In a small town in central Wisconsin, independent filmmaking gets a stage in a global way.
Each November since 2011, the Weyauwega International Film Festival has offered filmmakers the chance to showcase their work to a public audience. Local residents are getting the chance to see independent films they’d normally have to travel elsewhere to see.
The nonprofit Wega Arts, led by Executive Director Ian Teal and his partner, Artistic Director Kathy Fehl, is the organization behind the festival, which will show about 50 short and full‑length features. The festival includes Wisconsin‑made, national and international films from about 15 different countries.
Among its past highlights: Teal managed to obtain the South Korean film “Parasite” just before it hit big, which was “a total fluke,” he says. He had found the film online from distributor A24, which at the time was small; the film had just begun distribution in 2019 and then it ended up winning Best Picture in 2020. It was only showing on a few screens in the U.S. when it was shown at the festival.
All films are screened inside the historic Gerold Opera House on Main Street, where guests can gather around tables or sit in an old‑timey balcony while enjoying the films, a full bar and restaurant food ordered through an app.
Teal, who is from Wisconsin, met Fehl in New York City where they started a theater with friends in the East Village. Teal and Fehl ended up in Weyauwega in the 1990s when they needed a quiet place to edit a film, and they ended up staying and starting a rental property business. When the historic Gerold — which has shown films going back to its 1915 beginnings — went up for sale, they jumped.
“We were always really intrigued by it, and so in 2007 we went ahead and bought it,” Teal says. They formed Wega Arts as a nonprofit, and then the economy tanked the next year. “We struggled for a bunch of years, but eventually we were able to pay off the mortgage … And that’s about the same time we started the film festival, in 2011.”
Thursday’s event will include a visit from actress Angelica Page, who is the daughter of actors Rip Torn and Geraldine Page. The fest will show “The Trip to Bountiful,” for which her mother won a Best Actress Oscar, and “Mint Julep,” which Teal and Fehl made with Angelica Page in the 1990s. (That was the film that brought Teal and Fehl back to Wisconsin.)
The Friday event has normally been reserved for “Psychofest,” a day to show scary films as a nod to Robert Bloch, who wrote the book “Psycho” while living in Weyauwega. This year, however, is the 100th anniversary of Harry Houdini’s death, so the festival is creating a tribute to the magician. It will show 1953’s “Houdini” starring Tony Curtis, as well as hold a seance with a local medium.
Saturday will highlight films related to Wisconsin. The festival is highly supportive of Wisconsin filmmakers, showing lots of films with connections to the state and offering Q&A events post‑screening.
Green Bay documentary filmmaker Paige McKenna’s 2024 film “Gold: The Documentary,” which told the stories of women working at the Gold Nugget exotic dance club in northern Wisconsin, was included in that year’s festival. By its nature, the film included nudity and was rejected by other festivals in larger Wisconsin cities. That the Weyauwega festival was willing to share “Gold” with audiences showed McKenna that Wega Arts is focused on cultivating important stories, uncomfortable subject matter or not.
“It meant the world,” McKenna says. “And I think that goes to show the curators behind the festival and the care and work that they put into creating a well‑rounded film festival.”
“Gold” was the second film of McKenna’s that had been shown at the festival, the first being “Seeds of Life,” a film that centered on the work of Maria Marciano, a Catholic nun working on agricultural revitalization in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
McKenna was impressed by the hospitality she experienced, including a chance to meet other filmmakers at a breakfast hosted — and cooked — by Teal and Fehl. “I just remember like feeling kind of like a star, [and they] just made me feel seen and appreciated,” she says.
Wega Arts also offers workshops with local students to teach filmmaking, culminating in a project shown at the festival. During COVID, Teal and Fehl worked with just one student, then‑high school intern Amanda Loehrke, who helped them make “The Great Weyauwega Train Derailment,” a documentary featuring local people recalling the 1996 disaster.
“We’re here to support Wisconsin filmmakers, and it’s always been great,” Teal says. “It’s fun to get all these Wisconsin filmmakers in the venue.”
If you go
Passes to the Weyauwega International Film Festival Nov. 11 to 14 are available for individual days or the whole series. Visit wegafilm25.eventive.org/welcome.
Kathy Fehl (L) and Ian Teal (R) with Norma Kuhling and Tallie Medel, who star in the film “Fourteen,” screened at the film festival in 2019.
