fun once again scheduled for Friday night! This year’s Gala Reception (Friday 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.) will be held right next door to the Bay Theater, at the Pho Sai Gon Restaurant.  Mouth watering food and lovely flowers will be provided by the following Reception Sponsors:

Sassy Nanny Farmstead Cheese and Happy Hollow Creamery
The Delta Diner
The Snug
Co-Co’s Artisan Breads and Fine Pastries
Ashland Baking Company
Good Thyme Restaurant
Deep Water Grille
Maggie’s Restaurant
Big Water Coffee Roasters
The Platter
Tap Roots Coffee Shop
Second Street Bistro
El Dorado Mexican Restaurant
Ashland Floral
Sauce Restaurant

Just present a ticket for any block or your weekend pass or a day pass for either Friday or Saturday to partake!

committeeWhat we did on our summer vacation. The Big Water Film Festival Committee has had a great summer reviewing a bumper crop of films. We’ve got such high quality, such variety and such geographic diversity this year!  We have narrative films from Paris, Toulouse, Addis Ababa, Brooklyn, and even Minnesota (and more).  We have documentaries from Iran, Nepal, Bulgaria, and the Penokee Hills (and more).  We have some animation, and we have films that honor the Lake Superior watershed and that highlight problems for the environment the world-round.  We have experienced filmmakers and BWFF veterans and we have new filmmakers and very accomplished filmmakers appearing for the first time at BWFF.    We have films that we on the Committee are so glad that we have gotten to see, and that we are so glad we will be able to share with you.  Because we have all of this now, what we will have in November at the Festival will be fun!

Moving to Ashland. The 2014 BWFF is moving to the Bay Theater in Ashland.  We loved having our Festival at StageNorth in Washburn but, unfortunately, the theater’s owners have closed the building indefinitely.  We are thrilled to have landed at the Bay Theater, just across the Bay, in Ashland.  Our new venue will give us more (and more comfortable!) seating, and put us right in the center of Ashland’s coffee houses, shops, restaurants, and taverns.  We will be renting the space at Pho Sai Gon Restaurant, right next door to the theater, for our Friday Night Gala Reception.  We’ll have the same great food we’ve always had, plus more room for seating, bar access, and a much faster buffet line.  Just across the street from the theater is the Vaughn Public Library, where we will hold Saturday morning’s Cinema and Cinnamon Rolls.

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Become a Sponsor Today!

You can send your sponsorship to:
BWFF
PO Box 11
Ashland, WI 54806

See our Award-Winners

  • Award Winners in Previous Years

News

The next Big Water Film Festival will be virtual once again.

After much consideration, the Big Water Film Festival Committee has decided that once again our Festival will be virtual only.  The COVID pandemic keeps throwing all of us curveballs.  We have no way of knowing how dangerous congregating in a movie theater will be this Fall, and yet the pretty long lead time we need to put on the Festival required us to decide this summer whether we feel comfortable inviting our audience to gather in person.  The decision was made easier by the great reception given to our virtual 14th Annual Festival.  Many more people– from all around the world– saw our films virtually than usually see them in person, and a lot of people told us they appreciated the safety and convenience of viewing the films online.

Still, we miss getting together in person with our audience and filmmakers, and hope this year to re-introduce our popular Cinema and Cinnamon Rolls discussions with filmmakers in a live virtual programming format.

As with last year, tickets for the Festival will be absolutely free.  We had such great support last year through voluntary donations that we were able to pay all our expenses even though we sold no tickets.   Please keep supporting us this year, so that we can keep making the Festival free and open to anyone who wants to watch.

Just as a reminder of some of the great films we screened last year, here are the winners of the 14th Big Water Film Festival Awards:

Audience Favorite:  Better Than Neil Armstrong – Alireza Ghasemi – Iran. (Week 1)

Best Short:  Cold Storage – Thomas Freundlich-  Finland.  (Week 7)

Best Short-Short:  Amanzi Olwandle – Timothy Hay – South Africa. (Week 7)

Best Feature:  Skate or Die – Ryan Ferguson – United States. (Week 2)

Best Documentary:  Say His Name – Five Days for George Floyd – Cy Dodson – United States.  (Week 2)

 

 

 

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