It may be unfair to compare Side Stories, a new outdoor short-film program, to the River North neighborhood’s better-known Crush Festival.
The latter deploys street artists to cover walls with murals, beautifying and — just as important to organizers — activating otherwise disused spaces for the sake of selling neighborhood character.
But given its success, with more than 100 artists turning out for last year’s splashy event, Crush is also instructive for Side Stories.
It’s no slight to point out that the inaugural event, 6-10 p.m. Feb. 21 through March 2, will reflect some of Crush’s brightest facets, including directing visitors to spend money at local boutiques, breweries and eateries as part of the experience.
“The gentrification conversation tends to focus on housing, which makes total sense because that’s where the most pain is. But what I think about is gentrification of businesses,” said Fiona Arnold, president of Mainspring Developers, who hatched the idea for Side Stories.
“For me it’s about, ‘How do you keep the smaller businesses here?’ There’s no doubt that the explosion in RiNo will affect residential neighborhoods like Five Points and other parts of north Denver. But I’m not sure people have been focused on businesses.”
To draw visitors in, Side Stories will swipe bits and pieces from different formats. Like Crush, it will include original artwork strategically placed on public walls, free and open to all ages. Like a drive-in movie theater, visitors can don earphones via smartphones to hear the audio of the short films, which were commissioned for $5,000 each to create site-specific, 3-to-5 minute loops “inspired by RiNo’s historic neighborhoods,” according to a press release.
Genres for the 10 films range from live-action to animation and documentary. Already-announced artists and outfits include Postmodern, Futuristic Films, Gary Emrich, Ivar Zeile (Denver Digerati), CU Denver Student & Faculty Collaboration, David Zimmer, HaveyPro Cinema, The Made Shop, Mighteor and Studio Hippo.
Films will screen on 10 walls in East RiNo, from Broadway to 36th Street and Blake to Larimer streets, with the Side Stories website offering an augmented-reality tour of the neighborhood. Taking cues from the urban-hiking trend, an interactive, historical-minded map will offer block-by-block suggestions on where to stop for a drink, a bite to eat or some shopping.
“Fiona came to us out of the blue last fall,” said Jaime Licko, president of RiNo Art District. “She said that she’d been to Montreal and seen this urban film installation with her family, and did she think we could pull something like this off in RiNo? We got immediately excited as we are evolving and changing, and really trying to understand how we meet all the needs of the artists in the district.”
Leadership at both the Rino Art District and Denver City Council has battled criticism in recent months as issues of gentrification have nagged the fast-developing neighborhood, from a controversial sign at Ink! Coffee to the struggle for safe, affordable artist housing in what was formerly a haven for the DIY community at spaces such as Rhinoceropolis and Glob.
“We’ve been pretty heavily focused on murals and street art, and we’ll continue to do that, but we have heard the desire from other creatives in the community that we could be doing a better job of supporting the diversity of art being produced in our district,” Licko said. “So for us, (Side Stories) was a perfect jumping-off spot.”
Side Stories also doubles as a winter-months marketing tool, given the difficulty in turning people out to pedestrian-oriented galleries and shops in colder temperatures.
“Our idea with Crush was always to bring the inside out, and Side Stories accomplishes that same goal in a different medium,” Licko said. “It’s a compelling way to explore the neighborhood. You’re wandering from one location to another, looking for these interesting, lit-up installations that are brightening some pretty long nights here.”
The RiNo Art District invested $50,000 into Side Stories, covering 100 percent of the artist’s stipends, with an overall project budget of $150,000 made up by Fiona and Bill Arnold and the Martin Family Foundation.
While Crush draws anywhere from 10,000 to 12,000 people daily during its late-summer run (it will likely return in September, although dates have not yet been set), Licko is expecting a more modest turnout for the first Side Stories. The District will work with businesses to measure sales and crowd movement on event days, although Licko said that will be difficult since the footprint will be much larger than Crush’s.
Still, Side Stories has the potential to move to other neighborhoods after RiNo. Its partners — creator Arnold’s Mainspring Developers, plus Mary Lester/Martin Family Foundation, RiNo Art District, the Colorado Office of Film, Television, & Media, and the Denver Film Society — hint at strong institutional support when (or if) it continues past its first outing.
Arnold, for example, in 2015-2016 was the executive director of the state’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade, under which Colorado’s film and TV office operates.
“I called Donald (Zuckerman, Colorado film’s commissioner responsible for approving in-state film incentives) and he thought it was a great idea,” Arnold said. “As we talked about it, we started to see it as this rolling project that goes from neighborhood to neighborhood. Maybe next year we do 10 nights in LoHi, and then the Golden Triangle? And all along the way you can curate a different experience.”
Despite the state’s approval and help with the project, Side Stories will not draw any state money — even as it enjoys city arts-machinery support.
“I look at RiNo as a trial balloon,” said Zuckerman, whose film and TV office wrangled a number of the major players for Side Stories. “We’ve had conversations with Denver Arts & Venues, which is very much behind it, and thinking about sponsorship ideas, including using their digital signs across the city to promote it. We haven’t met with Visit Denver yet, but we see it as great for tourism. We hope to bring them into the fold, kind of the way we put together (Bravo’s 2017) ‘Top Chef’ taping in Denver.”