Film, Farm & Culture Fest

A brand new annual festival is beginning this year in Wausau.

It is called the Film, Farm & Culture Fest of Wausau, and it is being presented by Northcentral Technical College.

The film festival will serve as an annual summer meeting place for audiences to celebrate award-winning independent films selected from around the world. The film festival program will include fiction and documentary films exploring the relationships between farming, land and rural life.

The organizer of the film festival is Jila Nikpay, who teaches videography at NTC.

Nikpay emigrated from Iran at the age of 19, and attended the University of Minnesota, where she earned a B.A. in studio arts, a B.A. in economics and an M.A. in photographic communication.

Nikpay moved to the Wausau area about three years ago and now teaches full time at NTC. While teaching, she has created many short films.

Her latest film is called Fragments of Freedom. Fragments of Freedom is a feature documentary that was released in 2024. It explores the impact of events on small business owners during the 2020 riots in Minneapolis.

Last year, Nikpay decided that Wausau needed a film festival and that she wanted to be the one to organize it.

She said that her students helped to inspire the film festival because she wanted to show them that film festivals can be a good opportunity for those in the film industry.

“If you want to make short films, long films, any type of films, a film festival is a place to show your work and find your audience,” said Nikpay.

She asked her students to come up with ideas for a film festival and that helped lead to the creation of what is now the Film, Farm & Culture Fest.

“I saw their enthusiasm and I thought that this would be a really great idea,” said Nikpay.

“I had to really build it from the ground up,” she said. “We did not have any structure to create the festival, so I had to find a venue, which is the Woodson History Center, and I also licensed all the films from around the world.”

To select the films that will be shown, Nikpay said that she watched at least 100 and had to narrow it down to eight.

“It was almost like two full-time jobs, between teaching full time and doing this full time,” she said.

Despite the long hours, Nikpay said that she enjoyed the process of organizing the film festival.

“I really like to envision something and then create it step by step, then problem solve and work with people,” she said.

Nikpay said she hopes the film festival will get more people interested in the video program at NTC.

“NTC is very technical oriented, and we’re a little odd because we combine technical skills with being creative, and I find that to be very unique,” she said.

With the theme of the film festival being geared toward small towns and agriculture, Nikpay said she intentionally chose films where the stories take place in villages from North America, South America, Europe and Asia.

There are eight films in total. The film screenings will be held from July 18–August 9 on Fridays and Saturdays. Film titles for the weekly screening will be officially announced Monday, July 7, but below is a sneak peak of each of the chosen films.

Through Rocks and Clouds, directed by Franco Garcia Beccaca

Through Rocks and Clouds is the first film that will be shown during the festival. It is a drama about a shepherd boy who dreams of seeing his country win the FIFA World Cup while his home is being polluted by a mining company.

The Outpost, directed by Edoardo Morabito

The Outpost is a documentary film that explores the story of Christopher Clark, an eco-warrior who established an “Outpost of Progress” in the Amazon rainforest. This outpost aims to be a utopian society in harmony with nature and technology, run by the indigenous inhabitants. However, as wildfires threaten to destroy the outpost, Clark comes up with a seemingly improbable plan: organizing a Pink Floyd concert within the rainforest to gain attention and convince the Brazilian government to establish a nature reserve.

My Sweet Land, directed by Sareen Hairabedian

My Sweet Land is a coming-of-age story set against a multigenerational war in the post-Soviet Caucasus Mountains. It follows an 11-year-old boy named Vrej, growing up in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) who dreams of becoming a dentist in his picture-postcard village. Vrej’s life takes a sudden turn when war erupts, forcing him to flee with his family.

A Man of Integrity, directed by Mohammad Rasoulof

A Man of Integrity is about a goldfish farmer in a small Iranian village who faces financial ruin when his river-sourced water supply is cut off.

Rowdy Girl, directed by Jason Goldman

Rowdy Girl follows the story of a Texas cattle rancher who decides to go vegan after a spiritual awakening. She then transforms her husband’s beef operation into a sanctuary.

Forest, directed by Lidia Duda

Forest is about a Polish couple who decide to move to a remote cabin in Bialowieza Forest and home-school their children. They think their new home will be an innocent paradise far from the modern world’s problems, but soon they find that Europe’s humanitarian crisis and oppressive border politics has entered their woods.

The Return of the Projectionist, directed by Orkhan Aghazadeh

The Return of the Projectionist is a documentary about an elderly TV repairman in a remote village in Azerbaijan’s Talysh mountains. He dreams of bringing movies on the big screen back to his rural community.

Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue, directed by Jia Zhangke

The final film is Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue. It centers around three modern Chinese writers: Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua and Liang Hong. Through reflections on their childhoods, careers and lives, the authors discuss the changes China has undergone since their births in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.

“The theme of small town and village life is constant throughout all the eight films that I selected,” said Nikpay. “That is very important to me because I want our audience to sort of relate to the films, and I want our students and aspiring filmmakers to see that they can find film ideas in their own backyards.”

Nikpay said that she would like people of all ages to take part in the film festival because it is never too late to discover new interests or learn new skills.

“I would like it to be cross generational,” said Nikpay. “Both young people and everyone from the community can be interested in independent films.”

In addition to the film screenings, NTC’s video production faculty will offer summer labs for aspiring filmmakers. The video production summer labs aim to educate future filmmakers through hands-on, collaborative filmmaking at Studio 7, a state-of-the-art video production facility on NTC’s Wausau campus.

Video Production Summer Lab Schedule:

Short Narrative Production: July 14, 16 & 18 (9 a.m. – 1 p.m.)
Documentary Production: July 21, 23 & 25 (9 a.m. – 1 p.m.)
Product Commercial: July 28, 30, August 1 (9 a.m. – 1 p.m.)
Intro to Motion Graphics: August 4, 6 & 8 (9 a.m. – 1 p.m.)

There is also an opportunity for people looking to build upon the ideas presented at the film festival. The opportunity comes in the form of a Film Fan Hub. Its mission is to engage future filmmakers and the community with award-winning independent films, and inspire filmmakers to find engaging stories right in their backyards.

The Film Fan Hub will offer a free membership, monthly film screenings that capture contemporary issues, post-screening discussions, guest filmmakers from around the world, screening of local filmmakers’ work for audience feedback, tips on various technical topics and 48 hours film initiative and screening at the NTC cinema.

“I hope the film festival will help create empathy and help people to understand different cultures,” said Nikpay. “We are in such a troubled world right now, and this is such an important step. I am so happy that a film festival is coming to Wausau at this time.”

To learn more about the film festival and all of its offerings, either attend one of the events or go to https://www.filmfarmculturefest.com/.