PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend Film Festival is going back to its roots.
On Thursday night, festival organizers unveiled the artwork for its poster for its 10th festival, scheduled Sept. 24 to 27.
It was Max Grover’s artwork that originally shaped the festival, and so it was appropriate that Grover painted a new piece of art for it 10 years later, said Peter Simpson, artistic director.
“When he painted the first film festival piece, we had no idea what we were going to do,” Simpson said.
“We saw his first piece and we said, we should do that.”
Grover’s first painting in 1999 showed downtown Taylor Street with a giant movie screen, palm trees and beams of light shooting to the sky.
“He drew palm trees, so we decided we should have some palm trees,” Simpson said.
“We still do that to this day.”
Simpson said the board of directors decided early they would commission a local artist to paint an image of the festival that would adorn posters, pamphlets and T-shirts each year.
After they saw Grover’s work, they decided they should make it a tradition to have him create a piece every five years.
“So we followed in his design before,” Simpson said. “Who knows if, in 2014, we will be where his painting shows today?”
The new painting shows a modified downtown Port Townsend with a giant ferry pulling up in the Port Townsend Bay to watch a giant movie.
“I have a love affair with drive-in movies,” Grover said.
“So there’s the ferry pulling up to watch, filled with cars.”
Grover said his idea for this year’s work came to him three years ago.
“I kept it in mind, and then this year it all came back to me,” he said.
“I got the angles of the town by walking along the docks and really tried to capture that community feeling.
“That was very important to me, to keep that sense of community.
“I’m very please with how it came out.”
Also unveiled were plans for the 10th festival.
“It’s the 10th so yeah, it’s going to be a big one,” Simpson said.
“We do want to keep it basically the same as it has been, but at the same time we want to keep it new and not do the same stuff year after year.”
One big change will be a day added to the usual two-day festival.
This year, the festival will open on the first day with opening movie and a party at the Northwest Maritime Center.
Simpson said he hopes that the opening and closing movies this year will draw the same interest as last year’s closing film, an early screening of “Sunshine Cleaning” — which is scheduled to be released on April 9.
“We do want to bring in bigger names, but it all depends,” Simpson said. “We want to do more but we want to stay true to the festival.”
The festival is traditionally a merger of history and contemporary film making, Simpson said.
“We do things that make us a little different,” he said.
“We have the big screen outside showing old movies, we have the very special night with a special guest from film history, and we show smaller films some people might not otherwise see.
“I never thought we would be looking at all of this 10 years ago.”
Simpson said that when the festival began in 1999, it had little direction.
All organizers knew was that they wanted to keep it a community event — just like the vision in Grover’s paintings.
“We need to decide where we want to go in the next 10 years,” Simpson said.
“We want to see what works, what doesn’t and just hope that we don’t get killed in the process.”
For more information on the Port Townsend Film Festival visit www.ptfilm fest.com.
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Jefferson County reporter Erik Hidle can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at erik.hidle@peninsuladaily news.com.
