Drive-In Culture

A full year of planning disappeared in a trice this spring when the COVID-19 crisis forced the Berkshire International Film Festival to postpone its annual festivities for at least a year. But its founder and artistic director, Kelley Vickery, is not a woman to be easily dissuaded by adversity.

Vickery began to cast about for other opportunities, new ways to bring bits of her innovative film schedule to a public that has come to rely on the Festival to screen significant documentaries, independent productions, family, and animated films. She found her venue in the plight of another regional arts organization that had been compelled to cancel its season.

BIFF and Shakespeare & Company are teaming up to present a summer-long pop-up Berkshire Drive-in on Shakespeare & Company’s Lenox campus.

The series will present films Thursday through Sunday evenings, beginning July 23rd and continuing through September 13th. Programming will include a variety of documentaries, narrative features and family shows. There will also be a selection of Shakespeare films shown on Fridays.

Tickets go on sale July 16 on the BIFF website.

“We’re all pivoting,” said Vickery this week. “We were so looking forward to this May’s festival—it was our 15th year and we had planned all kinds of celebrations. First, we postponed it until September but it became quite clear that the virus is not going away so we started thinking outside the box. The obvious thing for people in the film festival world is to have a pop-up theater.”

But, where to do that? “We had been talking with Tanglewood about doing it on their lawn,” Vickery reported. “But Tanglewood decided it’s not doing anything this summer. Then we heard from Allyn Burrows, artistic directors at Shakespeare & Company, who said, ‘Why not join forces and do together?’”

Shakespeare & Company also had had to make the difficult decision to defer its summer season until 2021. “Just as Shakespeare endured two plagues in one decade to produce some of his most brilliant work, we will get to the other side of this,” Burrows had promised in making the announcement.

“On any given night, Shakespeare & Company is used to packed theaters and outdoor entertainment so having its campus empty is an odd thing,” Vickery said. “Having 40 cars present during the evenings will make it seem alive again.”

She promises “a great mixture of films, some of which people would have been, or were, at BIFF, some oldies but goodies, some Shakespeare and, in partnership with Palm String International Film Festival, we are bringing in four evenings of animated films. It will feel a lot like BIFF and will give people a unique opportunity to see films not being shown in other places.

“There will be a lot to choose from,” Vickery continued. “It’s not a high-brow thing at all, Sunday is family night. It will be just an entertaining evening at the movies—and people might learn something.”

Shakespeare & Company is starting on the journey by erecting a screen on one of its less-used buildings.

A drive-in fan from her early days in Denver, Colorado, she admits to feeling nostalgic about the experience of viewing movies from the comfort of your car — “It was what you did on Friday nights”—but not necessarily about the scratchy sound delivered by old drive-in speakers. Sound at the pop-up drive-in will be accessed through car radios. “There is such cool technology today,” Vickery observed.

The Corona virus will still have its impact on the Lenox pop-up drive-in, however. Cars will be spaced 10 feet apart and CDC guidelines will be strictly observed. People will have to remain in their cars or wear masks if they get out. “Bathrooms will be available for emergencies, but we really encourage people to hold it for three hours,” Vickery said.

That said, gates open at 7:30PM and there will be music for patrons to enjoy before the show begins at 8:30 (8:15PM as days shorten). Picnics can be enjoyed in the vehicles. “We hope to partner with area restaurants to provide curbside picnic delivery if they want,” she said.

Alcoholic drinks can be consumed inside vehicle.

The Chinese symbol for crisis is also said to represent opportunity and true to her promotional nature, Vickery perceives opportunity in this crisis. “In this very, very odd time we’re living through, this is a great opportunity for people to gather distantly and be socially engaged,” she said. “We talk all the time about why not do pop-up drive-ins in other summers. We couldn’t do it at Shakespeare and Company because their campus will be busy but earlier we talked about doing it on school parking lots. We could do drive-ins at Monument Mountain or in Sheffield at Mt. Everett. We will be intrigued to see if it works this summer.”

The full programming schedule is to be announced tonight (Wednesday) on the BIFF website. Please click on the link below. Tickets are $15 per person (kids under 10 admitted free) and go on sale Thursday, July 16th, through the BIFF website.