Walker Cinemas is planning the second year of the pandemic-triggered community film festival Local News

PERRY – When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Walker Cinemas and movie theaters across the country were completely closed. The popcorn machines were switched off and nobody stood behind the ticket counter for months.

“It’s my family’s movie theater, so seeing it in my backyard with no cars is devastating,” said Shawn Bennion, whose family runs the Walker Cinemas location in North Ogden.

Bennion is currently studying communications at Weber State University with a focus on public relations and advertising. With the cinema seats empty in the early days of last year’s pandemic, he tried to think of how he could use what he was learning to let the community know that Walker Cinemas was the tough times and the people behind the projector had in mind went through it next to them.

He and other family members began organizing a community virtual film festival that was open to the public to submit homemade films that were 10 minutes or less. And from Bennion’s point of view, it was a success. The theater received 12 submissions and the locals voted for a winner.

“It was just more fun than anything else that people were excited and excited about it,” he said.

Movies were made by people of all ages, from children to adults, and the winner was a 13 year old. Many of the videos were about COVID and were inspired by working with family at home.

After the first film festival ended last June, the theater “wants” to do another, said Connor Bennion, manager at Walker Cinemas, in a press release. And since Shawn Bennion is planning and promoting the second round with a PR team from student-run Ogden Peak Communications in Weber State, he wants to expand the pool of participants.

“Now I want to grow because we are still badly affected by the pandemic. I think we’ll try again and if we can go on like this we’ll just keep turning the wheels and growing and growing and growing, ”he said.

The closing date for this year’s film festival is April 18th. The community will be able to view the films from April 26-28 at the theater’s Perry location. This year, first, second and third place winners will receive a cash prize because local companies have signed up to sponsor the festival. Full instructions on how to enter the competition can be found on the Walker Cinemas Facebook page.

Shawn Bennion believes that competition fosters the sense of community that local theaters like Walker Cinemas create – something larger corporate chains cannot replicate.

“Of course it’s nice to have a nice house, but it’s so much fun going to places with familiar faces because then I think you build much deeper relationships,” he said. “I think you will find this here at Walker and I think we treat everyone with a different experience than other major cinemas.”

Given that the community has had to sacrifice many of the events that bring them together over the past year, he hopes the festival will be a way for people to get to know each other for sure. While theater-goers watch and vote on each other’s films, Bennion said Walker Cinemas had taken several precautions to protect its customers.

The audience will be seated on every other row with pooled households, and when they enter the theater each person will be given a sanitary towel to clean their seat. In addition, volunteers and staff will refurbish each theater between visits. Bennion said he was working to develop a method of making concessions to prevent people from gathering in the lobby.

“I want everyone within my reach to submit a movie just for fun and showing a creative side,” said Bennion. “As things start to return to normal, this is a little introduction to the world we used to live in every day.”