The Ann Arbor Film Festival collection consists of programs, posters and flyers, news clippings and articles about the yearly festival. The collection includes materials representing each festival from the first in 1963 to the 50th in 2012. A few items relating to Cinema Guild or other Ann Arbor film societies are also included.
The collection is divided into four series: Program announcements and related, Press, Oversize posters, and Sound recordings.
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the longest-running independent and experimental film festival in North America. Internationally recognized as a premiere forum for independent filmmakers and artists, each year's festival engages audiences with remarkable cinematic experiences. The six-day festival presents 40 programs with more than 180 films from over 20 countries of all lengths and genres, including experimental, animation, documentary, narrative, hybrid and performance based works. The Ann Arbor Film Festival receives more than 2,500 submissions annually from more than 65 countries and serves as one of a handful of Academy Award-qualifying festivals in the United States.
The Ann Arbor Film Festival was started in 1963 by University of Michigan School of Art filmmaker/artist George Manupelli. The 1960s sparked rapid changes in cinema, thus challenging the art world to accept fresh ideas and talent. Manupelli took advantage of this shift and envisioned a festival that would serve experimental and pioneering filmmakers with the exposure, feedback and competition they desired. He designed his festival to be open to anyone who saw filmmaking as art. Since 1980, the Ann Arbor Film Festival has been independent of the University of Michigan as an independent non-profit arts organization.
Steeped in a rich tradition of ground-breaking cinema, thousands of influential filmmakers have showcased early work at the AAFF, including luminaries such as Kenneth Anger, Agnes Varda, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, Gus Van Sant, Barbara Hammer, Lawrence Kasdan, Les Blank, Chick Strand and George Lucas.
The AAFF is a pioneer of the traveling film festival tour and each year presents short film programs at more than 35 theaters, universities, museums and art house cinemas throughout the world. The festival began to distribute short films in 2008 and has produced three DVD collections with award-winning works available for home and educational viewing. The AAFF also presents and partners on events throughout the year, which have included screenings with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD).
In 2006 the Ann Arbor Film Festival came under attack by politically-motivated censorship and saw its state funding revoked. In response, the AAFF launched the Endangered Campaign and raised over $80,000 in 4 months. In 2008 the AAFF received a 2-year grant from the Warhol Foundation to support the festival's initiative to support filmmakers as artists. In 2009 the AAFF received a grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to bring avant-garde film icon Kenneth Anger to the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival.
The AAFF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization sustained by the generous support of donor and members, foundation and sponsors and audiences. The 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival took place March 27 - April 1, 2012.
