The Tumbleweeds Film Festival celebrated their 15th year in April. Its inception came from one of their former executive directors, Patrick Hubley, who had the idea where films are only made by and about kids. The films are about children and sometimes the main character is a teddy bear. 

“The films are for children and they have expanded it to be as much of a family friendly, affordable and multi-generational as possible in the last few years,” said Julie Gale, festival director for the Tumbleweeds Film Festival. 

This year’s theme was “Passion in Action,” celebrating the power of kids following what excites them.

You don’t need to be a child to attend the festival where attendance on average is about 1,500-2,000 annually. They offer field trips to area public schools for its “public festival” day. where they do screenings and activities to support media arts in schools. 

There are two aspects of Tumbleweeds because it is under the direction of the Utah Film Center. It is a nonprofit organization that powers the Tumbleweeds Film Festival For Kids and the Utah Film Center. Not every school has a media arts specialist to teach the art of film making nor how to watch films. The film center supplements that with workshops and field trips to the festival.

A classroom at the Tumbleweeds Film Festival, where children are learning all about making films and drawing their characters. (Photo courtesy Utah Film Center)

The State Board of Education is one resource to provide that supplement, also helping with the public school field trips. The public festival is funded through the Tumbleweeds Film Festival organization. 

The festival, hosted by the Viridian Event Center, is now embedded with the West Jordan area, and they have a strong partnership with the County Library. “We have seen in the last four years that we’ve been conducting the festival at the Viridian Event Center attached to the West Jordan Library that attendance continues to grow year over year,” Gale said. “We are very excited that we can provide this, and we are very grateful to the partnership with the County Library because that gives us the ability to keep the films free.” 

Gale said families, with some having made this an annual tradition, can attend the festival for an entire day and do film making activities. Participants can watch several movies and spend zero dollars. 

Gale said the festival is engaging, creative and family friendly. She added one thing they have seen in the past few years is more multi-generational attendance with families. 

“Every year as the festival director, I like to sneak into events that I have already planned just to see what the energy is like, what is the vibe like inside,” Gale said. 

All the activities are educational. Children play in front of green screens and are taught how they are used in movies, broadcasting and television. They also have elementary children's film competitions tied to the festival that are submitted and featured at the festival. 

“What is unique to the Tumbleweeds Film Festival is that you're not going to watch ho-hum movies,” Gale said.