This year, the Harrison Festival of the Arts will be kicking off its week of entertainment with something a little different: a film night.
“It just seemed like a natural fit to extend the art forms that we’re already presenting,” festival director Andy Hillhouse said. “Because we’re about not just music, even though music is 90 per cent of what we do. We try to be multi-disciplinary.”
“We’ve got a lot of other performing arts. Even dance in there, a little bit,” he added. But film, he said, is “the one thing we haven’t had for a number of years.”
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In the past, Hillhouse said, the festival had tried out a film night back when Agassiz had a theatre in its small town. But that was decades ago now, and the festival society decided the time was ripe for a revival.
This year’s film night, taking place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, July 12 at Memorial Hall, will feature RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World. The music documentary explores the role of Indigenous artists in rock and roll, and how they shaped the music that would define popular culture for more than half a century.
“We figured it was a nice film that fits in with the festival and what we’re about,” Hillhouse said. “We want films about music, that’s about culture. But it’s kind of fun and interesting too.”
This year’s festival line up features a number of different Indigenous artists, including musicians iskwē and Riit, drum maker Darren Charlie and weaver Karla Point. The Kent-Harrison Arts Council will also be featuring Indigenous visual artists at the Ranger Station Gallery during the Harrison Festival.
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Festival marketing manager Bryan Cutler isn’t sure what the reception will be like for the film night — he’s hoping for a successful evening, but says the idea is “unprecedented.”
“Is it going to do really well? Is it going to do really poorly? Who knows. It’s unprecedented basically,” Cutler said. “It was a nice introduction to see how it goes this year, and inform next year’s.”
If the night is a success, Cutler says, the film night will likely come back for next year’s festival and possibly be introduced into the Season of Performing Arts, which goes from September and May of each year.
Tickets for RUMBLE are $10 and can be purchased in person at the Ranger Station Gallery, over the phone at 604-796-3664, or online at harrisonfestival.com.
For more stories on the Harrison Festival of the Arts, visit agassizharrisonobserver.com/tag/harrison-festival-of-the-arts.
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