First Year Doubled as Festival reaches over 500 Million

Tammy Teague — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 18:09:40 +0000

The numbers are in, and the Fort Smith International Festival is growing. The second annual doubled the attendance of the first year with approximately 800 in-person and online guests. The festival attracts filmmakers from around the globe. In the first year, the festival received 396 submissions from 43 different countries, and in the second that number grew to over 50 countries, nations, and tribes producing an overall total of more than 60 across two years. The Fort Smith International Film Festival brings the world to the River Valley showcasing our region’s talent and innovation. With a global media reach of 254 million in 2021 and 265 million in 2022 our marketing has touched over 500 million people around world (Meltwater). We are truly an international film festival.

In January, we will be announcing our third annual dates and theme along with the continuation of the Borderlands Film Series, which features movies screened at the previous festivals. “We currently have over 270 films in our catalogue from more than 40 countries,” says executive director Brandon Chase Goldsmith. “Our year-long programming is aimed at building an independent and foreign film audience in our region and encouraging young filmmakers. Our goal is to cultivate an arts community, which will be the foundation for the next three years as we plan towards our 5^th annual festival.”

The River Valley Film Society works with area high schools and organizations to increase youth involvement offering awards and cash prizes to student moviemakers. Future School graduate Gabe Hobbs won a $2000 University of Arkansas Fort Smith Scholarship for his short documentary “A Chat with Tony C” at the 2022 festival. Additionally, the film society donates equipment to assist media courses and student film clubs. Secondary education programs represent a reservoir of talent from which the pipeline feeding our region’s creative economy flows through high school to college to careers. Students are our future.

Festival Numbers

2022

265 million media reach*

135 hours of film submissions

56 Countries, Nations, & Tribes

~800 Attendance

2021

254 million media reach*

124 hours of film submissions

43 Countries, Nations, & Tribes

~400 Attendance

*Meltwater

The Gem Movie Theater

Resident News Network — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 01:22:36 +0000

By Jack James
The Gem Movie Theater was located on the southwest corner of Main Street and Davis. It was quite an operation!
The long brick building was first owned by Charlie and Lou Moore. A general store operated by Mr. Moore and Jim Ingram ran in that building for several years. Then the store changed hands for many, many times until Mr. Lacey Berkley bought out the stock from its last renter, Vin Farmer. Berkley ran a grocery store there himself for several years. He rented the building for twelve dollars a month. After one year of operation, Berkley purchased the building.
In the 1930s, Berkley was approached by Clint Dunn who wanted to curtain off the back of the store and run a movie theater. Dunn used to show silent films on the side of the livery stables downtown. Feeling adventurous and spurred by the idea of talking moving pictures, the men moved the feed sacks and grocery goods to the back of the store and then they were in business. Customers sat on homemade benches and, many nights the building was so crowded that they had to sit on the wood planked floor. Business was so good that they moved the store to the building next door so they could use the entire building as a theater. They opened the doors two days a week on Saturdays and Tuesdays, showing a different film on each night. The admission price was ten cents.
Sometimes kids would sneak into the movies by hiding in the sacks and shelves of the store behind the curtain. The kids would quietly sneak from behind the curtain and sit in the floor in the front when the lights were dimmed and the movie began. Berkley was on constant guard. Several citizens of the area recalled that Berkley caught one of the boys one night who had stolen their way into the theater. Berkley gave him a spanking with an eighteen inch piece of boot strap leather in front of the entire movie crowd.
The theater was bought out eventually and to a man named Carl Dozier. The theater was IN business in Lavaca. The death toll for the Gem Theater, like many other area small town theaters, was the popularity of television in the 1950s. Someone once said, “People quit coming to the movies when the movies started coming to them.” Also, after World War II, the people gained in prosperity and were able to afford vehicles that could make the trip to Fort Smith without much problem. This began the decline of not only the Gem Theater but in local mom-and-pop grocery stores as well.
In the last four years of business, the building was used as a karate club, a fabric shop and a western store. Berkley sold the building to Leon Brown in 1972. Brown sold the place for $3000 to Roger Cook just a few months before he had the building torn down.
The property, along with others along Main Street on that block, is now the location of the beautiful Farmer’s Bank.
Joe Chronister recalled in a conversation about the theater that the admission fee was slowly raised to fifty-cents before the movie theater closed. That’s good money for a ticket in a small town in the mid-century. There were people telling stories of their times there and the movies they saw. Some told of their first date at their theater, about the nervousness they had. There were dates with future wives and husbands. The memories are good ones for everyone I have spoken to about it.

theater – Resident News Network

First Year Doubled as Festival reaches over 500 Million

The Gem Movie Theater