Allyson West | Executive Director, Cindependent Film Fest

Join host Rodney Veal as he sits down with Allyson West, co-founder and executive director of the Cindependent Film Festival in Cincinnati. Allyson shares her journey from Texas to CCM, thriving in New York as an actor, and the tough decision to return to Ohio to prioritize love, community, and a new creative path.

Learn more about Rachel online: www.cindependentfilmfest.org

Follow Allyson on Instagram: @cindependentfilmfestival

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Allyson West, Ad, Promo, Rodney Veal

Rodney Veal  00:00

You. Hello, everyone. This is Rodney Veal's Inspired By. I'm your host. Rodney Veal, and I get the immense pleasure of speaking with Allyson West, who is the found co founder and executive director of Cindependent Film Festival in Cincinnati. I can tell you, our journey to this podcast has been a really interesting one, and I'm which I've loved because it's the fact that it just speaks volumes about the fact that, you know, she does things with an integrity and an honesty and an authenticity and a joy. It just makes even problem solving fun. So I just know this is going to be a great conversation, and I'm super excited about it. So Allison, welcome to the podcast. 

Allyson West  00:51

Thank you, Rodney, thank you so much for having me and for all of those nice words you said about me. Thank you. 

Rodney Veal  00:57

I try. I mean I fanboy out, so this is what I love. I truly, genuinely love what I get to do on the show, with with the podcast and with the art show, being the host of that is just having conversations with really cool people who are doing things in our region that I'm excited about. I'm excited about film. I mean, obviously I'm in television, so I I'm going to be in love with film, but I'm but I'm really was fascinated by this, this notion of a journey to founding something, and it just growing to leaps and bounds. And so my question is, was this ever in the bingo card of life that you were ever going to you, ever think that you would be doing this? Or was there another dream? 

Allyson West  01:43

I don't think so. I really don't I, you know, I how much of life is prescribed, right? I don't think that when I when I was a child, I told my mom that I would either be the president, an actress or a dental hygienist, and I'm not currently any of those.

Rodney Veal  02:09

That was a that's a spread of

Allyson West  02:11

an interesting combo. I know, she's she. I mean, she loves me, she, my mother was a really creative is a really creative woman, and I think has encouraged my dreams, no matter what they have been. You know, I did, I have a BFA in acting. So I first came to Cincinnati because I was getting an acting degree, and I got to go to CCM and go through the performance program, which has been incredibly instrumental in my life and in my work. But, you know, I'm not from Cincinnati Originally, I'm from Texas, and so even going from there to here, I needed an advocate and a mother that would support that, and she did, and she always has,

Rodney Veal  02:59

Oh, that's amazing. And just the fact that you go, we're talking cultural,

Allyson West  03:04

yeah, you're telling me,

Rodney Veal  03:06

let's leap, let's leave the Mississippi, and now we're at a completely different realm and world of experiences. And so you're hearing your you know, you're resuming this acting, this BFA in acting. And so a lot of people don't realize it's for some interesting I Ohio is pretty, pretty adept at training people in the acting realm. I just which I find, I find it very fascinating. I'm like, folks still sleep,

Allyson West  03:31

I don't, yeah, I think I feel like Ohio is really good with media people in general. I think that there's a, like, a deep seated backbone of Ohioans. Like, I think Ohioans are the nicest people I've ever met. They are the people who helped me move, who take me to the airport, you know, who really show up for you. And I think in the industry, somebody who has that trait of, like, following through and showing up, it takes you really far. And so maybe that's why Ohio shows up everywhere in film and media. I don't know.

Rodney Veal  04:04

I kind of, I'm kind of curious about this as well, because I did that. This is not my when I talked about the bingo card of life, this is not my first gig. My gig was,

Allyson West  04:12

yeah,

Rodney Veal  04:13

art dancing. I mean, I was a choreographer, so I was like, and then like, oh, now I'm in media. My parents are so confused, they got confused, but supportive. And so I sense that kindred spirit of that. And so did you. And you said you there was a brief stint where you you've done CCM, which is a fantastic program, and then you went to New York. You did what every actor you know who actually let me go to New York. And so what was that experience like, well,

Allyson West  04:41

I loved it. I loved New York. You know, I was really young when I moved there, maybe 22 maybe 23 I'm not sure. You know, in New York, I feel like is really well suited for somebody who's at the beginning of their career, at the end of their career. And I just, I mean, I love. Love events, and I love people, and New York is one of those places where you walk out of your door in the morning and you feel like you're stepping into the middle of a parade. You don't know what is going on, and there's a ton of people, so especially the age I was and the energy that I love New York was really, really great to me. I met an insanely great group of friends and peers. I having the work that I had done in school at CCM really set me up to excel early in my career there. I had a lot of fun figuring it out, you know, auditioning and looking for agents and looking for managers and looking for groups to practice craft on New York just suited me. So so so well. But one of the things that I also took with me to New York was my Cincinnati boyfriend, and so Philip, who's now my husband, he and I went to New York together, where he was working on his chef career, and it didn't suit him as much as it suited me. And so at one point, he came back to Cincinnati, and I stayed in New York, and I realized when he came back to Cincinnati that I actually loved him. And I was furious. I was so mad, so mad I had told myself my whole life that I would be acting professionally. And New York, of course, was the place to do that. But again, what is on the bingo card of life? Moving back to Cincinnati wasn't on there, but I knew that investing in a relationship that was going to serve me for the rest of my life was actually probably more important, and so I moved to Cincinnati to prioritize that relationship, because I think if I had stayed, I would have just let it go. I'm would be too busy working, I'd be too busy seeking out what I wanted to do. It would probably become a nuisance, and I actually didn't want that for this relationship, which now has fostered an entire community in Cincinnati and two children. So,

Rodney Veal  07:07

oh, it's working

Allyson West  07:09

out.

Rodney Veal  07:09

I think so. And I love when you said it about prioritizing relationships, because as art, as as in the cultural realm, that balance is always, not always afforded us. And whenever opportunity presents of you, you do have to, it does help. It helps. I don't think people understand, like, this is a and it doesn't matter the art form. I mean, it's, it could be acting, it could be music, could be dance. You having someone else in your sphere of like, you know, I'm in your corner, right? You know,

Allyson West  07:43

it takes you far.

Rodney Veal  07:45

It does. It really, really doesn't. And so, like, coming back to Cincinnati didn't feel like a coming backwards. And so, you like, you came back to Cincinnati, what did you think? What am I going to do now? Yeah,

Allyson West  07:57

I did. I really did. You know, I, you know, in New York, the opportunities for performers and communities around performers were boundless. They were everywhere. You know, it was just about finding the people you like hanging out with. But when I moved back to Cincinnati, you know, I wasn't from here originally, so I didn't have a community to really come back to. And then my college community of peers and performers had all moved, so I felt really, really lost, and I would join a casting agency, and I wouldn't get cast for that many roles, and I would do the auditions with the theaters in town, but I also wasn't getting cast in much work. You know, nobody knew me, and I was still kind of new and just out of college, so I had lots to learn as well, and I found myself just working a day job in an office, doing administrative work. And it was really depressing. It was really, really challenging, because I had, I felt like I had, like, stepped off the sidewalk and kind of like missed my step,

Rodney Veal  09:04

that little that, that sort of Yeah, as I'm doing the dancer Lee move, the imbalance and yeah. And once you sense that imbalance, it just sends you places.

Promo  09:18

It

Allyson West  09:18

really does, yeah, it was, it was probably really, really challenging for me for maybe two years. But during that time, I was able to, like, connect with my writing quite a bit. So my my work writing, it kind of went out into all these different spaces. I did some dance performances that I would write, like, story lines into some dance performances. People ask me for I never launched a one woman show, but I would scribble, you know, story arcs and things. And then some of that work I took and I pushed it into a short film. And I had a friend of mine who was like, oh, you should make. This, this is totally doable. And I was like, Okay, I'll do it. So then I started working on trying to build a short film. And in Cincinnati at that time, I would call everybody like, oh, I don't know, people who were connected to film, who kind of had some space in the film community. And a lot of people would just tell me, like, No, you're not going to do this. No, you're not going to do that. I was like, I don't know you don't even know me. So telling me no, right now, wow, make a lot of sense. And I, and I, I think that's an important part of the story as to why send dependent does what we do now, because I face so many boundaries early when I you know deeply, coming from a place of needing to create

Rodney Veal  10:45

right

Allyson West  10:45

and find my way forward. I had to overcome a lot of no's, and one of the pieces that I did early in my career as a producer and a director was a short film called Texican, which did really well on the independent film festival circuit. And so the story, you know, as someone who was kind of new to filmmaking, I had the opportunity to play my film and play this story that I was working on at festivals all over the United States. I think I had one international festival, but I didn't go to it, but I had the opportunity to go connect with audiences multiple times a month. I think I played on average four times a month in different cities. And I couldn't make a delivery festival, right? It was awesome. But when I would show up at these other festivals in other cities, not only there were there were three things that were happening. One, there were people who would talk to me about my story, and I started to learn new perspectives. Because, you know, when you make art and you put it out there, it then belongs to everybody. I was starting to learn more about the themes in my story that I didn't know about, because people were able to see something and then reflect back to me what that work was. So as an artist, I was getting more developed. I was meeting professionals in my industry, who some people who are still my peers today, who you know, are people that would potentially give me jobs, or I could hire in the future, or other collaborators on projects. And then the third thing that was happening was that I was just seeing what is possible when mass groups of people go watch movies together. Then I kept coming back to Cincinnati, and I would sit with my husband, Philip in our local bar, the bramble patch in Madisonville, and I would say, Why doesn't Cincinnati have anything like this? And back then, we did have a lot of genre specific film festivals, but there was nothing that was an all genre, all type kind of industry standard Film Festival, even at an independent level. And Philip said, Well, you should do that. And I was like, Nope, I'm not doing that. But the idea, you know, I witness, I experience firsthand

Rodney Veal  13:04

for especially

Allyson West  13:05

still time. Yeah, how powerful this could be for somebody. And I just started calling venues, seeing what would be the cheapest date to, you know, book a venue. And the very first film festival was at the Woodward theater in 2018 okay,

Rodney Veal  13:23

I was gonna ask you about that,

Allyson West  13:25

yeah, because Dan McCabe gave me the best rate possible before they got into wedding season, and that was all I needed, was a date and a venue and then the rest we could build.

Rodney Veal  13:35

I love that. Wow. This is, well, what I'm loving about that is, this is a conversation that I'm having with other groups in the community. It is usually telling exactly like sometimes it's just you got a space, find the best rate and go with it, and it just leads to other things and and so I, I'm I love the fact that your husband said you should start a film festival.

Allyson West  14:03

He's crazy. Like,

Rodney Veal  14:05

what was he thinking? Like,

Allyson West  14:06

the dreamer, he's he is such a good thinker, though. Like, this is the person that when I'm trying to solve a problem and I don't know what it is, we'll go to the bramble patch and I'll buy him a beer and sit next to him, I'll just be like, so I have this idea what I really want, and I can tell him, like, the result that's needed, and then he just kind of ideates all around it. Like he is a brilliant thinker. He's been part of so much of this. He is the kind of person who would say, well, you should start one. And I'm the kind of person who will do it, you know,

Rodney Veal  14:36

oh, you just need to. You just need the, like, the spark, which is really, which is really itching, because the thing is, is that's a level of trust inside of a relationship that allows you to then go, Oh, you're right, let's go with this. And there's and I just love the fact that and you're right. Cincinnati does have very specific niche sort of festivals for genres of films. But this is. Talking about, oh my god. Like, like, you know, there's, and it's and it's growing. And I just feel like, well, you just look what was, I'm kind of just out of curiosity about, like, what was the initial response to the first one? Because this, you'd have to have a great response to the first one. You know, you okay,

Allyson West  15:22

yeah, well, you know, I got to travel to so many festivals,

Rodney Veal  15:27

right?

Allyson West  15:28

That I saw things that worked and I saw things that didn't work. I saw festivals that had no money, but really good vibes and really good interpersonal connections. And I saw festivals that were very well funded, but I was the only person sitting in the audience watching my movie, and that's not what I'm there for. I've seen my movie 60 million times. I've seen it. I'm sick of seeing it. The reason why artists go to film festivals is to meet people they want to meet people who will talk to them about their work, and they want to meet people who will give them more resources for their own professional career. So when I built the first film festival, I structured it in a way that the artist would leave with more tools than they walked in the door with. And now you take that idea and you put it on the backdrop of Cincinnati, like I have learned that Cincinnati is full of neighbors and friends. And if you allow people spaces where you say, Oh, I know that you're showing up to watch this movie, or I know you're showing up in this professional environment, but you ground all of the interactions in us being neighbors and friends, you can really show off how beautiful the city is, and what happens when we actually do work together, when we all Excel and acknowledge each other. And I do that. I do that for the city of Cincinnati through this work, because it's an incredibly interesting city. It's on the river, which is amazing. And again, there are people like you, and there are people like me, and there are people like everybody we know, where we can easily tell them things that we're into, and they get super psyched for it.

Rodney Veal  17:11

Absolutely. I love the fact that you that you're rooting in associated you're this is freaky, because I use the phrase tool of the tool belt, because one of my for my graduate thesis in choreography was William Forsyth. And so talk about Dream, Dream moment at OSU, that he was actually there, yeah, and he used his, his, his thing is, when you're choreographing, you already have a set of tools in your tool belt. The question is, are you going to add more tools to the tool belt and then pull the tools out when you need them? And I was like, so yeah, it's like, oh, Allison, we are spirits here.

Allyson West  17:54

Yeah, life is long. You know the things that you learn? Like, for example, if I look back at me working in an office for the two years where I was depressed, moving back to Cincinnati, I developed a great sense of organization and communication. Those skills to this day helped me build and grow the infrastructure of independent in a way that will have capacity to continue growing our programs, to be city wide, to involve everybody who wants to be involved.

Promo  18:22

I'm Bonnie miles, membership coordinator of CET. Thank you for listening to Rodney veal's Inspired by this podcast is a production of cet and think TV two local PBS stations as PBS stations, the work we do online, on air and in the community is supported by listeners like you. If you're enjoying the show and would like to support our work, please consider becoming a member at CET connect.org or think TV dot O, R G, plus, when you sign up to donate at least $5 a month, you'll get access to special members only streaming videos on the PBS app through passport. Learn more at CET connect.org or think TV dot O, R, G, if

Ad  19:03

you're enjoying this conversation. The art show, also hosted by Rodney veal, is available to stream anytime from anywhere on YouTube or the PBS app,

Rodney Veal  19:11

and, you know. And the thing is, that's the thing. It's like, mine was the I just have a curiosity. Yeah. I'm like, I'm cute. Like, oh, wait, I'm connecting dots. I'm like, Oh, that makes sense. And oh, I've heard this. And so my curiosity, in the framework of film, which a lot of people, I strongly encourage other art forms to go see film. I just feel strongly you need to see all of the different art forms to inform your art making practice and also your community building practice, because you You're what you said in there. This is about community,

Allyson West  19:45

yeah,

Rodney Veal  19:45

this is not, I mean, you can show the film. You get to show the film in somebody's living room, yeah, but there's something special about bringing people together

Allyson West  19:54

together, yep, film festivals and film events are past. Powerful, not just because of what you see on the screen, but literally what happens in the room when you allow humans to again, take their attention up to another medium, sit quietly next to each other. You start to like overcome differences. You start to spark new ideas and deep levels of understanding. You see creativity go off the charts, like we the film festival that we do send dependent in downtown Cincinnati this next year, at September 17, 18th

Rodney Veal  20:29

and 19th. Yes,

Allyson West  20:31

hey, you know what? Because

Rodney Veal  20:32

it is I put, I put it in my calendar. I was like, I was doing the research. I'm like, Okay, you need to go. You

Allyson West  20:38

have to go. I will be there saying, Hey, this is my friend, Rodney. This is this filmmaker from Los Angeles. Their story is about this. You guys have these things in common, and then I let you go from there.

Rodney Veal  20:49

And that is, that is really the legitimate, like, joy that I received from doing the show. It's like, you know, I do these podcasts, when I do the show, is, for that reason, I'm sharing the stories. And you talked about storytelling, that's the whole crux of this whole thing. I just like, once, once it's out there in the universe, I just let the universe ride with it. I'm like, Yes, and people get excited, and you don't know, we never know. And I can sense your enthusiasm. It's rooted in a pragmatic like you've organized it, you know, you know, there's, I was a joke, you know, it's turn the lights on, make sure you show up on time. We should have everything to show that sometimes the logistics of logistics, but the other part, you can, and you said, it a vibe. There is a vibe, because there's you. I was deep diving and asking around all of these beautiful filmmakers, because I'm not of native to the filmmaking process and media process I'm learning and growing evolving into it is that they all refer to your festival as like. This is like, you know you need to go, you know. You're like, Oh my God, I didn't have and they all have stories about how they've enjoyed their experiences. I love your festival. Oh, okay, why was I not? Oh, then I like, already you're in a position now where you do know. And so I was like, what would you say to to to which is interesting that a lot of people would never associate independent film making in festivals with Cincinnati, right? Talk about that, because I, because a lot of people,

Allyson West  22:22

part of the problem too, is that when I, when I was out, like, again, I love Cincinnati, and I'm not native to it, so maybe that helps. But when I was on the festival circuit showing my work off, people would be like, What are you doing in Cincinnati? Like, you need to move to Los Angeles, you know, you need to move to back to New York. And I was just like, well, this is my life actually, like, I'm not going anywhere, because this is the life that I have chosen for myself. And I think maybe it's some old Cincinnati hangover being like, Oh, we're not that great, but Cincinnati is really great, and there's actually really creative, wonderful people here. I think the vibe around syndependent Up until about three weeks ago, had no full time employees, myself included, I have always had another job that I've worked and maintained yes to support my family and support our life here in Cincinnati, and that means that the Time, My Time, and also the time of everybody who volunteers on the festival, because we currently have a 34 person festival planning team is is paramount resources, and when we do the festival every year, I know that if we don't have a good time ourselves, it's just too much to do. It's not going to persist. And so we build the festival in a way that we will enjoy it as much as our artists and audiences do, and that, I think, up until this point, has really fed this. Like, this is the best. It's like, Christmas, this is the best time of the year. Send a pendant is everything. It's so much fun. And you just don't know, like, literally, it's kind of like summer camp where there have been times where I've just casually started talking to somebody standing next to me, and they tell me a story about themselves or their movie or their screenplay that changes my life. And you don't know what kind of magical conversations you're going to get until you're in the room.

Rodney Veal  24:23

I love it. I mean, just, I just said such a cool thing. And so I've noticed that, you know, we because we always associate independent films with certain festivals, like in the big, yeah, things like that. But there's something to be said for this Midwest Regional film festival that's actually bigger than the Midwest, because you are bringing in talent from all over the country and in the world. What's in Europe? Because you're, you're, you have a great place to vantage point. I'm kind of curious about what's. State of the State for independent cinema, what's what's going on? Does it feel bright and hopeful or, I mean, because it feels like if there's more people telling stories?

Allyson West  25:09

Yeah, I think that's important too. I think a healthy film ecosystem has a lot of unique voices in it. I from a filmmaker's perspective, I think it's a really wonderful time to be alive. You know? I think sometimes when you have too many restrictions, you start to find ways to work around them. And I think that the human spirit persists and that the stories will continue to go out we see the festival itself kind of carries this cadence where the films that we see year to year, kind of reflect back to us, kind of what we think society is going through. Like, for example, in 2020 the films we received were like, what is happening? Chaos everywhere. And then in 2021 I think we had a lot of comedies, which I think was a response to the chaos. And then, you know, it's just really interesting. Like last year, oh my gosh, there was lots of family stories, like people reckoning with their parents and their relationships and trying to figure out how to move forward through challenges. And it was actually very optimistic, because we saw a lot of stories of people choosing the harder thing to stay deeply connected and change to move forward, and that was amazing. But from a filmmaker's perspective, I think that things persist as ever. If you believe in your story and you're willing to put in the work, there is a lot of opportunity out there. But coming out of covid, I don't see people advocating for their stories as much as I would want them to. A lot of times, people still just need to kind of chill for a little bit. I tell our team all the time, we can leave no stone unturned. And that is the approach that I encourage every artist to have with their own work is to go find the resources, knock on the doors, pick up the phone and talk to somebody, because finding spaces to connect will just open doors across the board. From a cinema perspective, I think that people are really wanting in person experiences and everybody knows how to watch a screen. That is why I think independent cinema is very accessible. And I think that when you have somebody like me building community around these opportunities and around these events, that we can really start to influence and change the shape of our community.

Rodney Veal  27:41

I love it. And one of the major changes we talked is that I you guys bought a building.

Allyson West  27:46

Well, we actually didn't buy it.

Rodney Veal  27:49

So explain that to because,

Allyson West  27:51

yeah. So

Rodney Veal  27:52

yeah,

Allyson West  27:53

the the building is owned by the landlords who have owned that property for as far as I know decades, and we are just tenants in the space now, the former operator was leaving, and they didn't want to shut it down and turn it into co working space. So we got a phone call about whether or not we'd be interested in looking at how to keep it open as a cinema. And I said, sounds good. Let's take a look.

Rodney Veal  28:21

Wow. Just that, just just that simple, just like, boom, let's, well,

Allyson West  28:27

yeah,

Rodney Veal  28:28

I'm saying that, but I, we both know that I that was a how long ago, how long of a negotiation process? Was that the kind of well, or is it still a plane being built?

Allyson West  28:39

There's a lot that has happened. So let's see. In October, I heard from the owner of the Esquire theater group that they may be leaving the space, and then I worked with her and the landlords for some time to look at what the best way to transition the space would be. Some of the things that I thought would happen didn't happen. And then we only got access to the space, I think what's today? Wednesday. We've been in there for about a week and a half, really, so I haven't had access to the space. We the very first day we did, we walked through with an architect, an interior designer and a cinema vendor, because we are fundraising currently to re outfit all the projection and sound and some of the lighting equipment in the space too.

Rodney Veal  29:28

That's a, yeah, that's a, that's a lift of a tall order, but, yeah, but I feel like there's an audience that's like, you said, hungry for that lived, communal experience of seeing media imagery,

Allyson West  29:42

yeah,

Rodney Veal  29:43

you know it's there.

Allyson West  29:45

Sorry to interrupt, right? It is, it is there. You know that theater averages 197 attendees per day, and the it has a proven operational track record. And I think. At the space has a lot of special memories, shared generations of movie watching flow in and out of that space, and the opportunity to keep it open for you know, my daughter saw her first movie in that movie theater, the opportunity to keep it open and welcome people into the space is 100% up my alley if a theater is going to go dark in Cincinnati and it's a beloved movie gathering space, a space for communities, I'm going to work to keep it open and however that plays out, whatever direction it goes in sometimes really isn't up to me. In this case, we are now tenants of the space in the stewards of what the space means to the community at large.

Rodney Veal  30:43

Oh, that is just amazing. Oh, I was like, Well, I mean, it has its challenges, but I, but I don't focus on a challenge like the challenges are challenges. It's exciting because you're like, it's it just allows you to then develop further the sense of cinema and community to the next level. So my question is about next level. I mean, now, yeah, how does this impact the festival? I mean,

Allyson West  31:12

well, there's been so much change so quickly, and the 2026 Festival will retain a lot of the shape that it has. We do it at Memorial Hall downtown. It's a it's really a five day event, but there's three days in the middle that have all of the screenplay programming and all of the film programming and all the master classes and all the networking and stuff. So as we kind of step into whatever the space is, the festival will stay downtown. I think, from our perspective, the festival will always kind of put a megaphone on this work that then flows back into the cinema year round. We had, like repeat audience habits, and I think with those in play now, we can actually listen to and connect more deeply with the community and bring programming into the space that supports what everybody wants out of you know, film and cinema and syndependent is really good at doing specialty programming, and as we get into the space, I'm excited to introduce specialty programming there to see what we all Want as a community from this medium,

Rodney Veal  32:20

just the rich opportunities.

Allyson West  32:24

Yeah,

Rodney Veal  32:24

it is just rich and golden. And so I one of my questions, you know, for folks who, because we talk about it, this is the show is called Inspired by it's just like, what would you say to someone who may not think that they are quite up to the task of something so alien to them, because, you know, it's like, you know, this is an idea, just to maybe make a change or do something different. What would you say to them? Like, because you have this platform, you could tell,

Allyson West  32:55

yeah,

Rodney Veal  32:56

like, what would you say to them?

Allyson West  32:58

I would love to tell people that anything is possible in Cincinnati, I think that the community we have here makes mostly any idea possible, if people can learn to talk about their ideas and learn to share their ideas with others, and still kind of hold on to the space and the the vision of it. Anything is possible in Cincinnati, I do think that you could do it like anywhere in the world. But, you know, spaces like New York are really, really, really big. And I'm not saying that I couldn't have done something like this in New York, but in Cincinnati, the impact is more one to one, and I think that there's a lot of opportunity for change. When you look around, you look at the resources that are available to you, and find a way to involve or use those resources for for the purposes of the vision or the purposes of the goal.

Rodney Veal  33:57

I love that, and, you know, and, and that's the thing about I I'm a real advocate these days of the Midwest. I just, yeah, like, like, okay, America. Quit falling asleep in the Midwest. I mean, it's just like, come to us. You will, you will come back a change.

Allyson West  34:11

We'll take care of you. We'll

Promo  34:13

take

Rodney Veal  34:13

care of you. And it's, you know, it's interesting, because I'm in this kind of privileged place to kind of have like, this conversation and other conversations like, conversations they get to have, not even on air. A lot of times I'm having great conversations off the air that sometimes I go, why did I not have a mic? Why do I recorded that? And it's but overwhelmingly, what I'm finding out is that we're all and I think it's I get the sense that everybody since covid has had an opportunity, especially in the cultural realm, the creativity, this kind of realm that we want things we do, we realize, look, wait a minute, what we've got is Golden.

Allyson West  34:53

Golden.

Rodney Veal  34:54

So golden. I mean, like, what are you doing? I'm like, and they're starting to. Leap frog forward and evolve, and just some magical places. And I'm here to, I'm here to explore it. I'm here to tell people about it. I'm like,

Allyson West  35:09

Yep,

Rodney Veal  35:10

no, fall asleep on Cincinnati. Don't fall seriously. Don't fall asleep on Hamilton, Ohio. Go to Sandusky. I mean, there's stuff, right? Meat is crazy. So how many in the festival? How many people are coming, like, from the region to participate in the festival?

Allyson West  35:25

That's a really good question. I'm

Rodney Veal  35:27

like, like, as far as submitting film,

Allyson West  35:29

yeah, I think so we, we have submissions that roll in from all over the world. I think that our acceptance rate is about 10% and then for feature films, it's like three to 4% I would really need to talk to Johnny Shea on our team, who is our curation and exhibitions director. He knows a lot of that stuff, but I think last year we have 30% Ohio filmmakers, and then the rest were national and international. And it's really beautiful, because the environment that we make kind of makes people best friends. So we have all these satellite alumni in Chicago and Los Angeles and New York, Texas, you know, like when a Texan shows up at the festival, I'm like, I see you. You're Texan, you know. Like, it just we lock in really fast, but they're, you know, we I think it's really exciting and wonderful that we do bring in a lot of artists from all over the world. Because we want that perspective. We need that mirror about what we're all doing here, and it just helps inform not only the way we shape the festival, but the way we shape individual artists work too.

Rodney Veal  36:37

Oh, that is you have, like you have the other dream job. I have my dream job. It's like, it's just, but this is so exciting. So

Allyson West  36:47

for all the people who sorry, for all the people who work on sin dependent, my job is hearing what their good ideas are and then helping them be successful with those good ideas, and that is like, literally the dream where people are like, I think we should try this. What do you think? And I'm like, sounds good. You do that, you know. Or with the theater, we just have such an opportunity to read, but that experience is from the staff perspective as well as the guest, and thinking that through right now is just such a privilege.

Rodney Veal  37:23

Love it, love it, love it. So Allison, this has been just a heartwarming, not even heartwarming, just energizing. It's heartwarming and energizing conversation, because I've been, I mean, I could see why, why it's so successful is the fact that you're bringing this energy and just vivacity to like, you know, just the process. Thank you. You just inspired

Allyson West  37:50

me my journey.

Rodney Veal  37:51

That's the journey, baby. It's like you got to bring the bring the energy. Bring the energy. You are the energy. Energy queen. As far as I'm super excited. And I challenge everyone, when this podcast comes out, you put it on your calendars. You got to go to this independent film. Go, go, go, go. Do not miss out on opportunities. There's no more excuses. I tell people, go see independent cinema. Go see ballet. Go see opera. I mean, this is a shout out to Timothy Shea, his ill timed comments about about one of my art forms. I was like, no, no, no, no, learn. And we and we did. We need to do it, and we need to support organizations like that. You found it that you've our founder of and so Allison is so this is it. Thank you so much.

Allyson West  38:43

My pleasure, seriously, my pleasure so great to talk with you.