On Friday and Saturday, the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre will become the center stage for students, indie filmmakers and cinephiles sharing stories through short films.
The festival, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, has always been about championing independent short films. It all started as an informal screening of scrappy student films in a Main Street bar. It evolved from a low-key off-campus event into a regional showcase, drawing filmmakers from across the Pacific Northwest.
This year’s festival features 28 films, half of which are by students from the University of Idaho and other schools in the Northwest.
Named after the Slavic word for “cinema,” the KINO festival spotlights bold storytelling in short form, offering a platform for films that deliver their message in less than 10 minutes.
Festival director Kyle Howerton said it brings audiences and emerging filmmakers together so the filmmakers “can get their work seen and to understand audience reactions.”
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The festival starts at 3 p.m. Friday with a free throwback-style screening of eclectic short films in the back room at Mikey’s Gyros.
“It’s going to be a bit extreme, or perhaps rougher around the edges and more quirky films for which we just couldn’t find a place to schedule,” Howerton said.
The Mikey’s screening will feature work by University of Idaho students and includes a Q&A session afterward.
At 7 p.m., the action moves across Main Street to the Kenworthy for the main event, showcasing the work of emerging voices in filmmaking from around the Pacific Northwest.
Howerton said he looks forward to “the magic moment of the KINO Festival” when the audience reacts, with laughter and gasps, to the “funny, weird, quirky documentary and narrative films.”
One of the filmmakers featured Friday will be Billy Croston, a film and television studies student at the University of Idaho. Croston described his 10-minute film “Out of the Limelight” as a “drama on the surface, but a psychological thriller underneath.”
Saturday’s schedule includes hands-on workshops at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. in UI’s Radio-TV Center, followed by a free red carpet premiere of “The Snail Hunters” at 4 p.m. at the Kenworthy.
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Megan Griffiths, a filmmaker with strong ties to the region, will be honored with the first-ever Trailblazer Award, given to individuals with roots in the Pacific Northwest who have supported filmmaking and film culture. Griffiths graduated from Moscow High School and received an undergraduate degree from UI in 1997 before attending film school at Ohio University.
“It’s such a lovely feeling to be honored by your hometown,” she said in a recent interview.
Through her work, she said, she aims “to add something to the cultural conversation and have it continue as people walk out of a movie theater, so the award feels like an acknowledgment of that goal.”
Her path “began with film jobs that weren’t always ideal, but I embraced them as essential steps toward my dreams,” she said, noting each role brought new opportunities.
A special showing of Griffith’s 2023 film “Year of the Fox” is set for 7 p.m. Saturday at the Kenworthy, followed by a Q&A session.
Griffiths’ features include her collaboration with the Duplass Brothers, “I’ll Show You Mine” (2022), starring Poorna Jagannathan and Casey Thomas Brown; “Sadie” (2018), starring Melanie Lynskey, Sophia Mitri Schloss and Tony Hale; “The Night Stalker” (2016), starring Lou Diamond Phillips as serial killer Richard Ramirez; “Lucky Them” (2013), starring Toni Collette, Thomas Haden Church and Johnny Depp; and “Eden” (2012), which won the Emergent Narrative Director Award and the Audience Award for Narrative Feature at South by Southwest that year.
She has also directed shows for HBO, EPIX, TNT, Hulu, USA, Fox and Netflix and was the producing director for Season 2 of Amazon’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
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The festival wraps with a free party at 9:30 p.m. at Hunga Dunga Brewing. More information is above and at kinofilmfest.org.
Simpson writes from Moscow, covering art, wilderness, science and other things people get weirdly obsessed with. He may be contacted at will@kestrelcreek.com.
IF YOU GO
KINO Short Film Festival, Moscow
- 3 p.m. Friday, free screening/Q&A, Mikey’s Gyros, 527 S. Main St.
- 7 p.m. Friday, main screening, Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, 508 S. Main St. ($8 or with festival pass).
- 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday, workshops, University of Idaho Radio-TV Center, 901 Campus Drive (with festival pass).
- 4 p.m. Saturday, free red carpet premiere of "The Snail Hunters,” Kenworthy.
- 7 p.m. Saturday, "Year of the Fox" (2023) screening, followed by Q&A with Moscow High School and UI graduate Megan Griffiths. ($8 or with festival pass).
- 9:30 p.m. Saturday, free festival wrap party, Hunga Dunga Brewing, 333 N. Jackson St.
Tickets: $8 or $20 for a festival pass that includes all screenings, workshops and festival parties, at kinofilmfest.org/tickets.
