Greetings all! Festival director Jerry White Jr. here—it’s been a minute!
Last year we celebrated our FIFTH annual festival and said goodbye to our venue in Michigan. Ant Hall & Ghost Light in Hamtramck were dream venues—and we hope to return with special screenings in the future—but we felt it was time to move the fest for a number of reasons. The primary being: I don’t live in Michigan and the commute from LA was getting more difficult to manage. Also, since I’m not local, I’m not there year-round to promote the fest, which hurt our attendance and ability to engage the local creative community.
So VTFF2023 was to take place in Taipei, Taiwan! Yes—an even further commute from LA, but I have been in Asia since the beginning of the year while I edit my feature directing debut, Heartstorm. However my team and I in Taiwan were unable to secure a venue. I won’t be back stateside until the end of the year, so we made the decision to go on hiatus.
How long will the hiatus be? Good question. My current goal is to have our sixth edition of the fest in Los Angeles in the fall of 2024. I have a venue in mind as well as local collaborators on standby. If all goes well, we’ll open for submissions in late winter.
Five years is a great run and I’m proud of all of the films, music, and art we shared. THANK YOU to our wonderful group of programmers, coordinators, everyone at Planet Ant, sponsors, filmmakers, musicians, artists, and audience over the years. I’m honored to have shared space with you all—we created memories and made relationships that will stand the test of time.
Hope to see you in 2024! In the meantime, keep living and loving and creating!!
Jerry White Jr.
Festival Director
