Daddying Film Festival and Forum 2024 (ft. Allan Shedlin, Festival Director)

I am joined once again by Allan Shedlin, creator of the Daddying Film Festival & Forum (D3F) to talk about the 2024 festival! 

My short film 'Love Grows Here' was selected for the 2023 festival and I encourage everyone to submit a film! 

DADDYING FILM FESTIVAL & FORUM (D3F)

Virtual Festival - May 2-9, 2024
Live Forum in Philadelphia, PA - May 17, 2024
Call for Entries via FilmFreeway NOW OPEN! Submit by MARCH 4th!
LATE FEE DEADLINE: MARCH 25th

Watch the 'Love Grows Here' Short Film

Girl Dad Nation is made possible by the generous support of our listeners and my wife, Executive Producer of my daughters and this podcast. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Daddying Film Festival 2024
• 13:43 Fatherhood and Film Festival Reflections

Transcript

**Transcript Auto-Generated**

00:00:00:05 - 00:00:18:03
Allan Shedlin
When we talked about lights, camera, and you usually say action. And she said, no lights, camera, daddy, guy, daddying.

00:00:22:21 - 00:00:45:20
Matthew Krekeler
Welcome to Girl Dad Nation. I am joined again by Allan Shedlin, and we had a great interview last year about his daddy thing, film festival and forum and I was lucky enough to be selected to be had my film and the festival. I've got a lot going on, but I really hope to get another film in this year's festival.

00:00:46:07 - 00:01:06:07
Matthew Krekeler
But it's great to have Allan back with me to talk about all the exciting things happening in 2024. So Allan, welcome back to Girl that Nation. It's great to see you again. Great to chat with you. And I'm really excited to tell our audience just about this year's festival, which celebrates fatherhood.

00:01:07:09 - 00:01:52:17
Allan Shedlin
Thank you, man. And it's always great to talk to another dad of three daughters. Yeah. So we just chatted a little bit before where you are on the air. So I do have three daughters. I also have three granddaughters and two grandsons. So the Daddy Film Festival is really unlike any other film festival that exists. And there are 3000 of them actually annually and probably will continue to grow because it's the first and only film festival focused exclusively on promoting the importance of positive dad involvement, positive for kids and for families.

00:01:54:05 - 00:02:24:06
Allan Shedlin
It's also different because our metric of success is not how many films we've shown over how many days and how many different venues. Most film festivals tend to use that. We showed £150 over, you know, three weeks in 76 different venues. That's not our goal. Actually, our film festival, this is year three, the first year was only virtual.

00:02:25:02 - 00:03:02:01
Allan Shedlin
Last year we had a live component, which we did back to back in Santa Fe and in Albuquerque this year we were invited to bring the festival to Pennsylvania. And so for us, there is a wonderful feeling about going and making May 17, changing the City of Brotherly Love and to the City of Father Lay Love. And it will be it's a half day live forum and it will be as noted and in Philadelphia.

00:03:02:13 - 00:03:35:17
Allan Shedlin
So instead of having going back to where there were founding fathers, we call them the founding daddies instead. And if you get a chance to look at the website, you'll see that we have kind of awesome portraits of Washington, Franklin and Adams wearing their babies and baby carriers. So we can change the founding fathers to the founding dads.

00:03:36:02 - 00:04:13:00
Allan Shedlin
And what we do in that half day is we'll show the four winning films done by kids that also makes this very unique film festival. What happens is that children elementary school, middle school, high school and undergraduate college submit videos up to five minute up to 10 minutes long. And when they arrive, they are screened by other children of similar ages who we have trained to judge the film.

00:04:13:01 - 00:04:47:06
Allan Shedlin
So there is a protocol which they look at. And when they've narrowed it down to ten semifinalists in each of those groups, those films get sent to professionals in the entertainment field and the education field, and they are narrowed down to five finalists. And those five finalists then put each finalist, by the way, earns $250 and then those five finalists are put online for a week and the public gets to vote.

00:04:47:23 - 00:05:16:08
Allan Shedlin
And the winner with the earnings of another $250 and not an Oscar, not a Golden Globe, not an Emmy. They earn an Atticus Award and the Atticus Award is named after Atticus Finch in the movie. And and the book To Kill a mockingbird is generally thought of as the best portrayal of a father figure in literature or the movies.

00:05:16:14 - 00:05:55:10
Allan Shedlin
And they will see the statue with two mockingbirds Da Daddy Mockingbird and a Baby Mockingbird Top a pedestal, which we made last year and year two. We were pretty shocked to receive films from 21 different countries and the themes this year are a letter to my father the most joyful or fun thing I ever did with my father or wish I could do with my father if I can make one wish come true for my dad.

00:05:56:11 - 00:06:30:02
Allan Shedlin
My daddy dream, which refers to the most positive relationship I could imagine having. And the fifth one, which was sponsored actually by a wonderful international organization called the Igwe Molo and it is the fifth category is men airing. And so we've received a couple of films that would fit that category. Maude in particular, I'm thinking, is a man who is taking care of his elderly father.

00:06:30:10 - 00:07:00:11
Allan Shedlin
So it's showing men in a caring relationship. So what we do with the forum is we show the winning films, and then we break into small discussion groups with kids and adults to talk about the important themes that came up in the winning videos. And so what that goes back to, Matt, is the original concept for the film festival, which happened 20 years ago.

00:07:01:05 - 00:07:35:23
Allan Shedlin
So I'm a little bit slow in getting moving here, but 20 years ago I saw an extraordinary, truly brilliant documentary called My Architect A Son's Journey. And in 2003, it was one of the three nominees for best documentary Up for an Academy Award. It didn't win, but it was one of the three finalist. And what that film showed was a son, my architect, a son.

00:07:36:00 - 00:08:05:13
Allan Shedlin
This journey, the servants, Nathaniel Kahn, didn't know much about his famous architect, father Louis Kahn, and he decided to find it about his father by studying his architecture and talking to the people who had given him the opportunity to build. And he found that some amazing things. I won't spoil it, but I highly recommend anybody watching this movie.

00:08:05:13 - 00:08:31:19
Allan Shedlin
And when I was watching the movie, I cried through at least half of it. And one of the feelings I had when I was done watching was that I wish my father had been sitting next to me watching the movie because we could have talked about issues that came up in the movie, which would we would have had a very difficult time bringing up spontaneously.

00:08:32:02 - 00:09:05:17
Allan Shedlin
And so that's where the idea came from of using film as a catalyst for getting into important discussions. So that's what the film festival is about. It's really important to emphasize two things. One is that when we talk about dads, as you may remember, I make a distinction between daddy and and fathering being a one time biological act, requiring zero commitment, just a shattered DNA.

00:09:06:17 - 00:09:40:13
Allan Shedlin
Dating is when nurturing and fatherhood intersect, and that's a lifelong process. So we make sure that we talk about fathers and father figures and so that films. And the second thing really important to know is that last year we opened the submissions to fathers and father figures as well as independent filmmakers, and we ended up actually receiving more films from fathers, father figures and independent filmmakers, including women.

00:09:41:21 - 00:10:08:15
Allan Shedlin
We had about an equal number that came in from women last year, and so we would encourage anybody to submit films. The regular deadline for submission is coming up very soon. It's March 4th week. The late deadline is March 25th, so it's still more than a month to go. Plenty of time to do a 1 to 10 minute video.

00:10:09:06 - 00:10:32:00
Allan Shedlin
No excuses about not having a video camera, because everybody has a production studio in their pocket called a smart phone. Looks like this and everybody is getting pretty adept with Tik-Tok. So you probably already created stuff. So we'd love to have people submit their film. It's really very exciting.

00:10:33:12 - 00:10:57:17
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, well, I was just blessed with the honor to make something last year and I was similar to a lot of people were. I was like, how am I going to find the time even though I actually work in production and have access to high end video equipment? I had all of these videos that I already shot with my kids on my iPhone, and so I just crafted a little bit of a narrative.

00:10:58:01 - 00:11:21:17
Matthew Krekeler
My film last year was just 90 seconds on. It was just a love letter to my daughters and using iPhone footage that I had just to tell them the story that Daddy loves them. And my film last year was Love Grows Here, just about how our family's growing, how my oldest came into our lives completely changed. Just my whole reality for the better.

00:11:21:17 - 00:11:46:00
Matthew Krekeler
But then with each each other daughter, just the love just continued to grow. And so I encourage everyone, like Allen said, to submit something even just for the creative challenge of getting out and and trying to tell the message of what your kids mean to you, what your dad means to you, what just daddy ing and general means.

00:11:46:18 - 00:12:12:00
Matthew Krekeler
I think it's a beautiful thing. One of my other podcast guests, he reached out to me and he's a TikTok creator and he was like, Hey, I heard about the festival and I'm going to submit something this year. So I'm super excited to have him part of this festival for this year. And I remember last year too, there was a component where people could view the films online.

00:12:12:00 - 00:12:23:13
Matthew Krekeler
So I know sometimes it's hard to travel, but it was great to have the opportunity to have my film even online, to show friends and family. Is there going to be an online viewing component?

00:12:24:06 - 00:12:59:06
Allan Shedlin
Yes, there is. And people can actually see your film and all the others from last year and the year before. If they go to the daddy and it's w WW dot daddy ang film fest dot com and go to the link that says archives and it will see the films. I'm not sure all of we don't have space for all of the films that were submitted like from the 21 different countries, but surely the winning films are there.

00:12:59:11 - 00:13:53:04
Allan Shedlin
We also last year opened it up to full length features and the film was absolutely enchanting. That one by a dad in LA and the film was called Dancing Dads. I urge you to see that film. It's a little over an hour long. And basically it documents the group of dads whose father, whose daughters are in a dance program, a dance studio in L.A. And every year the fathers get together to learn a routine and performing for a fundraiser and so it documents the six weeks of the dads learning, you know, showing their vulnerability, how much they love their daughters, that they'll show their vulnerability and how spastic some of them are like, I would

00:13:53:04 - 00:14:27:02
Allan Shedlin
be in in dancing. And after they just just before they perform or for a fundraising purpose, they called the daughters to learn the same routine that it took the dads six weeks to learn. On weekends, the daughters learn it in 12 minutes. So that alone is pretty exciting for the dads. But it's a beautiful film because it does show, you know, dads willingness to do that kind of thing.

00:14:27:02 - 00:14:50:19
Allan Shedlin
But also it shows what it meant to the daughters that the dad willing to do it. It's a wonderful, wonderful film called Dancing Dads. So make sure to check that out. I'm really looking forward to seeing what everybody who does TikTok stuff cements this year. I don't think we've received it yet.

00:14:51:10 - 00:15:13:15
Matthew Krekeler
Okay. Yeah, his channel is Brendon and Allie, I believe, and I think he started it when he had just his one daughter kind of during lockdown and just yeah. His new experience as a dad. So I'm excited to see what he comes up with. He has a lot of really heartfelt things and yeah, I'm sure that it's going to be great.

00:15:14:09 - 00:15:43:11
Allan Shedlin
Yeah. If you can send me a link, that would be fabulous or add them. Send me a link. That would be wonderful. But you know, I'm curious, when you talked about your own experience as a dad and when Katie covered Kayla came along first. Yeah. And I'm remembering with my youngest daughter who has three children. And when she was pregnant with the third child, she said to me, Dad, I'm really worried.

00:15:43:22 - 00:16:10:21
Allan Shedlin
And I said, What are you worried about, sweetie? And she said, I'm worried that I don't have enough love left over for a third child. So I looked at her and I said, Christina, what number are you? And she said, A third. And I said, We have a feeling your dad and your mom didn't have enough love left over for you.

00:16:11:07 - 00:16:24:20
Allan Shedlin
And she said, no. And I said, Well, you will learn as I'm sure you have. Mine will continue to that. Our hearts have the ability to expand just as much as they need to.

00:16:26:01 - 00:16:27:09
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, absolutely.

00:16:27:09 - 00:16:46:20
Allan Shedlin
Yeah. So and now I now I'm an experienced that as a grandfather as well is the same is true. Plus I have a little more time, or at least I did before as part of the film festival, like not quite as much as I would before that. Yeah.

00:16:47:01 - 00:17:12:14
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah. Well I think that's totally true that our hearts expand and like when I, when I first came along, I was like, I was like, oh, I will never love someone so much as this high. And then when I had my second, like, the same emotions came over me and and then with my third, it's like, yeah, as any parent knows, like, you love each of your kids and you love them maybe in different ways and you have a unique relationship with them.

00:17:12:14 - 00:17:40:00
Matthew Krekeler
And I think that is also really beautiful. And you notice the differences and similarities. Bye bye, your love again expands to fill. And that was the thesis really of my film last year. Love Grow is here is that I wanted to tell my oldest daughter and then all my daughters that like our family is growing, but our love is also growing and there's enough love to grow a go around.

00:17:40:00 - 00:17:58:14
Matthew Krekeler
And it's super sweet now to see the way that they love each other. And I think that's one of the best blessings I've noticed with having multiple kids and and seeing the ways that the sisters interact together is, is their capacity to love is stretched. And I think that's really beautiful.

00:17:59:06 - 00:18:03:10
Allan Shedlin
It is beautiful. I'm sure it's not every moment of every day being.

00:18:03:14 - 00:18:04:02
Matthew Krekeler
Oh, sure.

00:18:04:09 - 00:18:32:04
Allan Shedlin
If I self. Yeah but it's definitely so and and that's a great, great joy is to be able to observe that kind of thing is, is when siblings love each other and take care of each other and are there for each other. You know, I had a really interesting experience with my oldest granddaughter when her sister came along, when she was about three, a little bit younger than three.

00:18:32:18 - 00:19:04:07
Allan Shedlin
And I took her, I was there and I took her to the hospital to meet her sister. And we left the hospital. And the next day the sister came home. And the following morning, a.k.a, not quite three, came into my room crestfallen. And she looked at me and she said, Cream, tea. Jessie's still here, thinking she had only come to visit overnight.

00:19:05:04 - 00:19:05:18
Matthew Krekeler
Oh yeah.

00:19:06:03 - 00:19:25:21
Allan Shedlin
Devastated that her sister was there to stay, which is typical and, you know, not unusual. Reaction for two and a half or three year old, it looks like you have about two years between Kaylee and Nora. So, you know, Kayla had two years all to herself. And so that's.

00:19:25:21 - 00:19:26:10
Matthew Krekeler
True. Yeah.

00:19:26:16 - 00:19:52:23
Allan Shedlin
Ain't the only one anymore. So but what I said to Casey and Casey is will be 27 and April. And we still talk about this. As I said, she's a clinical social worker. So she has a different kind of world view and understanding and maturity. But what I said to her is, Casey, you will always be my first grandchild.

00:19:54:13 - 00:20:04:12
Allan Shedlin
And somehow that was really helpful for her to hear. So yeah, so anyway, enjoy the adventure.

00:20:04:22 - 00:20:07:01
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, that's really sweet or.

00:20:07:13 - 00:20:37:06
Allan Shedlin
Yeah, right you are. So I encourage everybody to send their films them. It's, it's a real adventure and it's really fun for me. You may remember I'm an educator by background, so and as a special ed teacher and in my in school career as a principal of the school for gifted kids. But it's really fun for me to be working with kids when we talk about what it takes to be a judge.

00:20:38:03 - 00:21:04:13
Allan Shedlin
Last week I was in Philly and I met with a group of 10th grade filmmaking students, and that was was fun. So you have to remind the kids when they're judging, they usually ask, what's the last movie they saw? And it was, see, it's probably, you know, Frozen or Encanto or, you know, a Disney film. And I remind them that what they're judging is not a Disney film.

00:21:05:16 - 00:21:32:00
Allan Shedlin
What they're charging is the hard work of kids their own age. And they need to be gentle, you know, and sweet in the way they look at the films. But they also need to be rigorous. And you know what? They base their their rate of the film in various areas. So that part of it is really fun, too, is teaching kids to be critical viewers.

00:21:32:00 - 00:21:55:16
Allan Shedlin
So that's where we are. I appreciate the opportunity to remind all the girl dads out there and anybody else who's smart enough to listen to your podcast that, you know, this is a great opportunity and Lord only knows how many countries might be involved in sending films in this year.

00:21:57:05 - 00:22:18:03
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah, well, Alan, it's it's always great to talk to you. Thank you so much for what you're doing. I just loved the whole idea of having films that tell us, tell a message, tell a story and an opportunity to connect, too. And I thought we just had a family movie night this past weekend and we watched the Pixar movie Elemental.

00:22:18:12 - 00:23:04:09
Matthew Krekeler
And that's a great girl dad movie. So I highly recommend that if you haven't seen it, it's about the different elements trying to get along in this sort of New York style environment with all the all the different kinds of personalities and things. But we had a really great discussion afterwards, just my family and talking about like the different challenges and the daughter who's growing up and wants to do her own thing, but the father who wants to leave his store entrusted to his daughter and just those different kinds of things, balancing expectations, balancing dreams and hopes and wanting to be proud of of your kids and wanting that approval from your parents.

00:23:04:09 - 00:23:33:19
Matthew Krekeler
I think there's so many amazing messages that we can explore in movies, and just the medium of film I think is so beautiful. So thank you so much for what you're doing. And again, I want to encourage everyone out there to check out the festival and and definitely just try to make something, even if it's it's not necessarily for the festival, but there's so many things that I try to make that are just for my family.

00:23:33:19 - 00:23:41:14
Matthew Krekeler
And it's so fun just looking back at all of those things that we do because we're doing it with love for our family.

00:23:42:12 - 00:24:13:16
Allan Shedlin
So the only other thing I'd love to say, Matt, is to give credit to the logo behind me designed by an 11 year old girl in New York City. Wow. And when we talked about lights, camera, and you usually say action, and she said, no, lights, camera, daddy. And that was completely her idea. And so on. A may is her name.

00:24:13:21 - 00:24:23:07
Allan Shedlin
She's from Taiwan. I lives in New York City and she gets full credit for what you see behind me, which is our logo.

00:24:24:10 - 00:24:50:02
Matthew Krekeler
I love that. Yeah. And to your point too, like fatherhood or like when you become a father sometimes like as you described it is a biological act, but dating is an action that you have to do and pour into it every day. And it's a really great gift when you like see yourself in that pivotal role versus yeah, just, just as like a definition.

00:24:50:17 - 00:25:03:22
Allan Shedlin
So you may remember that underneath my signature when we exchange emails that says, okay, dating is not just who you are, it's also what you do.

00:25:04:19 - 00:25:07:06
Matthew Krekeler
Yeah. So that's great.

00:25:07:16 - 00:25:12:21
Allan Shedlin
You just said it. So that's great. Thanks a lot. Thank you so.

00:25:12:21 - 00:25:13:05
Matthew Krekeler
Much.

00:25:13:23 - 00:25:18:09
Allan Shedlin
Kaley, Nora and Maggie, thank you.

00:25:18:23 - 00:25:37:15
Matthew Krekeler
And thank you so much for my audience. Listening to Girl Dad Nation, please share this episode with a friend. Check out the links in the description and where you can find more about the Dating Film Festival and forum. And again, encourage you to submit a film and I hope to share my film with the world. So check that out.

00:25:38:02 - 00:25:53:19
Matthew Krekeler
And yeah, until next time, go be a dad.