Highway 61 Film Festival
The Highway 61 Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Pine City, Minnesota. The festival was established in 2011 to show movies representing excellence in filmmaking, particularly those rare independent films and documentaries by both noted and new filmmakers, that do not receive mainstream distribution. The name of the festival comes from and highlights U.S. Route 61, especially U.S. Route 61 in Minnesota. The Highway 61 Film Festival is sponsored by a non-profit organization, Pine Center for the Arts, and is funded by businesses, community groups and individuals, plus ticket sales for the  various film sessions. The festival is headed by a committee of Pine City area film enthusiasts, writers, directors, and creative professionals. The 2011 and 2012 Highway 61 Film Festivals were held over the span of three days, Friday through Sunday, and featured many independent shorts and features. They were shown at the Pine Technical & Community College Auditorium as well as at a supper club and events center called Beach Rocks on the north shore of Pokegama Lake. In 2011, the festival showed films taken by Shane Bauer prior to his detainment. In 2012, the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Film Festival  founder, Al Milgrom, presented some of his works and photographer Wing Young Huie attended to see some of his inspired works projected on buildings in an accompanying event called "Photos on Buildings" nearby.