The brown and red leaves not only indicate the coming of autumn and Halloween, but also the second annual Salt Lake Freedom Film and Storytelling Festival.
Along with Freedom Motion Pictures, the Fort Douglas Museum will be sponsoring the event. The festival features a second showing of “Ghostly Guardians,” Brian Fetzer’s documentary about the ghosts who have been rumored to inhabit the old fort. The film explores the shadows and empty corridors of the haunted Fort Douglas Museum. In it, Fetzer interviews employees who say they have seen the ghost of Clem, a civil war soldier who endlessly roams the hallways.
Some lucky students might remember Fetzer’s portrayal of the great mathematician Albert Einstein in his math courses to explain the algorithm E = mc2. This math instructor is not just a number cruncher, though. Fetzer is also a director who integrates his fascination with filmmaking with his love for teaching.
His new film, “The Music of Mathematics,” focuses on new and inventive ways to teach children the art of math. “These children are just pushing buttons,” Fetzer said. “And if all of them are just pushing buttons, then what are they really learning?”
Fetzer hopes that the movie will help children learn more about math and its great thinkers. “The Music of Mathematics” will premiere at the festival on Oct. 28.
Fetzer has led a long and distinguished career as a writer, singer, songwriter, storyteller, substitute teacher and university instructor.
“I was teaching in the drama department in 2002 when I came to the realization that I could make motion pictures,” he said.
After producing many of his own films with strong support from friends and family, Fetzer founded Freedom Motion Pictures.
“Agencies and publishers hounded me to compromise the integrity of many of my pieces. When art and business clash, the artist usually goes out the back door,” Fetzer said.
Financing this hobby has led Fetzer to countless appearances on KSL Channel 5 station. With the help of the Fort Douglas museum and Corona of an Eclipse Productions, Fetzer is able to successfully orchestrate this year’s Salt Lake Freedom Film and Storytelling Festival.
The main theme for this year’s film festival is “Celebrating the Nobility in Liberty.”
“It’s about three things,” Fetzer said. “The first is beauty, beauty in the ordinary. The second is about heart. We’ll be showing a number of classic films which captured the hearts and minds of past audiences. This brings me to the third, which is intelligence, such as great poetry and writing.”
Fetzer has adopted a film-to-fables approach to this year’s festival. It will not only show classics of the silver screen and documentaries, but Fetzer himself will also host live performances. Shows such as “Don’t get Funny with a Mummy” and “Pleasantly Spooky Tales” are set to help children get into the Halloween spirit.
Lennie MahlerBrian Fetzer, artistic director of the Salt Lake Freedom Film and Storytelling Festival, rehearses a piece intended to frighten and teach lessons to children at the Post Theatre on Wednesday night.