By OnMilwaukee Staff Writers   Published Sep 08, 2015 at 10:36 AM

Last week, the Milwaukee Film Festival finally unveiled its full lineup of movies – a gobsmacking total of 303, including both features and shorts. There's more than plenty to check out, but as with every year, the movies are just one – albeit pretty significant – part of what the festival offers.

For instance, there's also the collection of panels, which the Milwaukee Film Festival announced this morning. This year features the annual "Keynote: State of Cinema" lecture, presented this year by renowned Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips, as well as several other conversations and events built around bringing the film's subjects and themes to life outside of the theater.

Here's this year's full lineup of panels for the Milwaukee Film Festival:

Keynote: State of Cinema

  • Saturday, Sept. 26 at noon at Kenilworth Square East, room 620
  • Michael Phillips – film critic for the Chicago Tribune, as well as co-host of "At the Movies" with Richard Roeper and A.O. Scott and guest host for Turner Classic Movies – will present this year's "Keynote: State of Cinema" address, discussing the current state of film, film criticism, film business and more. 

Passport: Sweden

  • Saturday, Sept. 26 at 2 p.m. at Kenilworth Square East, room 620

  • To in preparation for the festival's "Passport: Sweden" program, Prof. Ursula Lindqvist – who teaches Scandinavian cinema and Swedish language at Gustavus Adolphus College – will present a talk on the movements and ideas of contemporary Swedish film. 

Community-Police Relations

  • Saturday, Oct. 3 at 3 p.m. at Kenilworth Square East, room 620

  • With several festival selections on the topic of community-police relations – "30 Seconds Away: Breaking the Cycle," "Peace Officer," "Cincinnati Goddamn" – several panelists discuss the status of community-police relations in Milwaukee and the actions being taken to rebuild trust and safety by both citizens and officers.

    MODERATOR: Faith Kohler, Director, "30 Seconds Away: Breaking the Cycle"

    PANELISTS: Dr. Kimberly Hassell, Criminal Justice, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Fred Royal, President, NAACP - Milwaukee Branch; Damien Smith, District 5 Youth Organizer, Safe & Sound; Steven Spingola, Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice, Gateway Technical College and Waukesha County Technical College

In Focus: Youth Activism in Milwaukee

  • Saturday, Oct. 3 at 6:30 p.m. at Kenilworth Square East, room 620

  • To celebrate and explore the type of positive action demonstrated by the subjects of "Romeo Is Bleeding," this event invites you to experience the diverse actions for peace currently undertaken by this all-youth panel of Milwaukee activists sharing their stories.

    MODERATOR: Dasha Kelly, Founder, Still Waters Collective

    PANELISTS: TBA

Education Reform: Praxis and Policy

  • Sunday, Oct. 4 at 3 p.m. at Kenilworth Square East, room 620

  • Based on the festival documentary "Most Likely to Succeed, two groups of experts bring local perspective to innovations in education, including those seen in the film. The first group will demonstrate some of the ways that educators are working to engage students in Milwaukee, followed by a second group of educational policy experts, who will discuss some of the possibilities for rethinking school throughout the city and state.

    MODERATOR: Joe Yeado, Senior Researcher, Public Policy Forum

    PANELISTS: TBA

The Milwaukee Film Festival also has a collection of events focused on educating and supporting filmmakers. Those events include:

Filmmaker Mixer

  • Friday, Sept. 25 at 5 p.m. at the Sun Room at Cafe Centraal
  • An event dedicated to filmmaker networking

Seed & Spark Presents: Crowdfunding to Build Independence

  • Saturday, Sept. 26 at 4 p.m. at Kenilworth Square East, room 620
  • A workshop focused on helping young filmmakers use crowdfunding outlets successfully to reach out to potential viewers and producers. 

Immersive Storytelling: Virtual Reality & the Next Wave of Filmmaking

  • Sunday, Sept. 27 at 3 p.m. at Kenilworth Square East, room 620
  • An event discussing the new wave of virtual reality filmmaking equipment, including live demonstrations and filmmaker methods. 

VR Filmmaking Tech Gallery

  • Monday, Sept. 28 and Tuesday, Sept. 29, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Kenilworth Square East, room 620
  • Open to the public, the VR Filmmaking Tech Gallery showcases VR rigs, workstations and platforms available to the next wave of filmmakers. 

Pitch Us Your Film! Contest

  • Saturday, Oct. 3 at 12 p.m. at Kenilworth Square East, room 620

  • Local filmmakers pitch their fiction film ideas to a panel of industry insider judges in the hopes of winning a $1,000 cash prize. 

  • JUDGES: Ed Arentz, Music Box Films; Laurie Scheer, "The Writer's Advantage: A Toolkit for Mastering Your Genre"; Heidi Wicker, Sundance Film Festival