Kelley Baker, AKA The Angry Filmmaker, is a celebrated filmmaker and author. He is also Keynote Speaker for the 2022 McMinnville Short Film Festival! Kelley will lead a filmmaker workshop, and speaking at our Filmmaker Reception & Awards Dinner on Sunday, February 13. We recently interviewed Kelley to learn more of his filmmaking story. Enjoy! What got you into film? “I hated high school. I thought nobody knew anything, and they weren’t teaching me what I needed to know. Then, amidst my teenage angst, I had a high school teacher who helped shape the course of my life. He was a science ins ..read more

My wife Nancy and I co-founded the McMinnville Short Film Festival back in 2011, and as our festival team stampedes toward the finish line for our 11th Annual MSFF (Feb 10-13, 2022), let’s see if we can answer the question we get asked all the time: Why short films? This question really comes in two different flavors – one from artists in the form of “How can I be a successful filmmaker by making short films?”, and from audiences as “Why would I go watch a bunch of short films?” In the early days of the film festival, I had a harder time answering this question.  Some quick his ..read more

I love ‘70s funk. While I was making my last film, “Esperanza’s Turn,” The Fatback Band’s “You Gotta Believe” became my theme song. I listened to it hundreds of times: You gotta believe When life is gettin’ you down You gotta believe You gotta face your ups and downs You gotta believe You can’t be afraid You gotta believe You gotta look straight ahead!   I’d made shorts before, but I’d never solo directed a narrative, and I’d certainly never organized such a complex production. On top of all the usual things, our 12 year-old lead needed four costume changes, three months of Hip ..read more

The short film is a tool for expressing pure emotions and experiences without the hurdles of building certain professional relationships that are necessary in feature filmmaking. As Abbas Kiarostami famously said, “Cinema is a big lie we use to tell a bigger truth.” Through the magic of cinema, the director visualizes their thoughts on the screen, and shares their worldview with the audience. This experience is different in short films. Unlike the long form, the director does not necessarily have to worry about selling the film and seeing a return on their investment. Instead, they can focus ..read more

Cecilia Brown’s documentary filmmaking chops are clear: After she received the “Best Oregon Filmmaker” award at the McMinnville Short Film Festival for her moving and enlightening doc Root Shocked in 2019, Cecilia went on to produce many more powerful and noteworthy short nonfiction pieces, including Finding Bennett, Day 54 of Portland Protests, and Brown Girl Rise (a collaboration with ZP Productions). But in 2021, Cecilia put her camera down to focus on a different kind of storytelling when she was invited by the acclaimed radio show/podcast, This American Life, to produce a deeply person ..read more

I love short films. I like the freedom they offer, the opportunity to write yourself a juicy role, or to literally Call the Shots in how you want to tell the story. You can challenge yourself. You assemble your crew, the actors, the editors and post-production team.  You get to take whatever risks you want.  You are beholden to no one but yourself and the story you want to tell. I grew up writing short fiction, so I appreciate how a short film is neat and uncluttered. If a feature film is a 600,000-word novel, a short film is a poem. Going to a Short Film Festival is a place to celeb ..read more