Previous Festivals: 2003

Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman introduce Mr. & Mrs. Bridge

MASS MoCA Director Joe Thompson initiates the Halloween night festivities

What a year! In many ways, the Fifth Anniversary Season was the culmination of everything that had gone before.

Finding places to lodge the guest artists was a major challenge - no less than 30 were in residence, driving from New York, Boston, and Maryland and flying in from Halifax, Austin, and San Francisco. They represented a record 40 films, among them the highly-praised Sundance successes The Station Agent and Off the Map. Having inaugurated a shorts series the year before, the Festival nearly doubled the number onscreen in 2003, with a breakfast seminar devoted to "The Art of the Short" and short films playing before every feature, in the popular All-Shorts Slot, and in a raunchy Seven Deadly Sins slot at midnight on Halloween. Another innovation last season - documentaries - proved a draw this time around with Bluegrass Journey, A Boy’s Life, and Broadway: The Golden Age. Two striking films, The Event and levelland, were brought up from the Tribeca Film Festival, while No Sleep ‘til Madison came in over the transom and became a sleeper hit of the Festival.

Finally, some major artists joined the fun. Campbell Scott, who scored in the title role of last season's Roger Dodger, returned as a director this year with Off the Map and told a packed lunch seminar all about "The Hyphenate Life." Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman launched WFF's new Classic Slot with a completely sold-out screening of Mr. & Mrs. Bridge at MASS MoCA, delighting the crowd with their obervations on the film and their careers at large. After negotiations with Miramax, the schedule climaxed with the Berkshire premiere of The Human Stain. Overall attendance went from 2,500 to 2,850, a jump of 14%. And local banks and hotels - loyal sponsors since the Festival's charter season, joined last season by HBO - were augmented this year by A & E, The Coca-Cola Company, Discover Re, and the Writers Guild of America, East.

5 years!... a small landmark, but a real one. That WFF has made it this far speaks eloquently for the sequential festival it is, with every film showing once to maximize the communal experience and the sense of one-on-one. By contrast with such large-scale undertakings as Toronto and Sundance, it seems clear that in a region already blessed with great theater, art, music and dance, an intimate operation can play a vital role. One visiting screenwriter put his finger on it this past season when - asked to sum up his experiences here - he called WFF "a world-class festival with a small-town heart."