At Chicago Filmmakers there’s a lot going on in 2024! #Reeling42’s call for submissions is open at www.filmfreeway.com/reelingfilmfestival and we have new Queer Writers Club dates on the calendar (so sign up!) We thought it was a perfect time to publish this wonderful profile of Reeling alumnus, Austin Bunn, director of the AARP Silver Image Award-Nominated film, CAMPFIRE.

Austin Bunn is Associate Professor in the Department of Performing and Media Arts and the Director of the Milstein Program in Technology and Humanity at Cornell University. He co-wrote the script for KILL YOUR DARLINGS (Sony Pictures Classics), starring Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and won the International Days Prize at the Venice Film Festival. His award-winning short films, including LAVENDER HILL, IN THE HOLLOW, ASCENT, and GHOSTS have screened nationally and internationally at Frameline (SF), OutFest (LA), InsideOut (Toronto), Brooklyn Film Festival (NY), Provincetown International Film Festival (MA), Sidewalk Film Festival (AL), Milwaukee Film Festival (WI), Skabmagovat Indigenous Film Fest (Finland), MEZIPATRA (Czechoslovakia), USN Expo (Italy), and elsewhere. ASCENT is now distributed on television by Shorts TV (nationally and internationally).

Austin Bunn’s smart, poignant short film, CAMPFIRE was part of Chicago Filmmakers’ 41st annual Reeling Film Festival. The movie is a part-documentary, part-narrative hybrid that follows a married dairy farmer who travels to a gay campground in rural northeastern Pennsylvania to search for the man he fell in love with 30 years before. Having now watched another of his shorts, IN THE HOLLOW, it is clear he has a real talent for seemlessly threading together his storytelling style with engaging interviews of day-to-day people. He was kind enough to sit down for an interview a couple months ago to talk about his work and short form in general.

GIF from CAMPFIRE, an AARP Silver Image Award Nominee at the 41st Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival. Visit www.filmfreeway.com/reelingfilmfestival to submit your work to Reeling!

I asked him about the short piece he had in Reeling - CAMPFIRE. When you watch the film, you’re not entirely sure if you’re watching fiction or documentary, an intriguing blend that keeps you asking questions while not taking you out of the flow of the film. I asked him about why he chose to take this approach. “I like the combination. I feel like documentaries often have this constraint on their emotionality. It's very difficult to be really moved by a documentary. But I thought it [CAMPFIRE] was going to be a documentary film, and I thought maybe I would use a narrative conceit somehow but I didn't know what it was going to be. So then in summer 2022, after shooting for 3 or 4 weekends, I was like ‘I don't know what the story is. I don't know how to make a narrative out of what I'm looking at.’ They were great characters. I had been to Hillside before, just as a person living in upstate, and it's a parade of wonderful personalities.”

Nominated for the AARP Silver Image Award honoring films and filmmakers who depict Queer elders, including the wonderful actors who help tell their stories. AARP is the premiere sponsor of Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival, currently accepting submissions for 2024.

(Author’s note: The “Hillside” he’s referring to is an all-male, clothing-optional campground in Pennsylvania. Learn more at https://hillside.camp/).

As he was considering his next steps in structuring the rest of the movie, he got a call that helped him fully construct the narrative in emotional and personal truth. “I got this phone call from this guy who introduced himself as a friend of my dad's. He had just finished reading my dad's obituary - my dad died in 2018 - and he said that he had known my dad when they were in the military together from 1957 to 1959 on an Air Force Base in Louisiana. They were lovers. This guy said, ‘Your dad was love of my life.’ Obviously this was in secret. Then my dad eventually lived a straight life and got married to my mom and had three kids.” This big piece of personal news found its way into his work’s narrative, exploring the other possible lives his father could have led. The story is clearly resonating with audiences as CAMPFIRE has won accolades including the Jury Award for Best Queer Short in the Provincetown International Film Festival 2023 and Best LGBTQIA Short Film at Cleveland Film Fest 2023.

We also discussed how, especially compared to feature films, short filmmaking is an overlooked and underrated art form. “When you make shorts, they hardly ever get written about. You know, you don't really get reviewed, you never really know what people think,” he said. I asked him his thoughts on the status of the short form in today’s cultural landscape. He compared short film’s place to the ebb and flow of short fiction’s prestige. “Whatever appeared in the New Yorker was really super buzzing. That's how people would get discovered, and these days I feel like that really has sort of diminished.” He talked about how there have been times when short form has been influential, launching careers, such as when Broad City and other series started as short web series. And at other times, people are more interested in the world of feature-length. He said some of the issue is developing people’s “appetite” for short form. “We're used to sitting for a full meal when you sit down for dinner, right? And so, the Tapas culture of short film doesn't exist that much, at least in the States.”

Here’s hoping for more celebration of short form work. At Chicago Filmmakers there are many opportunities to see short films on the big screen, so keep up with Chicago Filmmakers’ season at https://chicagofilmmakers.org/ . You can share your own short films at one of our Open Screenings, or by submitting to our world class film festivals, including the popular Chicago Seen screening series which showcases Chicago-based shorts!

On March 15th, watch Sonnie Wooden’s incredible short film GUILLOTINE screening before the premiere of COMMODITY TRADING: DIES IRAE by M. Woods.

Expect to see dozens of short films at the 34th Onion City Experimental Film Festival. Visit www.onioncityfilmfest.org for more info.

Keep up with Austin Bunn’s work at https://austinbunn.com/. He is on Instagram as @austinleebunn.

REELING ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: Austin Bunn | By Colleen O'Doherty