Grab popcorn! SC’s Indie Grits Film Festival to screen movies online amid coronavirus

If the coronavirus won’t allow patrons to visit movie theaters, Indie Grits will bring the film festival to them.

Indie Grits Film Festival is moving online and hosting a “live stream pop-up” of selected films, since the signature Columbia event was canceled due to the pandemic. The new version of the festival will run for nine days, from March 28 to April 5 and will be free. Films will play at 8 p.m. every night via “one-time-only live streams.”

“Indie Grits is all about experimentation,“ said Seth Gadsden, festival director. “We want to adapt to the needs of our community, and the technology is available to share the joy of cinema and storytelling to a worldwide audience during this period of isolation. So let’s do it.”

E-patrons can make donations and participate in web-based “talkbacks,” discussions with filmmakers and other creative leaders after each screening. Additional live stream events will be announced throughout the festival on Indie Grits social media pages, according to a news release.

The annual festival was previously scheduled to begin Thursday and run through Sunday, March 29.

Each year, Indie Grits brings together a curated selection of award-winning short, feature-length and documentary films from across the world for its festival. The festival also features the work of local and regional filmmakers selected for the Indie Grits Fellowship. This year’s programmatic theme was “Real Fiction,” and focused on “news and media literacy issues” affecting Southern communities.

The festival was initially scaled back and ultimately canceled in recent weeks as concerns over spread of the coronavirus became more urgent. Indie Grits was one of a slew of local and regional events that were called off or indefinitely postponed as health officials asked people to stay away from large events — and then, to avoid groups of 10 and even gatherings of three or more people.

On March 11, festival organizers called off all “special events,” such as after-parties and the annual Puppet Slam, but said film screenings would go on as planned. The Nickelodeon Theater, which is the venue for the films, said it would limit ticket sales in order to seat patrons at a distance from another.

The Nickelodeon will also begin selling tickets beginning Friday, March 27, to other films shown in “virtual screening rooms.” Patrons can watch from home and help keep the theater afloat while its physical location is closed due to the pandemic. New films will be added every Friday, according to a news release.

This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 2:44 PM.