2018 Mosaic World Film
Festival to screen Sundance
award-winning film “Minding
the Gap” and 55 short and
feature film from around
the world in Rockford, IL
(Rockford, IL — 12 August 2018) — The 2018 Mosaic World Film Festival (MWFF) has scheduled its lineup of 55 films for its 11th annual event to be held at the Nordlof Center in Rockford, Illinois August 24th – 26th. This year’s selections were curated from hundreds of submissions and 48 countries around the world, including this year’s MWFF Spotlight Feature Award winner “Minding the Gap” by filmmaker Bing Liu. “Minding the Gap” was filmed in Rockford and was listed by Variety magazine as one of the ten best films to screen at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.
“Bing’s work has been a part of the festival going back to our very first year when he screened work he made as a student at Rock Valley College’s Mass Communication program,” says Festival Director and Programmer Jerry LaBuy. “He has gone on to a tremendous professional career and has been a judge for the MWFF in past years.”
The 11th annual Mosaic World Film Festival will take place August 24th-26th at the Nordlof Center. This will mark the fest’s 5th year at the venue. The evening of Friday, August 24th will see the opening night premiere reception at 6pm, which includes music, bar service, hors d’oevures, and a red carpet photo opportunity for all who attend.
At 7pm that evening “Minding the Gap” will screen, following an announcement of the award-winners for the entire 2018 MWFF. There will be a short Q&A with the “Minding the Gap” filmmakers following the screening, moderated by the Mosaic World Film Festival Director Jerry LaBuy.
All of the festival’s short films will be presented in four combined sessions on August 24th and August 25th. Those programs will be made up of narrative, animated, experimental, music video, and documentary films. A full list of the films for each session is available on the MWFF website.
“Minding the Gap” will have an additional screening on Saturday the 25th at 2pm. This screening will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Eric and Alicia Neubauer of Ground Floor Skateboards.
On the evening of August 25th the fest will present the popular ‘Regional Filmmakers’ event. At 6pm that evening a reception will be held where filmgoers can meet with the filmmakers from Northern IL and Southern WI who have been selected for the event. Then at 7pm all of the short films made by those filmmakers will be screened. Each filmmaker will have a chance to answer questions from the audience about their work during the screening.
All of the feature films of the fest will be screened on Sunday, August 26th. The day will begin with the documentary “I Can Only Be Mary Lane” at 11am. The narrative feature “The Forest” will screen at 1pm. The last feature film will be an encore screening of “Minding the Gap” that will begin at 4:30pm on Sunday. That screening is co-sponsored by the Trauma Informed Community Film Series and will hold a Q&A immediately following the screening moderated by Jennifer Cacciapaglia – Manager for the Mayor’s Office of Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking Prevention.
Advance tickets are available for purchase online at http://bit.ly/mtgrockford. There is a limit of 250 pre-sale tickets for each day of the fest. Any tickets still available when the fest opens will be sold at the Nordlof Center box office. To guarantee a ticket you must purchase them in advance online. In the case of a sold-out screening a standby line will be made available in the event that any seats open up.
