by Sarad Davenport

Charlottesville is about to get a lot more cinematic. From March 20th to the 22nd, the downtown mall will transform into a hub for independent voices as the Indie Short Film Festival returns for another year. Founded by marketing veteran and filmmaker Ty Cooper, the festival has grown into a prestigious, Academy Award-qualifying event that bridges the gap between local talent and international creators.

We sat down with Ty to discuss the labor of love behind the festival, his transition from marketing to filmmaking, and why this year’s lineup—featuring 132 films from 15 different countries—is a must-see for the community.

The Q&A with Ty

Vinegar Hill: Tell me the name of your film and a little bit about it. You talked about you were in Pittsburgh with it, you were in L.A., it is an Academy Award-winning qualifier, but what’s the name of it and tell me a little bit about it?

Ty Cooper: Our film is The Price of Resistance: Salah Uddin, an American Agitator. It’s a short film, a 29-minute piece, which takes a journey in Salah’s life as a child running away from home from Pittsburgh, moving to New York, and kind of like getting straightened up. In New York, he would always go to Harlem where he could see Malcolm X speak, Adam Clayton Powell, Shirley Chisholm—all the greats speaking outside on a soapbox.

He got bit by the bug of the civil rights movement, and in ’65 he went down to Mississippi to help fight against voter suppression. He was already being watched by the FBI. J. Edgar Hoover really took interest in him because it’s easy for the FBI to crush a militant, but it’s much more difficult to crush a revolutionary. Hoover felt as though he would be bringing up revolutionaries. So he was targeted by the FBI, specifically by the program called the Counter Intelligence Program, COINTELPRO. We have the redacted memorandums from the FBI on Salah’s file where the word “neutralize” was mentioned something like five or seven times. Luckily he didn’t get killed; he was put in jail and sentenced to five years but ended up only doing some months. He’s 83 years old now. Obama actually pardoned him when he was in office because he saw the paperwork and knew it was BS.

Vinegar Hill: So, in addition to that, big things popping, you know what I mean? You got something else going on coming up? Talk about it.

Ty Cooper: You know, it’s interesting, man. I’ve been promoting for 33 years—I’ve been in business since I was an undergrad. One would think that after 1,700 events, stuff would just be like whatever, like “oh, it’s just another event.” But this film festival that I created, the Indie Short Film Festival, is not just another event. This is something that it just continues to make me proud of myself, proud of the team that I put together, and proud of me providing a platform for independent voices to be shared and heard. I just see this event as like part of my legacy, man. And I’m really protective over it and I just put a lot of work into it. We have the Indie Short Film Festival which is coming up on March 20th through the 22nd right here in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Vinegar Hill: Tell me what do you want the public to know about this? How do you want them to engage during the film festival? What do you want people to do, how to engage, and then you know, what are you hoping that they get out of it?

Ty Cooper: It’s all about accessibility. I try to make it accessible, so I have things that are free where people can come and get engaged for free. All the panel discussions are free—we have seven panel discussions running from 9:00 AM all the way to 7:00 PM on Saturday, March 21st, at the Common House. We have panels on screenwriting, women in film, animation, and even a block on AI—the use of AI in filmmaking and the legalities of it, with an attorney sitting on that panel.

We also have a screenwriting competition, and the top three get cash, but all four finalists get a table read. That’s where you have these actors sitting on the stage and they read the scripts. That event is free. Then we have the movies—16 different film blocks spread throughout the weekend across Violet Crown and Vinegar Hill Theatre. We have 132 short films from 15 different countries.

Vinegar Hill: I have a deeper question before we wrap up. You’ve done marketing, you’ve done entertainment—what made you make that shift and lean into film so hard? Like what was it for you that said, “Nah, I’m gonna put some energy in this space”?

Ty Cooper: I love creating. When you’re a marketer—and marketing has been my life—you really understand the creativity. It’s not just business; marketing is a creative business psychology industry. I try to use it for good where I help clients get in office, I help clients increase their market share. A lot of times I do that with television commercials, branding videos, and these creative mediums.

Locally, I wrote three stage plays for Live Arts. So to me, it was an easy transition to telling a story and writing a script. I’m doing it anyway—I’m writing treatments for my clients, I’m writing scripts for movies, and I’m shooting commercials with my cameras. It made sense for me and it was an easy transition for me.

Next Step: You can find the full schedule of film blocks and panel times at indieshortfilmfestival.net.