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The Omaha Film Festival was born in the backseat of a Jeep Cherokee.
The year was 2005. Somewhere west of Kearney, Nebraska, three film-loving 20-somethings, slightly hungover, watched the Platte River Valley roll past their windows en route to Omaha on their way back from a small regional film festival and an idea was born.
“Why doesn’t Omaha have its own film festival?” piped up Jeremy Decker from the backseat.
Marc Longbrake and Jason Levering, friends and co-founders of a small video production company, simply shrugged.
The question seemed as elusive as the answer.
Twenty years ago this spring, the Omaha Film Festival hatched from that very conversation and the minds of three filmmakers frustrated by the metro’s sparse offerings of independent film.
The Omaha Film Festival came to life as a means for the Omaha community to experience independent filmmaking through the exhibition of new films by aspiring and established artists that would otherwise be unavailable in the market.
Today, the festival held at Aksarben Cinema in Omaha every spring showcases more than 100 short and feature films curated from thousands of annual entries from around the world. The week-long event includes special screenings, Nebraska-made films, and dozens of filmmakers on hand to discuss their films with the audience after each screening.
World premieres and award-winning films have flickered across its screens. Past guests have included Academy award winners and industry professionals. Four times MovieMaker magazine has named OFF one of its “50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee.”
Big things often have small beginnings.
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“It wasn’t a fully formed idea, it was just talking about it, throwing around the idea, why didn’t Omaha have a big film festival?” Levering recalled. “There was nothing close to what cities our size had.”
Levering, Decker, and Longbrake all agree they never quite envisioned the seeds planted that day would grow into a two-decade run as a nationally recognized film festival.
The very thought of how ridiculous the idea was still makes Decker laugh.
“I’d call it a series of weird, fortunate events,” he said.
It was Decker who laid much of the groundwork. He dove headlong into researching film festivals all over the country. He called local venues open to the idea of hosting a film festival. He tried to learn as much as he could about the independent film ecosystem. He put all that together and brought it back to his friends.
“They looked at me and said, ‘Wait, you were serious?’”
He was. And Levering and Longbrake were on board.
“We had strengths and weaknesses that complemented each other,” Longbrake said of the founding group. He would be the festival’s program director, Levering the executive director, and Decker the festival director.
The blueprint of the first festival came together quickly. They focused on showcasing independent films from local, national, and international filmmakers. A call for entries went out in fall 2005. Entries came in from all over the world.
Longbrake said the response surprised even them.
“It was hundreds and hundreds of entries, and we realized we probably had to take this more seriously than we thought,” Longbrake said. “We didn’t really get a chance to grow this small to big. It turned into a big thing right away. We had to learn all the lessons of judging and venues and ticketing right away.”
That first year, the festival screened 70 films, spread out over three venues: the former Bluebarn Theatre, Joslyn Art Museum, and a conference room at the Hilton Omaha.
They had few sponsors, fewer donations, and attendance was sparse. The number of entries did, however, exceed expectations. And the response, for all its fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants planning, was positive.
Decker called that first year “the best and worst of times.”
Juggling multiple venues, filmmakers, attendees, and volunteers, the trio spent much of the first year putting out little fires.
Metaphorical and as it turns out, actual fires.
A 35-millimeter film print burst into flames during the world premiere of the New Line Cinema produced family film Hoot staring Luke Wilson and Brie Larson.
“There were only three 35-millimeter prints of the film in the world, and we had one,” Decker said.
They had smaller crowds than expected, but relationships were formed with several filmmakers that first year.
“We knew we had to figure everything out,” Decker said. “But we also knew from those filmmakers this was a perfect thing where we could show these films to the people in Omaha and keep growing.”
In the following years, OFF bounced around the metro before landing at Aksarben Cinema, its partner since 2019. One early decision about venues has pleased audiences.
“Getting under one roof was a game-changer,” Longbrake said. “Instead of having to drive to see a documentary one place and a feature at another theater across town, for our attendees and our filmmakers, they could just walk across the hall to see another film.”
After losing money that first year, the festival has finished in the black every year since. OFF is a true nonprofit, relying on a combination of ticket sales, sponsorships, and grants to cover costs. Every penny goes back into the operating budget.
For Longbrake, Levering, and Decker, the festival was a full time job for three people that already had full time jobs.
“It’s always been a labor of love,” Longbrake said.
* *
OFF has evolved with the times; it’s grown up with Omaha’s ever-expanding art scene.
In 2005, there were 1,200 recognized film festivals in the world. Today, there are over 12,000. The rise of easy-to-use digital technology shoulders much of that explosion. Bridging the gap between professional and amateur filmmakers meant it has never been easier to make a movie.
The Nebraska filmmaking circle, while always active, was “clique-ish,” according to Decker. A coterie that sometimes lacked collaboration.
OFF sought to change that.
“There were quite a few filmmakers back then but there wasn’t quite a real community where they had the chance to intermingle and see each other’s films publicly,” Decker said.
A block of programming devoted to Nebraska-made films was a thoughtful and deliberate means to that end. Films that secure national distribution also make their way through the festival. OFF has built close relationships with Amazon Studios, Bleecker Street Films, and several other streamers, studios, and distributors. Most sought out the festival for special screenings and world and regional premieres.
Websites like Film Freeway, the industry standard for digitally submitting films, has made the entry process easier.
Decker can still recall in those early years films arriving as physical media—DVDs, Blu-Rays, and even VHS tapes—in their P.O. box and occasionally raising a postmaster’s eyebrow.
“They had all kinds of questions why we’d be getting packages from Iran and North Korea,” Decker said, still laughing about the incident. “But it showed we were international. I think 63 different countries sent us films those first two years.”
Social media has made access to films, filmmakers, distributors, and studios easier. The festival’s reputation and growth has turned the event into one of the Midwest’s best.
In addition to the 100 or more films shown in a typical year, the festival has long offered nonfilm programming like its filmmaker’s conference and the OFF Writer’s Theater to help foster that growth.
The filmmaker’s conference promotes the discussion and study of filmmaking and works in conjunction with the OFF Academy, a two-day filmmaking workshop for high school students hosted by industry professionals. Past lecturers include Academy award-winning cinematographer Mauri Fiore and editor Mike Hill, along with “Iron Man III” writer and director Shane Black and screenwriting guru Lew Hunter.
The writer’s theater came along in 2013 as an offshoot of the festival’s long-running screenplay competition, gathering professional actors to perform selected scenes from the script finalists. The writer’s theater has typically been a hot ticket, selling out the last two years.
OFF’s film programming has a similar curated sensibility. Films that have made the North American independent film festival circuit from Austin to Sundance to Slamdance have made their way through Omaha, some in lieu of those perhaps more well-known events.
Levering refers to OFF’s success in prizefighting terms.
“I’ve always felt like OFF has been punching way above its weight,” he said. “And it still is and that’s OK. That’s the way the festival has fallen into its design.”
* *
“I like to say, during that time, it was Omaha to the Oscars.”
In March 2020, Michael Govier brought he and co-writer/director Will McCormack’s debut film “If Anything Happens I Love You” to Omaha. The 2-D animated film tracking the devastating journey of grieving parents after their daughter is killed in a school shooting had its world premiere to rave reviews at OFF.
The film would go on to win the festival’s Best Animated Short Film award and a long festival run before being acquired by Netflix.
A little over a year later, “If Anything Happens I Love You” won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
That snowball effect, Govier said, began at Aksarben Cinema.
“It was exciting because it was in this huge theater and I had never seen it that big,” Govier said of seeing his film run as part of the animated film block. “It was incredible to see it with an audience and see them respond to the film.”
Govier said OFF was a deliberate choice for the film’s premiere because of the festival’s reputation—he being a MovieMaker magazine reader—and wanting to roll out the film in the middle of the country before branching out.
“As a film festival, it so outperforms what you think it is,” he said. “It should be five times bigger than it is and it will be. With who they bring in, what they show, and how well it’s organized, it’s structured so well and accommodating, it’s a wonderful festival.”
That word of mouth has always been the festival’s best marketing tool; OFF is a platform for filmmakers to share their work in conversation with the community.
One of those Omaha-based filmmakers is writer and producer Christine Burright. She first attended OFF in 2018 and since attending that first year as a self-described “shy filmmaker getting her feet wet,” she’s won several screenwriting awards and had her first feature, The Headliner, premier at the 2023 festival.
“The Omaha film community has become a huge part of my life,” Burright said. “The festival is an amazing resource of incredibly talented, incredibly cool and fun people who love to work together and make films.”
Burright has attended festivals coast to coast and OFF, she said, stacks up with any.
“Omaha is one of the best,” she said. “You can’t beat it. The hospitality, the venue, the selection of films. Marc (Longbrake) has done such an incredible job making sure the Omaha Film Festival is this world class event.”
Govier, who is currently co-writing a new Tom and Jerry film for Warner Bros. and prepping an animated feature and a short film with McCormack, said he can’t wait to come back to Omaha, a city he admits he fell in love with back in 2020.
“We’re in the early phases of jumping into (story) boards for the animated short,” he said. “My first phone call when it’s done is going to be to Omaha, asking if we can come back.”
That’s music to Longbrake’s ears. That creative collaboration between his team and the filmmakers is so essential to what he sees as OFF’s mission.
“When you walk into a theater at OFF, we want you to feel like you’re in a thing,” Longbrake said. “You’re a part of something that’s awesome.”
Seasoned professionals, Oscar winners and amateur filmmakers, actors and writers, casual film fans and hardcore cinephiles all rubbing elbows at screenings or sipping a Nebraska-born craft brew at the many after parties was always the goal.
“What makes this worthwhile for me is hearing the feedback that people are inspired by what they see and inspired by a group of people and a shared experience that motivates them to go out and create and participate more in their community.”
* *
In 2020, after 15 years and thousands of hours of work, Levering and Decker both stepped away from the festival. Thought was given to shutting down the festival.
But Longbrake forged ahead.
“With all the validation from the local community and the filmmakers and actors who create the work, and all the expense and amount of time that goes into putting on such a big event, it was worth it for me to continue to sacrifice and keep putting it on,” said Longbrake, the festival’s current executive director.
Levering and Decker admit the decision to walk away from their baby was hard, but both knew they were leaving it in good hands.
“I had total faith Marc would do good things and it’s still doing well,” Decker said. “I’m proud of what they’ve done.”
Longbrake isn’t numbers-obsessed, so attendance is more a “feeling,” he said.
“You can feel it in the building when attendance is good; this screening will be full or that screening is sold out.”
The attendance trajectory was consistently on the uptick right up until COVID-19 lockdowns, which happened about 10 days after OFF.
“In 2020 I think we were the last festival on the planet for something like nine months,” Longbrake said.
The next two years the festival pivoted to a “hybrid” format with some virtual screenings and a smattering of in-theater programming.
By 2023, audiences slowly found their way back. The 2024 event was one of OFF’s biggest. Filmmaker and audience attendance was overflowing. More than 70 filmmakers came out to show films. The programming slate included a record seven sell-outs.
“To have to bring folding chairs into a theater was incredible,” Longbrake said. “We had full crowds, and we felt like we were back. I think in 2023, people wanted to come out but were still afraid of the crowds. In 2024, it showed me people cared.”
The 2025 Omaha Film Festival runs March 11-16.
“There will be great shorts and documentaries and features and high-profile guests, I can promise you that,” Longbrake said. “The thing we envisioned 20 years ago is the thing we’re still doing. Bringing independent films to the city people wouldn’t normally have a chance to see.”
Visit omahafilmfestival.org for more information.
This article originally appeared in the March/April 2025 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
