The Spring Schmoozer is Finally Here 🥂

On today’s agenda:

• 🥂 Boulder County Film Commission’s Spring Schmoozer and first-ever Creative Expo

• 💥 Fan Expo Denver brings the Lord of the Rings and X-Files reunions to the Colorado Convention Center

• 🍿 The Boulder Movie Club's upcoming film screening

• 📺 (Bonus!) A Ken Burns announcement at the end

🗓️ When: Wednesday, May 27 · 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM

If there is one event you circle on your calendar this week, make it this one. It is officially time for Boulder County Film Commission’s Spring Film Schmoozer!

With major productions, global attention, and the massive move of the Sundance Film Festival to our community, the local industry is leveling up. As we are currently deep into developing our own comprehensive community resource for the 2027 Sundance festival, we can tell you firsthand: the foundation for everything happening over the next couple of years starts with the local networking happening right now.

These meetups are designed from the ground up to build community within our region’s creative industry. Beyond the usual food, drinks, and mingling, this edition features their first-ever Creative Expo! You’ll be able to walk the floor and directly connect with local freelancers, filmmakers, editors, graphic designers, and more.

Because the Film Commission is partnered with the Boulder Chamber, they are actively bringing local business people and potential clients straight to you. Whether you are hunting for your next gig, crewing up for a summer shoot, or just looking to introduce yourself to the community, this is the room you need to be in.

The Evening’s Agenda:

• 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM: Creative Expo + Networking

• 5:30 PM: On-Stage Program

• 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Creative Expo + Networking Continues

While vendor registration has officially sold out (meaning the room will be absolutely packed with exceptional local talent, rental houses, craft services, and producers), attendee registration is still open.

📍 Where: Boulder JCC (Complimentary parking is available at the JCC lot and across the street at the Avalon Ballroom lot.)

🎟️ Tickets: The event is completely FREE to attend, but space is limited and an RSVP is strictly required. Get your tickets here.

Denver's biggest pop culture convention is back for four full days, and this year's guest lineup is one of the best they've ever assembled.

Attracting over 110,000 attendees annually, FAN EXPO Denver is a multi-day celebration of comics, sci-fi, horror, anime, and gaming, dedicated entirely to the cinematic and television fandoms that made us fall in love with storytelling in the first place.

Equal parts celebrity showcase, comic creator haven, interactive gaming hub, and massive cosplay event, FAN EXPO is renowned for bringing the biggest names in the industry directly to the fans. The main stage panels matter, but so do the Artist Alley discoveries, the elaborate floor cosplays, and the after-hours meetups that happen in between them.

For film lovers specifically, the panel programming is worth your time—getting into a room with working actors, directors, and writers talking candidly about their craft is exactly the kind of access that's hard to find anywhere else.

• 📅 When: Thursday, May 28 – Sunday, May 31

• 🎬 What to Expect:

  • 💥 Celebrity Cast Reunions — This year features a sprawling 25th Anniversary Lord of the Rings reunion (Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Sean Astin, and more), an X-Files reunion with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson back together for the first time in nearly a decade, plus stars from The Boys, Cobra Kai, and voice acting legends Peter Cullen and Frank Welker

  • 🎨 Artist Alley & Comic Creators — Meet legendary comic creators, watch live sketch duels, and pick up original prints and graphic novels straight from the artists.

  • 🦸 Cosplay Red Carpets & Workshops — Enter the costume contest, walk the cosplay red carpet, or attend expert panels on prop-making and foam armor

  • 🎲 After-Hours & Community Meetups — The fun doesn’t end when the show floor closes. FAN EXPO features stacked after-parties, tabletop gaming rooms, rapid-fire trivia tourneys, and “Anime After Dark” events designed specifically to connect local fans and creators.

• 📍 Location: Colorado Convention Center (Denver)

• 🎟️ Tickets: Get more info about passes, individual tickets, and the full schedule here.

The Boulder Movie Club returns this week with a free screening of Quentin Tarantino’s acclaimed, Oscar-winning love letter to the industry, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

📆 When: Thu, May 28 · 6:00 PM (Doors) / 6:30 PM (Film)

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie, the film chronicles the final days of Hollywood's golden age in 1969 Los Angeles. It follows a struggling television actor and his dedicated stunt double as they navigate an industry they barely recognize anymore.

The film took home Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor (Pitt) and Best Production Design, alongside the Golden Globe for Best Picture in 2020.

The evening will kick off with a short introduction from the host and will wrap up with a lively, large-group discussion after the credits roll. It will be a great opportunity to connect with other film enthusiasts in the community.

Free snacks and drinks will be provided for this event.

📍Location: Canyon Theater (Boulder Public Library)

A sneak peek at what’s on the calendar this week...

🌊 Blue Heron | Wed, May 27 - Sun, May 31 · Boedecker Theater

Set in the late 1990s, this tense, atmospheric indie follows eight-year-old Sasha and her family as they relocate to a new home on Vancouver Island. However, their hopes for a fresh start are quickly interrupted by increasingly dangerous and erratic behavior. It is a fantastic, grounded drama to check out if you prefer smaller, character-driven narratives over the summer blockbusters.

🪂 Space Cowboy | Wed, May 27 - Sun, May 31 · Boedecker Theater

This breathtaking documentary follows Joe Jennings, a true innovator in the world of skydiving who has spent decades capturing aerial cinematography for extreme sports and Hollywood features. Directed by Marah Strauch and Bryce Leavitt, the film uses stunning archival footage and verité to explore his 40-year career, his deep friendship with fellow skysurfer Rob Harris, and how he navigated profound grief and loss by continuing to push the boundaries of “camera flying.”

🍎 Friday Night Weird: Forbidden Fruits | Fri, May 29 · 8:30 PM · Boedecker Theater

Friday Night Weird is closing out May with some fantastic late-night indie weirdness. This week’s screening follows a Free Eden store employee named Apple who secretly runs a witchy femme cult in the basement of the mall after hours with her fellow “fruits,” Cherry and Fig. It is exactly the kind of unhinged, creative premise that Friday Night Weird was built for.

For a list of all screenings this week, check out our calendar.

While we usually focus on covering in-person events across the state, there is a piece of at-home streaming news that we just had to share. In the lead-up to the 250th anniversary of the United States, PBS has just unlocked Ken Burns’s sweeping, 12-hour documentary epic, The American Revolution, for everyone to stream for free.

Directed by Burns alongside Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, this six-part series originally broke PBS records when it premiered last November. Now, starting this week through July 12th, you can stream the entire project on their digital platforms without a subscription.

For the documentarians and history buffs in our community, this is an absolute masterclass in massive-scale, non-fiction storytelling. The production features over 1,000 archival images, stunning original landscape cinematography by Buddy Squires, and a staggering voice cast that includes Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, and Samuel L. Jackson. If you need a break from the summer blockbusters and want a deeply narrative, educational deep-dive, queue this up.

Watch ‘The American Revolution’ right here.

Which movies did you watch this Memorial Day weekend?

Are you attending the Spring Schmoozer this week?

Let us know below!

As always, if you have any events or local news that you’d like us to highlight in an upcoming edition of the newsletter, let us know here:

Event Submission Form

May your hours always be golden and your cinema always be peak ⛰️

Until next week,
Clayton & Aaryaman 🍿

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