Thursday, July 23, 2020 - 6:45pm

Streaming in August and October!

Whether you're on the East Coast or the West Coast, you've probably been wondering what's going to happen with the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival®. We've been closely watching the COVID-19 situation in both Rhode Island and here in Oregon, and it is apparent that neither show can happen in person this year.

This would have been our 3rd bi-ennial HPLFF in Providence in coordination with our friends at the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council, but since we can't gather in person, we invite you to join us on August 22nd for a one night streaming event celebrating 130 Years of H. P. Lovecraft, featuring new Lovecraftian short films plus newly restored classics of the genre! While meant to bring the joy and horror of Lovecraftian Cinema to our friends in Providence, the silver lining is that Portlanders (and anyone else in the US) can also tune in!

We're heartbroken that we won't see you in Providence (or challenge you to another round of Lovecraftian Pictionary!), but besides having no open theatrical venue, as Oregonians, we can't even enter RI without a 2 week quarantine. BUT the thought of cancelling the festival outright was too much to bear. Luckily for all of us, this is 2020 and we have the technology!

This year is also the 25th Anniversary of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, OR, and  we will be streaming the full 3-day event directly into your living room, October 2-4th! We were really looking forward to celebrating this milestone with our festival family in person. However, after watching the COVID-19 numbers increase here in Oregon, and discussing this with the Hollywood Theatre, it does not seem likely that they will be allowed to be open in October.

This is normally a huge festival that takes place on 3 screens and in secondary venues with multiple art, music, film, and live events. The easiest thing would have been to cancel it and have our big 25th Anniversary bash next year, but we didn't think that was fair to you, or to the filmmakers who rely on us to showcase their particular kind of Weird cinema. In the face of ever-increasing weirdness and isolation in the US, we think the right thing to do is to bring the right kind of Weird directly into your home! The up side: for the first time ever, folks in Providence (or elsewhere in the US) can easily enjoy the Portland show!

We've got some fun stuff planned that will make this much more than just watching movies at home, so mark your calendar and stay tuned for more info!

F.A.Q.

Is there going to be a Kickstarter campaign?

We're 99% sure there will be a Kickstarter fundraising campaign for the Portland festival that will let you pledge for streaming tickets, plus exclusive merchandise. We'll update you as soon as we have more info!

What if the theaters in Providence and Portland are suddenly open?

This is the number one thing that makes our decision so tough. We have seen that things are opening at a different pace from state to state as infection numbers are monitored, which means that things could change without much notice. However, while it's possible, everybody involved thinks it is very unlikely that theater venues will be open at all. When they do eventually open, even after phase 3, the consensus is that they will still only be able to do so with very very limited seating capacity and by maintaining social distancing.

In our traditional Providence venues, this would mean only being able to seat about 25 people. In the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, this number may be less than 100. In both cases, maintaining proper social distancing also means limiting movement before, during and after the show, limiting restroom capacity and the ability to exit the auditorium to use it, no concession stand so there are no lines, and one way traffic flow in the auditoriums. It's a bleak view of the movie-going experience and is probably the best case scenario. Again, neither we, nor the theater believes they will be open at all.

How can I watch the August 22nd -130 Years of Lovecraft show?

We're streaming via the Hollywood Theatre, here in Portland, OR, and tickets will be available soon. The theater's platform is a web based video player that works on any browser by clicking the link in the ticket confirmation email or by logging into your account. We used this system for Portland Horror Film Festival™ and it worked great! There may be other ways to watch, but these are the ones we know work:

  • Watch on your computer, laptop, tablet, mobile device
  • Watch on your TV
    • by connecting your computer, laptop, tablet, etc., to it with an HDMI cable. (For tablets or slim computers like a Macbook Pro, you might need an adapter, like the Lightning --> HDMI or USB-C --> HDMI).
    • Use Chromecast: If you have a Chromecast device connected to your TV, you can cast to it from any computer on your Wi-Fi network by opening the video stream in a Chrome browser with the Chromecast extension installed. Then just cast the tab with the video window to your TV. Easy!
    • Use the Amazon Fire TV stick: log in to the theater website using the Silk web browser that is built in to the Fire stick. You can access your ticket and links in your account details.
    • Use Roku: Cast from your mobile device using a third party app like "Web Video Caster"

Is the content going to be different for the two events?

For the August 22nd one night show, we will be showing a mix of new films, a few classic films that we've been working on restoring, and films that were screened at the October 2019 festival in Portland, OR but not in Providence at Necronomicon. There may be a little bit of overlap if you attended the Portland Festival last year, but it represents a very small portion of what we'll be showing in October. In other words, there won't be a bunch of repeats, so you can enjoy both shows!

I'm not in the US, can I watch the shows?

We know that some of you from far off lands such as Canada, Sweden, and Taiwan, have been able to join us in person in past years. However, in the same way that Netflix has different catalogs for different countries, we expect to only be able to secure streaming rights inside the US for most of our content. It is possible that we may be able to make a limited amount of content available to our festival family outside the US and we will update you as we have more news.

We'll be back soon with more details, but in the meantime - Stay safe, stay healthy, keep watching the stars!

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!
  Gwen and Brian Callahan