Q&A With Oak Park Film Festival's Stan West

Patch caught up with Stan West, journalist, teacher, author, filmmaker, founder and host of the Oak Park International Film Festival, to discuss this year's films and festivities.  A full schedule is available here. 

What is unique about this year's festival?

The festival has a distinct Oak Park angle. Every film has an Oak Park or western suburbs connection — actor, director, location, subject, writer, etc.

Some people marvel that we have "international" in our name, for this clearly local festival. Every year. We feature international-angled films, often in other languages, that have Oak Park connections. This year, for example, we pay tribute to Haitian Film School, Cine Institute, with a film of the same name, and local Haitians introducing it. In the past, we've had films in Arabic,  Hebrew, Norwegian, Spanish, and this year, French and Kreyol. How cool is that?

This is the 6th annual film festival, a feat in and of itself. How have you managed to be so successful year after year?

 We don't take ourselves too seriously. It's a free event with no aware, very little hooplah that does not cost too much, yet we always go in the hole to do it. Why? Because it's a labor of love. It fulfills a missing link. It gives voice to the voiceless -- filmmakers who do not always have access to the exhibitions and festivals, particularly teens, women, people of color and progressive whites.

Can you briefly explain this year's theme, "Image & Perception"?

 This year's theme of "Image & Implication," or previously, "Image & Perception," deals with how we draw meaning from symbols, images and how they influence our storytelling. 

What does an event like this do for those involved -- the filmmakers, writers, actors, etc.?

It gives a forum to be heard, seen, understood and appreciated.

What does an event like this do for the Oak Park community itself?

 It challenges some commonly held notions about smugness and so-called diversity by turning those issues upside down through deconstruction, inquiry, art and discourse.

What do you hope to accomplish with this year's festival?

We hope to affect meaningful social change while entertaining attendees. We hope our filmmakers and actresses get further notice for the great work they do.

I hope that one year, maybe this one, we at least break even. Even if we don't, despite the naysayers who refused to give us funding, who refused to promote our event, who refused to think we'd last past the first year in 2004, we've stood the test of time.

We've created an institution and a happening that represents the best and brightest of our local visual storytellers. That makes us smile.

Editor's note: Some answers have been condensed.