The Beloit International Film Festival means more than just ten days of great independent film. It means nine nights of live music in Downtown Beloit. It means it is Party Season.
BIFF After Dark—the B.A.D. celebration of musical talent is something for everyone with nightly drink specials, no cover charges and BIFF PILS!
BIFF PILS – The Official Brew of the Beloit International Film Festival
Friday, Feb 22nd. 7pm
Kicking off this year’s festivities will be Beloit native and one of the world’s leading jazz trumpet virtuosos, Tony Scodwell. This year he will get things rolling with a two-hour set on opening night Feb. 22 at Suds O’Hanahan’s Irish Pub, 435 E Grand Ave in Beloit, starting at 7 p.m. He will be backed up by the celebrated Highland Community College Big Band from Freeport, Ill. Special Guests will include another Beloit trumpet virtuoso, John Meyers, as well as BIFF Artistic Director Greg Gerard and the Beloit College Jazz Band.
Scodwell, a formidable veteran of the Big Band music scene, returns to Beloit to recreate some of the great standards. Creator of fine trumpets used worldwide, he has played with legendary stars crossing five decades, from Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Tony Bennett, to Elvis Presley, Diana Ross and Barbara Streisand.
Friday, Feb 22nd. 8pm-12am
Enjoy this modern and classic hard rock band from Beloit, Wisconsin, featuring five of the most seasoned ROCK veterans in the area! Nightly drink specials and no cover charge!
Done Deal
Saturday, Feb 23rd. 9pm-12am
Classic and southern rock, R&B and traditional blues from this band of local musicians featuring dynamic frontman, Joel Brockwell. Every performance is a party!! Nightly drink specials and no cover charge!
Sunday, Feb 24th. 3pm-6pm
Close out the first weekend of BIFF 2019 with a mid-afternoon treat as Big Mac (Hogtied to the Misfit) and Kyle Marz take the stage with their amazing acoustic rock & blues catalog! Stick around after the show and watch the Academy Awards on all those wonderful flat-screen TVs!! Nightly drink specials and no cover charge!
Monday, Feb 25th. 6:30pm
Every Monday night a Blues Jam breaks out at the GAP, hosted by area guitarist Dave Potter and his crew. Sit back or sit in! Nightly drink specials and no cover charge!
Tuesday, Feb 26th. 8pm
They’re back! This slightly twisted unit will have you tapping your toes… and scratching your head! Nightly drink specials and no cover charge!
Wednesday, Feb 27th. 8pm
Join Steve, Russ and their cohorts as they entertain you… and possibly accompany you… when you visit the GAP for Open Mic night! You can go solo, if you like. Or you can invite the band to back you up (they know a ton of songs). You might even get to see a few of the BIFF staff and management onstage making fools of themselves! Nightly drink specials and no cover charge!
Thursday, Feb 28th. 7pm-10pm
Local favorite and consummate musician, Matt Goodwin, dons his alter ego, Pops Fletcher, and gets solidly locked into the groove with his pals, the Dan Lloyd Trio. Do NOT miss this one! Nightly drink specials and no cover charge!
Friday, Mar 1st. 9pm-1am
It’s Show off your inner entertainer! If courage is an issue, we recommend a couple of Suds’ delicious beverages to help coax you into the spotlight! Free peanuts!! Nightly drink specials and no cover charge!
Friday, Mar 1st. 8pm-12am
This enigmatically named trio will thrill you with unique covers of classic pop, rock, folk and Americana, featuring spectacular vocals, polished instrumentals and loads of charm and personality. Nightly drink specials and no cover charge!
Saturday, Mar 2nd. 9pm
Join Kevin Patrick for a classic evening of your favorite feel-good songs from the 70s and beyond.
One of the most popular elements of the Beloit International Film Festival each year comes on the second weekend of the Festival with the BMO Harris Silent Film Showcase.
First National Bank to Present the Classic Family Film Mary Poppins at Free Closing Event of BIFF 2019
Once again this year, the Beloit International Film Festival will bring great musical talent to Beloit audiences as part of the ten-day BIFF2019, Feb. 22-March 3.
FREE BIFF Performance
This year’s annual radio play event is “two for the price of none!” For 2019, BIFF brings you not one, but two sci-fi plays that date back to the Golden Age of Radio! From the X Minus One show of 1958 comes Knocked, a play that is best described by its opening lines, ” The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door”. And from the Lights Out series of 1933, Slurp! Goes the Amoeba by Wyllis Cooper, a spooky tale about a lab experiment that goes horrifically wrong. It’s tasty!
The presentation will be simultaneously broadcast live on WCLO Radio, replete with music, sound effects and a live studio audience. The program will be directed by Jim Stewart, with cast and crew compliments of the Janesville Radio Players. Kick off the festival in classic style, with these classic radio plays!
Tickets: FREE
No tickets required for this FREE screening.
Sunday March 3, 2019 — 2:30 PM
Schubert’s Luxury 10 Theater
2799 Cranston Rd. Beloit
Sponsored by:
The First National Bank Classic Film is the final official event on the ten-day BIFF schedule and thanks to the sponsor, it is offered free. No wonder, it attracts one of the largest crowds of BIFF.
When Jane (Karen Dotrice) and Michael (Matthew Garber), the children of the wealthy and uptight Banks family, are faced with the prospect of a new nanny, they are pleasantly surprised by the arrival of the magical Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews). Embarking on a series of fantastical adventures with Mary and her Cockney performer friend, Bert (Dick Van Dyke), the siblings try to pass on some of their nanny’s sunny attitude to their preoccupied parents (David Tomlinson, Glynis Johns).
Mary Poppins was released on August 27, 1964, to critical acclaim. It received a total of 13 Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture – a record for any other film released by Walt Disney Studios – and won five: Best Actress for Andrews, Best Film Editing, Best Original Music Score, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Song for “Chim Chim Cher-ee”.
Mary Poppins is widely considered to be Walt Disney’s “crowning achievement”. It was the only film of Disney’s to garner a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars in his lifetime.
Never at ease with the handling of her property by Disney or the way she felt she had been treated, Travers would never again agree to another Poppins/Disney adaptation. So fervent was Travers’ dislike of the Disney adaptation and of the way she felt she had been treated during the production, that when producer Cameron Mackintosh approached her about the stage musical in the 1990s, she acquiesced on the condition that he used only English-born writers and no one from the film production were to be directly involved with creating the stage musical.
Directed by Stephen Pickering
Directed by Kendall Goldberg
Directed by Francis Stokes
Directed by Sanghoon Lee
It is the people of Beloit that make all the difference,” say the Beloit International Film Festival volunteer coordinators Jim and Nancy Heidt. “And this is the time of year when we are searching for about 300 of Beloit’s best to fill the volunteer ranks for BIFF2019.
Directed by Tracey Thomas