The Ashland Independent Film Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary and kicking off its 2020-21 season with the Varsity World Film Week series. This annual fall festival of new international films has been transformed into a two-week “Varsity World Film Weeks – Virtual Edition.” Among the countries represented through the

  Rogue Valley Messenger: The festival will be hosted online this year. It is a fascinating change: AIFF will be available on FilmFestivalFlix.com. Can you give some insights into this business? Both the idea of online film festivals:  Is this a new, emerging industry?  And what is it about FilmFestivalFlix.com that attracted AIFF to

The 1996 Telecommunication Act may sound like a somewhat dated and bureaucratic piece of legislation; but, it is really more like a seed planted two decades ago that has grown deep and gnarled roots into American culture. Consider, at the time, the 10,000 or so radio stations in America were

Richard Herskowitz is at the helm of the Ashland Independent Film Festival. In his second year as the Artistic Director, he also is serving as the Interim Director. The Messenger caught up with Herskowitz to talk about, well, movies. Rogue Valley Messenger: When did you first recognize that film was something

As patrons of a busy diner converse about a recent downtown robbery, a man takes a seat at one of the empty booths. A waitress comes to take his order, finding herself intrigued by the stranger, even enamored. When she later finds the bag of stolen money in the trunk

Steven Remington is glad to be back home. An Oregonian at heart, he has gained experience guiding various non-profits throughout the Northwest and beyond, including his most recent Executive Director position at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Idaho, and is excited to be back “home” and to take the

By Reynard Seifert There were a lot of great films at this year’s Ashland Independent Film Festival. One of them is In Pursuit of Silence — a spirited call to arms for deep listening, bringing to light interesting research on the mental and physical health effects of noise, musing on the

Like a (benevolent) tornado passing through town, the Ashland Independent Film Festival (AIFF) has come and gone. But a film enthusiast’s work is never done. For this issue’s Public Profile, we sat down with AIFF Executive Director Cathy Dombi to talk about the inner workings of the festival and its