By Brianna Datta
Fort Wayne’s annual Hobnobben film festival celebrated its sixth year at the Embassy theatre in Fort Wayne over the weekend. Members of the Fort Wayne community showed their support for independent filmmaking by attending the festival, enjoying the wide selection of submissions from filmmakers around the world, as well as panel discussions, live events, and more.
“I think what separates Hobnobben from other film festivals is that we really do strive for diversity and inclusivity in the stories that we highlight in our festival. So, we try to showcase films that you wouldn’t see on any mainstream media”, said Christi Hille, one of the co-chairs of the festival.
Christi Hille has been involved with Hobnobben since its first year. She started out bartending the first event, then volunteered with the hospitality and marketing teams, eventually working her way to become one of the three co-chairs of Hobnobben film festival. Hille highlighted the importance of supporting independent films and filmmakers in the Fort Wayne community.
“This year we had one hundred and five films were submitted to the festival, most of those were shorts in some way shape or form, and those are the types of films you can’t see streaming on Netflix or turning the channel, but there’s a lot that you can do in five minutes to tell a story and you wouldn’t know it unless you had access to a festival like this that happens to be in Fort Wayne, and it’s a really unique opportunity.”
When asked what her favorite film out of the festival line up was, she had trouble deciding, but did describe a few submissions that stood out to her, as well as the “love love” block, a block of time dedicated to romance films.
“It’s so difficult for me to choose a favorite film of the festival because we watch all of the film submissions and as a committee, we decide which ones make it into the festival after our program team watches all of them and rates them to begin with. So, I think of all of them as my true loves and I’m so passionate about each of them, but I do have a couple favorites. Six Angry Women is well-done. It’s a lovely documentary feature that investigates a crime that took place in New Zealand and that was unsolved for years, while also highlighting the rise of feminism in New Zealand and safety on campus issues. It’s a really well-done film. I also did enjoy the “love love” block. It has a bunch of little romantic vignettes and features that are cute and sweet. So, romance stories that again, you’re not really seeing on mainstream media, lots of queer representation in them, lots of different types of relationships that we can form, some meet cutes and all that kind of jazz too.”
You can stream the films from this event at hobnobben.org
For more information on Hobnobben film festival visit hobnobben.org.