At the first Woods Hole Film Festival in 1991, co-founder Kate Davis was a bundle of nerves as she addressed the attendees in the Old Woods Hole Fire Station.
“It was like getting up and talking to an extended family, because Woods Hole is a small town,” said Davis, who grew up in Belmont.
Davis spent her summers in the Cape Cod town because her father had friends who worked at the renowned Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL). There, she met her festival co-founder Judith Laster. The two worked together at the MBL Club and screened movies on Thursday nights.
By 1991, both Davis and Laster had become involved in filmmaking and were looking for a venue to showcase their work. They settled on a festival, sharing their work, and the work of others, with the Woods Hole community, Davis said.
In those early days, the festival was run on a shoestring budget.
“We made a little poster and Xeroxed it and used thumbtacks to stick it up around town. We had no budget,” Davis said.
They screened the films on the second floor of the Old Woods Hole Fire Station, with room for about 80 people, Judy Laster told The Voice. Back then, films were primarily shown on 16 mm projectors, so Laster would climb up a ladder in the back to run the machine.
What started as a one-day-event has evolved into a weeklong movie buff’s dream, drawing film submissions from around the world.
This year, they will host a film festival intensive for Cape Cod Community College students. The guided experience will allow students to speak with filmmakers and learn about running a festival, Laster said.
Foray into Film
Growing up in Belmont, Davis attended Winnbrook Elementary School and remembers going to the old Brighams Ice Cream. An art major at Harvard University, she focused on printmaking, but decided to take a film class, and there she found her calling.
“I really felt like I had found my form,” said Davis, who has now made films for PBS, HBO, MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) and The History Channel, to name a few.
At Harvard, she met her husband and collaborator, David Heilbroner. Together, they have worked on several films together, including an Oscar-nominated documentary from 2017 called “Traffic Stop,” which tells the story of Breaion King, who was pulled over for going “a little over the speed limit,” and ended up being thrown to the ground by a police officer and arrested, Davis said.
The documentary is a “portrait of possible racism within law enforcement,” she said.
Sheila Nevins, then-president of HBO Documentary Films, thought Davis and Heilbroner would be the right people to tell King’s story because they had experience covering social issues, Davis said.
The two had previously made a documentary using bodycam and dashcam footage, “Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland” about a Black woman who was found dead in her jail cell after being arrested over a traffic violation.
With their documentaries, Davis said she likes to “pull an audience into people’s direct experience, and through storytelling…a general audience can end up understanding a cultural or political problem,” she said.
Though she no longer directs, Davis said she is still involved, screening her films, and hosting panels. This year, she will lead “From Indie to Oscar,” a panel featuring festival alums who are Oscar nominees and winners.
“No Rope-Lines”
Laster described the Woods Hole Film Festival as being “no-rope lines, meaning everyone can exist at the same level.” Attendees can stroll into the festival lounge and have coffee with a filmmaker. Some Woods Hole residents even open their homes.
“If you go to a film festival, I like to say it comes off the screen. It’s not just something you sit passively and watch,” Laster said. “Those human connections are what matters.”
The 35th Woods Hole Film Festival will run from July 25 through Aug. 1.
