The Block is a DIFFERENT film festival experience.
IT'S INTIMATE
A unique 4 historic theatres on a single block is the nucleus for dozens of interactive film screenings (year six of the Logan Film Festival), a music stage, local business hosted galleries & bands, outdoor art installations, vast-topic educational sessions, & exceptional food offerings throughout four days.
ALL ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE
We emphasize not just competition but celebration, and creating the best possible experience for everyone by focusing on interaction between the artists/filmmakers & their audiences.
INSPIRING CREATION
At it's core, The Block Film and Art Festival is about inspiring imagination & creation. Encouraging personal expression through the arts is a major reason this organization was developed by artists over the past eight years.
The Block Film and Art Festival directly incorporates and revolves around what the established Logan Film Festival (LFF) kickstarted in 2012. Several LFF founders preside on The Block team, and continue to shape the film-centric core of the four-day event.
It’s a 9-year mark for LFF since joining forces with The Block. This multifaceted approach creates an more exciting environment designed for growth, higher attendee and artist engagement, and a memorable, one-of-a-kind experience.
ABOUT LOGAN, UTAH
The Block Film and Art Festival is hosted in the city of Logan in Cache Valley, Utah. Logan is one of the few cities in Utah with a National Historic District exhibiting wonderful old buildings and mansions in a picturesque mountain valley, the Wasatch range of the Rocky Mountains. It is surrounded by century old farms, incredible mountain and valley scenery, forests, lakes, and dozens of small farming communities perfect for filming all throughout it's very dynamic seasons.
Logan is also home to Utah State University, the Utah Festival Opera, and the Northern Utah Film Commission, providing filmmakers with access to local film crews, equipment, locations, and talent.
BACK TO OUR ROOTS
Under the direction of much missed LFF originator and visionary Alan Hashimoto, the film festival was intended in its first year to be part of a downtown art/design week. At The Block, we believe this is an exciting direction to return to, which will result in an increased draw, a renewed energy, sustainability, and help distinguish this event from the thousands of other film festivals across the world.
FILM SELECTIONS
All films submitted are considered equally and carefully, through a multiple-stage prescreening process involving both outsider volunteers as well as industry professionals.
FESTIVAL DEMOGRAPHIC
Because we feature a vast array of art mediums at The Block, this is a unique opportunity to get a broader scope of public audiences than other festivals may offer. Logan is home to Utah State University, bringing many college students and an ethnic diversity to the festival. The community is active in outdoor recreation, being less than hour away from numerous Wasatch ski resorts and mountain trials. Family and youth also have a large turnout & benefit from friendly, clearly indicated programming.
TRAVEL
Hotels and visitors information (provided by Cache Valley Visitors Bureau) is available on our website: http://www.theblockfestival.org.
A limited amount of resources, primarily donated lodging, is available to assist filmmakers and artists traveling to the festival. For inquire contact info@theblockfestival.org
THE PHILOSOPHY
"Not your average film festival: why an experience makes the difference."
The support and feedback from what we’ve accomplished in the last 8 years has been encouraging. Veteran filmmaker guest speakers from Oscar and Emmy winning films have called LFF, “one of the best festivals they’ve ever attended”. Available on their blog online, a detailed, positive account of visiting AFI director and editor duo from the film “Pyro & Klepto”--an audience favorite--paints testament to a realization:
The experience of attending the festival is what people love most.
Not awards. Not playing up a competition. Routinely low attendance to awards ceremonies, and our winning filmmakers often surprised to receive trophies or prizes, goes to prove that it’s not why people are attending nor why films are submitted to this event. Whether it’s the audience members or it's the artists presenting their work, when the experience of coming to the festival is extraordinary and satisfying, that’s when we’ve succeeded and people come back.
By contrast, in modern times with increasingly accessibly submission platforms and filmmaking tools, it’s become easy for new festivals to spring up and exist more for making money off the mirage of accolades, than being about celebrating the art of filmmaking. Thousands of very similar film festivals across the country and the world have emerged in the last decade, and essentially function by charging fees for entries from all around the globe, choosing a handful of them to be shown, and then pitting those films against each other in competition for awards that, in reality, are not significant to the fate of the film. Even at one of the major dozen or so notable, high-profile market festivals (Sundance, TIFF, Cannes, etc.), often distribution is not secured by being accepted or winning an award.
After initially chasing these trends with minor growth using this model year to year, The Block is a pivot into a unique direction that builds upon the truth from our feedback and observations: that the in-person experience at the festival is what counts.
You wouldn’t go to a music concert or a music festival, just to listen to a band’s new album played back over the loudspeakers. You’d feel ripped off if the band members didn’t show up or didn’t come out on stage. Similarly, the musicians themselves come to present what they do in-person, to an audience, and not to compete against the other bands or to try to win an award. We believe independent film can live in the same realm of artistic appreciation, and independent filmmaking should not have to ride the coattails of an industry obsessed with competitive Hollywood award seasons.
So, unlike virtually every other film festival out there, Despite that there are award categories, The Block focuses mainly on celebrating independent expression of the arts including filmmaking. Avoiding a contest-driven environment pitting winners against losers, Laurels for official selections are still provided for those films programmed, and a locally-made, hand-crafted sculpture, “The Hashimoto”, recognizes the efforts of one promising up and coming young filmmaker each year.
