Lakedance leaves town

SANDPOINT — The final curtain has drawn closed on the Lakedance International Film Festival.

The annual film festival founded here four years ago by the father-and-son team of Fred and Trevor Greenfield is moving to Edmonds, Wash.

“To go to the next level requires this enormous effort from everybody who can get involved with it and we’re seeing it here in Edmonds, but we struggled for four years and just couldn’t make it happen,” said Trevor Greenfield.

The film festival, formerly known as the Idaho Panhandle International Film Festival, was usually held in autumn and featured a competition of feature and short-length independent films, question-and-answer sessions with filmmakers, panel discussions and outdoor screenings.

The event was created as an antidote to Hollywood politics and star-driven marketing in film making and to pull high-quality indie films into sharper focus.

The Greenfields said demographics factored into the decision to move the festival from Sandpoint to the city north of Seattle.

“Here, we’re fortunate that we’re going to be in a town that has a 40,000 core demographic and in the larger demographic we’re talking about millions of people,” said Trevor.

Other factors included the logistics of bringing in filmmakers and providing their accommodations, too few people to help organize the festival and disinterest in marketing the festival as event tourism, the Greenfields said.

They also cite the withdrawal of support from the Greater Sandpoint Chamber of Commerce as a factor.

“We were jumping through all kinds of hoops and then the chamber told us that they would not be able to support us,” said Fred Greenfield.

“That was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back for us,” said Trevor.

The duo is grateful for the sponsorships the festival received in North Idaho.

“We had great relationships with people in Sandpoint,” said Trevor. “It pains me deeply. I can’t even begin to tell you.”

Chamber officials who were involved with the festival were not immediately available for comment on Monday.

“We felt like we were swimming upstream pretty much every year — not from our sponsors because our sponsors were wonderful and they came out of every corner in Sandpoint and North Idaho to try and support the festival,” said Trevor. “But we had dreams of making the festival into much more of an event.”