The 2019 Milwaukee Film Festival kicked off in grand style Wednesday evening with a VIP party attended by more than 100 Milwaukee-area business and community leaders. Check out the attached slideshow to see photos from the party and film showing at the Oriental Theatre on Milwaukee’s east side.
A group of board members, donors and community leaders gathered to start the film festival, which runs this year Oct. 17-31. The group heard from Milwaukee Film Festival CEO Jonathan Jackson and viewed the movie “The Keeper.”
In 2019, Milwaukee Film looks for ever greater attendance as the 11th-annual festival expands to six theaters and 349 films.
Along with the Oriental Theatre, Avalon Theater, The Times Cinema and The Jan Serr Studio Cinema, Milwaukee Film added The Rivoli Theatre in Cedarburg and The Cabot Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center in Milwaukee’s 3rd Ward.
Along with theater additions, the festival’s home theater — the Oriental — has undergone renovations as part of Milwaukee Film’s $10 million capital campaign, which the nonprofit reached in February.
Milwaukee-area business and community leaders in attendance included retired Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig and his wife, Sue; Ted Kellner of T&M Partners LLC; Milwaukee philanthropists Donald and Donna Baumgartner; Patti Keating Kahn of PK2 Group; Dan Bader of Bader Philanthropies; Robert Joseph of Joseph Property Development; and Milwaukee lobbyist Moira Fitzgerald.