From the Panhandle with Cate Huisman

Lakedance Film Festival Returns to Sandpoint

By Cate Huisman, 10-28-09

The fourth annual Lakedance Film Festival moves a little later into the fall this year, enabling it to kick off on Halloween night with four horror films: In addition to the classics “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Night of the Living Dead,” two short films entered in the festival will be included, including “FM,” a locally produced film involving blood-curdling screams interrupting music being played on the radio.

Father-and-son team Fred and Trevor Greenfield started this festival in 2006, with the hope of encouraging a nascent film-making industry in Idaho. In 2008, with the support of local banks, it started a grant program to support filmmakers in north Idaho. From just three north Idaho films in 2006, the festival had grown to include 13 north Idaho films by 2008.

As well as the Greenfields, members of Sandpoint’s artistically prolific Jarzabek family figure significantly in this enterprise: The names of brothers Tim, Nick, and Mike are listed among the credits for “FM,” and their mother, Janice, is a star, writer, and producer of another local entry, “Will Call.” Involved in a different but equally important manner, their father’s firm Elsaesser Jarzabek is one of several sponsors of the festival.

Fifty-four short and feature-length films were selected from among hundreds submitted to be shown at Sandpoint’s Panida Theatre during the eight-day run of the event, October 31 through November 7. The festival shows films in blocks, and after each set of screenings, writers, directors, and actors/actresses in the films discuss their work and take questions from audience members. Festival organizers believe such an educational component is an essential element of the event, which also includes a “From Script to Screen” workshop on Saturday morning, November 7.

Film highlights this year include audience-picked favorites from among the Idaho entries, including the comedy “The Highly Contested Election for Payette County Sheriff,” and a screening on the final night of “Love in a Dangerous Time,” a romance shot just over the border in Creston, British Columbia, that has already won kudos at several other film festivals in the northwest.

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