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All About Ann Arbor

Five fun facts about the Ann Arbor Film Festival

Matt Giles, Associate Producer

Tags: All About Ann Arbor, Events
First Ann Arbor Film Festival Program - May 23, 1963 (Copyright Creative Commons. Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike. Rights Held By Ann Arbor Film Festival.)

ANN ARBOR – With the Ann Arbor Film Festival beginning on Tuesday, we thought it would be fun to share five quick facts about the festival to prep our fellow cinephiles and others interested in attending this year.

Be sure to check out Meredith's essential guide to the festival, as well as her preview of "The Big House" (which A4 is sponsoring). Stay tuned for more updates throughout the week. 

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  • The festival was founded by George Manupelli in 1963 and is the oldest avant-garde and experimental film festival in North America. 
  • The film festival was originally held at Lorch Hall on the University of Michigan campus.
  • The AAFF is one of a small handful of Academy Award-qualifying festivals.
  • There was a time when there would be only one film in the booth at a time. The film would be passed out when the new film came in out of fear of the police coming and seizing the movies.
  • "Andy Warhol and the Exploding Plastic Inevitable" played in the early years.

    • Hungry for more fun facts? Be sure to visit the Ann Arbor District Library's AAFF archive, where you can browse past programs and photographs, flyers and posters, or listen to interviews from previous seasons and read historical newspaper articles from the Ann Arbor News and the Ann Arbor Sun. You can also check out several films that have screened at the AAFF.

    Learn more about the AAFF by visiting aafilmfest.org.

    Check out more Ann Arbor events on the A4 Community Calendar 

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