An unusual, but lovingly local year in film

In 2023, our writers looked towards both the microcosm and macrocosm.

If we’re judging the state of domestic cinema based on recent box-office figures, dwindling access to physical media, and the dispiriting inflation and splintering of streaming services, then it’s worth pausing to consider how we may be momentarily stuck at the nadir of corporate oversaturation and serialization. The post-pandemic honeymoon is over. At least there’s cause for celebration and future hope in the dual successes of Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes this fall.

Locally speaking, when I page through everything Tone Madison staff and freelancers have devoted attention to in Madison and Dane County in 2023, I have every reason to be reverent of our community’s passion for not only writing about movies and video art but venerating spaces new and old for them.

This year I tried to fulfill a promise that I’ve been chasing for a little while in these appeals, and that is to really immerse myself in the locality of event happenings and filmmaking. Perhaps it was foreshadowed on the first two days of the new year with a pair of event previews—one for a sex-education documentary fundraiser at Crucible and another for a live multidisciplinary video-music collaboration at the MMSD Planetarium. That aspiration later took us to other places off the beaten path, including the Mary DuPont Wahlers Theatre, OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center, and Madison Circus Space.

We devoted substantial time to special events and screenings like the new essay film documentary Kim’s Video, which screened as a Four Star Video Rental benefit, and a trio of collaborative performances at the Midwest Video Poetry Festival. We had meaningful dialogue with local video artists like Alex T. Jacobs, organizers Miles Kristan (of SOGO Film Festival) and Karen Faster (of 53704 Frame By Frame), as well as fastidious cinephile JoAnne Pow!ers, host of WORT’s Fire Worship! show.

That is not to say we paid any less attention to more conventional venues. We saw an incredible swell of interest in the premier downtown hub, UW Cinematheque, especially in late January through mid-February and the entire month of July. After Spotlight Cinema at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art was retired, incoming curator James Kreul rebranded it as “MMoCA Cinema” and returned in late January through early March, and then again in October through November, with more documentary-focused and experimental angles.

While we temporarily shelved our podcast recordings at Four Star Video Rental in 2023, we have spotlit several new theatrical releases largely thanks to the stalwart co-owner of that store, Lewis Peterson. During winter’s most frigid days, he gazed into Kyle Edward Ball’s claustrophobic microbudget horror hit, Skinamarink, and dug into Paul Schrader’s latest psychological drama, Master Gardener, in the spring, aptly. Maxwell Courtright also consistently directed necessary attention to the more challenging and hard-to-define corners of Mills Folly Microcinema, Rooftop Cinema, and more.

A proper recapitulation of 2023 would be incomplete without acknowledging the absolutely incredible work that went into our densest and most incisive Wisconsin Film Festival preview ever (once again!) in March and April, with contributions from 11 different voices. We started with a bit of breaking news in February, then expanded into a broad collaborative overview a month later. In early through mid-April, we published four extended interviews with locally affiliated and international directors, three multi-film essays, five capsule reviews, one feature-length review, and even resurrected our traditional poster gallery. With recent news about the campus-based festival’s widening 2024 footprint at the Barrymore, the Bartell, and Flix Brewhouse, it will be thrilling to witness how that will shape interest across the city. And you can bet we’ll be there with the timely scoop.

Thanks so much for reading us during this past year of film coverage, which has undoubtedly been a little different than the past few. As the industry sees its share of valleys and peaks (can’t shrug off the “Barbenheimer” juggernaut, now can we, which you will surely read about later this month in our year-end reflection), we want to make sure we’re committed to perpetuating interest in and thoughtful conversation about the medium. Tone Madison can be a resourceful regional home and stable presence in an otherwise tenuous state of national media.

You can aid our staff and freelancers by becoming a Tone Madison sustainer during this holiday season for as little as $5 per month, a much more worthwhile option to enduring a streaming service price hike. New monthly donations will be tripled thanks to our partnership with NewsMatch, the Loud Hound Foundation, and community matches. Currently, we’re at 40 percent of our goal—can you help us get to 50 percent today? Thank you for helping make our coverage distinct and engaging.

We’ll always have…movies,

Grant Phipps, Film Editor