The Sedona International Film Festival is back in full force and Sedona is again filled with tourists from Arizona and farther afield who are both filmmakers and film lovers. Visitors from all across the United States and elsewhere in the world are here in our city to screen their movies for us, each other and for themselves.
I highly recommend that residents take advantage of this longstanding city tradition and do what they can to catch at least one film or festival-related performance or event sometime between now and Sunday, Feb. 26.
After two years of bumps related to COVID-19, with the 27th annual festival pushed from February to the summer of 2021, and the 28th returning to its winter schedule in 2022, albeit with some folks still apprehensive, the SIFF is finally back to normal for all intents and purposes.
Screenings will take place at the two big theaters at Harkins Theaters Sedona 6, at the SIFF’s Alice Gill- Sheldon Theatre and Mary D. Fisher Theatre and at the 750-seat Sedona Performing Arts Center at Sedona Red Rock High School. Filmmaking workshops will take place at Yavapai College’s Sedona Center campus across State Route 89A from the high school.
2023 Sedona International Film Festival schedule grid
SIFF-Final-Grid-2023Dozens of local businesses, restaurants, merchants, vendors and retailers donate rooms, food, gifts, services, products and labor to make sure the festival runs smoothly and that celebrities and visitors enjoy themselves so local film-goers from Sedona and the Verde Valley can make the most of the festival experience.
Please check out their advertisements in this year’s SIFF guidebook, which was delivered to Sedona and Village of Oak Creek readers over the last week. If you misplaced yours, there will be plenty of additional copies around the festival. Support those retailers and businesses that help make our small-town film festival as good as the big festivals in major cities. Filmmakers spend lots of money in Sedona during their visits and contribute to Sedona’s tax base, allowing us to have the city services and facilities we enjoy, so even if you don’t attend any films, you still benefit from the festival.
The film festival filmmakers and visitors, for their part, generally feel lucky to be here, given that their movies had to survive a competitive selection process and that they are here by invitation. The same is true of the cinephiles who pay loads to enjoy a week of movies, performances and nighttime galas.
While many attendees will spend a majority of their time at the theatres, workshops and galas, others will reach out to visit our restaurants, trails, spas, retailers and parks to see what it’s like to live here. Don’t be surprised if you come across film festival tourists on the trails or around town asking for recommendations about where to get good Mexican food or buy a souvenir.
You never know who you might meet. A few years ago, my friend Claire Pearson and I met some young British filmmakers at one of the galas who wanted to see Oak Creek, so we took them to a nearby spot. They left mid-week to win an Oscar for best short film at the Academy Awards. I later spent a few days with one of them hiking in Colorado.
Plan your travel time accordingly, as SIFF visitors and non-film-related regular tourists will be clogging the road near Harkins Theaters and the official parking lot at Bashas’, causing delays eastbound and westbound on State Route 89A between Coffee Pot Drive and Rodeo Road.
Remember that there are alternate routes through residential neighborhoods if you’re local and know how to use them to skirt the Coffee Pot, Shelby, Sunset and Rodeo intersections along State Route 89A.
The festival’s events are now spread out across Sedona and not as concentrated as in past years when all the films were screened at Harkins, so once beyond that area, traffic generally lessens until eastbound drivers start coming down Cooks Hill. The congestion there is not due to an influx of film lovers but rather due to the inability of successive Sedona City Councils to provide alternate routes. But that’s a subject for other editorials.
In any event, if you are visiting Sedona for the film festival, welcome. You worked hard on your film to get here and we look forward to seeing what you put on the screen. Don’t be afraid to ask locals for recommendations or directions. We hope you enjoy the films, the views from around our city and offer thanks and support to the Sedona residents and local businesses that work to make your stay enjoyable.
