THREE OAKS — A party honoring the Vickers family will be held at 7 p.m. Friday at Acorn Theater, 107 Generations Drive.

Recently, Jon Vickers, managing director of Browning Cinema at DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts, University of Notre Dame, accepted a position as cinema director at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. In addition, Jon, along with his wife, Jennifer, owns and operates Vickers Theatre in downtown Three Oaks.

“It is our intention to assure that our vision for the theatre continue, with opportunity for enhancement with new ownership. We are confident that we will find the right party,” Jon Vickers says.

The farewell evening at Acorn will include projecting scenes from Vicker’s favorite movies, music, snacks and soft drinks. A cash bar also will be available.

Jon Vickers plans to begin his new position at IU in March. The Vickers family will join him when the children finish the school year.

For information, call (269) 756-3879.

On the evening of Friday, February 26 MAF held its annual Winter Screening at the Century Center in South Bend, IN. We had a terrific turnout of 70-80 people in the Recital Hall where we started off with a staged reading of six short film scripts by our screenwriters group. During intermission the audience voted on which one should be made into a $100 movie, and the B-movie that won was “Night of the Living Spuds” by Tim Richardson (performed with Mr. Potatohead zombies). MAF provides the funding for the film which will screen at next year’s winter screening.

After intermission, we screened an hour of short films by local filmmakers. We had a wide variety of genres including music videos, horror, documentary and comedy. We also had the World Premiere of David Boyer’s film “5 CM Peter”, which had won last year’s $100 Movie prize. Other film highlights include MAF member Devi Snively’s film “Death in Charge” which was made as part of AFI’s Women’s Writing Workshop in. L.A., as well as “Indiana’s Everglades” by Jeff Manes & Pat Wisniewski, a documentary about the Kankakee River area history, whuch spurred a lot of interest during the Q&A session at the end.

We also raffled off four screenwriting books and hope to see a great turnout for our MAF meeting this Tuesday, March 2 where we’ll have a presentation on “Dymanic Screenwriting” by Rose Waldschmidt at 7:30 p.m.  Out monthly screenwriters meeting will be the following Tuesday, March 9 (Location T.B.A.)

MAF member and Actors Committee Chair Ed Ernstes was just cast in the Indianapolis-based fan film “Fall of Gotham.” Congrats, Ed! Website: http://fallofgotham.com/cast.htm

Pictured left, Ed Ernstes.

MAF president Tim Richardson recently won “Best Local Film” in the first annual Three Minute Film Fest in Mishawaka for his short film “I’m Sorry Llama,” a parody of the Eminem song “Cleanin’ Out My Closet.”  Local filmmaker Jim Yocom won “Best Film” with “Tempus Incognito.” There were 30 films in the festival. Congratulations to you both! Website: http://three-fest.blogspot.com

Indiana University Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson announced today that Jon Vickers has been named the first director of the IU Cinema, pending approval by the IU Board of Trustees. Vickers currently serves as managing director the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at the University of Notre Dame.

Jon and his wife Jennifer started the Vickers Theatre in Three Oaks, MI in 1996, an independent, art house cinema, where MAF and its members have screened local independent films for almost a decade. The Vickers are also Support Level members of MAF and help with promoting the River Bend Film Festival.

Congratulations, Jon!

Full article at: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/13466.html