Advertisement

Long shuttered amid pandemic, Columbia’s Nickelodeon Theatre to host filmmaker event

The Nickelodeon Theatre might not yet be reopened for regular business, but it is set to welcome filmmakers and customers for an upcoming film event.

The arthouse theater on Columbia’s Main Street will host Filmmaker Focus on May 14-16. The three-day event will include workshops for filmmakers and screenings of independent films.

“Our goal for Filmmaker Focus is to support emerging Southern filmmakers and create a space for conversation and collaboration among filmmakers and fans,” Nickelodeon director of programming Thaddeus Jones said in a news release. “COVID has made it hard to celebrate film this past year, so we are especially excited to welcome film fans back to the Nick with this special event.”

The Nickelodeon, which was one of the catalysts for the revitalization of Main Street in recent years, initially suspended in-person screenings because of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. It returned briefly with limited capacity during the Christmas season, when it hosted, among other things, screenings of holiday classics. But then it shuttered again in January amid a spike in coronavirus numbers. Nickelodeon executive director Anita Floyd said the theater has been working toward reopening for regular business at the end of May.

The Filmmaker Focus event kicks off May 14 with Developing Film, which will include screenings of award-winning offerings from the DOKO Film Fest — a Blythewood, S.C. festival for movies made by high-school age filmmakers — and local independent filmmakers will have the chance to show “work in progress” films and get feed back from the audience.

On May 15 the festival will feature a daylong series of filmmaking workshops, focusing on screenplay writing, pre-production, casting and choosing a film festival, among other topics. There will also be the Wide Angle Pitch Competition on May 15 hosted by Effie Brown, CEO of Gamechanger, a company that buys, options and develops film and TV projects. Filmmakers will be able to pitch movie ideas and a panel of judges will award prizes.

And on May 16 Filmmaker Focus will close with a screening of a feature and two short films from local filmmakers.

Filmmakers can attend all workshops and film events for $35. Community members can attend the Sunday screenings for $10. The Wide Angle Pitch session on Saturday at 1pm is free.

For a full schedule and film listings, plus links to reserve tickets, visit nickelodeon.org/events/filmmaker-focus-2021/.