Third Equinox Women’s Film Festival features two Alaska movies

PALMER — For the third year in a row, Mat-Su College will host the Equinox Women’s Film Festival at the Glenn Massay Theater.

“For our festival, we look for the director or the producer or the writer to be a woman and preferably tell a woman’s story,” said event organizer Kristen Nagel. “This year we got about 300 (submissions) and all year round the board is watching each of the films and scores them on a sheet. Does the storyline look good? Is the sound good?”

From that list, the board whittled it down to 36, with seven films on Friday night and 29 on Saturday.

The two Alaska films highlight each evening with the filmmakers discussing their works with the audience.

‘Everything it Takes’, tells the story of Mary Helwig who beat all odds to race in the 2016 Iditarod to win The Red Lantern, an award that goes to the musher who finishes last, though it’s anything but a consolation prize.

On Saturday, the 29-film schedule kicks off at 10 a.m. and will be broken into three, three-hour blocks with short films dominating early and documentaries the second.

University of Alaska Anchorage student Kitty Mahoney’s directorial debut in ‘Find Me’ will cap the second block, followed by a talk from her and the rest of the film’s production team before a dinner break from 4 p.m. to 5.

Concessions from the Bistro Red Beet in Wasilla will be available.

“It’s female-directed, but it’s a man’s story,” Nagle said. “I always think that’s interesting, a different dynamic. It tells the story of a young man dealing with the loss of his father and the guilt that someone goes through after losing someone in their family, that struggle you continue every day with the fact that that person’s not in your life.”

Nagle said the end-goal of the festival was to help find and grant exposure to aspiring Alaskan filmmakers.

“This is just a Mat-Su (College) thing we made up. The first year we did it it happened to fall on the spring equinox, so we ran with that, the idea of equality and women’s films,” she said. “Alaska NOW (National Organization of Women) came to Mat-Su College and we thought, boy, wouldn’t it be cool if we highlighted Alaska filmmakers? That said, there’s not a lot of Alaska female filmmakers, but this is the first year we have multiple numbers of Alaska films.”

To discourage the dragnet submitters a film festival might receive, the Equinox Festival requires a $15 fee per entry.

“That helps weed out films that are shot on an iPhone and just submitted. That helps elevate the level of professional quality films,” Nagle said. “I think we have a really dynamic set. Last year we had a lot about women in sports and business and that filled three-hour blocks. This year, there really wasn’t one overall theme, so each film has a really different story.”

Tickets for the festival are $15 per day, and are available for purchase at glennmassaytheater.com.