Lloyd Center mall reimagined in films featured in Portland Panorama festival

Portland Panorama, a new film festival in Portland, features 120 films from both international creators and emerging Pacific Northwest filmmakers.

Executive Director Stephanie Hough, said the goal of the festival is to fill the gap left by the end of the Portland International Film Festival during the pandemic. The festival runs from April 10-20.

OPB “Weekend Edition” host Lillian Karabaic interviewed two filmmakers who have short films in the festival. The films are different — one is a fantasy thriller, one a documentary — but share one similarity: Portland’s Lloyd Center as a backdrop.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Lillian Karabaic: First, we’re talking to Karina Lomelin Ripper about her short film, “Chispa.” Shot in black and white, it feels like a psychological horror film. Initially, the pace is slow with long, steady shots watching a security guard and an electrician complete mundane work duties. But then the film rapidly changes after the electrician is hit by a jolt of electricity. It transforms into a dance video with a twist. Tell me a little bit about the inspiration for the film.

Lomelin Ripper: I’m a Mexican-American director and working in the film industry, you don’t see a lot of female-presenting directors, and so the inspiration came from my experience with dealing with being a woman in the workplace. And I started to think about what other women experience in workplaces, and I’d been looking at the Lloyd Mall as a location to potentially film at, so I started thinking about who would work at the Lloyd Mall, and what the characters might be there that could have an interaction that could really kind of stem at the core of the themes of the film, which is a woman dealing with sexism in the workplace.

Karabaic: Yeah, I kind of felt like sexism was this background character in the film where it’s this specter that’s haunting every moment.

I also felt like Lloyd Center, which is Portland’s once-bustling, now mostly-empty mall, is a character in this film. As someone who spends a lot of time in the Lloyd Center, it felt almost strange to see the mall at the angles that you shot, in stark black and white. It was kind of like seeing an old friend with a totally new haircut. Your cinematography really transforms it as a background. How did you think about the architecture and design of the Lloyd Center and how it contributed to the mood that you aim to convey?

Ripper: Yeah, that’s a great question, and I feel like I was really fortunate in that I got to work with cinematographer Sarah Whelden, and she’s just incredibly talented and brought this incredible eye to the space.

She lived in Portland for a long time as well, so we were both just really familiar with the Lloyd Mall. There are all these really incredible architectural aspects to the mall that lend themselves to this, and I think experiencing short films at festivals, one thing is I feel like oftentimes the films take place in what filmmakers have access to, which is their apartment or house or a park, and I just was getting this feeling from the Lloyd Mall that they were really open to artists and they are really open to artists, and so that’s what drew me there.

Karabaic: As someone who used to work in the Lloyd Center and had to take trash out down those long hallways in the back that you shot in, I just kept thinking, “I’m so glad I didn’t see this film when I used to have to take the trash out in the dark because I would’ve just constantly been imagining a monster behind me.”

Ripper: Those hallways are creepy.

Karabaic: They’re really creepy, especially when you’re all alone and there’s the compactor is making noise.

Ripper: I definitely had a buddy every time I was scouting those hallways for sure. I was not doing that alone.

Karabaic: Your film is part of the Portland Panorama Festival, which is new. Do you think that it fills a need in the Portland filmmaker community?

Ripper: Oh my gosh, yes. I was so thrilled when I started hearing whispers of this festival coming and I was like, “Hell freaking yeah!”

They’re doing the films at Cinema 21 and Hollywood Theater, both incredible exhibition spaces for filmmakers. I feel like that’s an aspect I run across with a lot of film festivals is, I spent all this effort and time on making sure my sound and picture is to a certain level, and it’s just incredible when you get to experience in a historic and just incredible theaters.

It’s been missing for a while, this aspect of an international film festival here in Portland of really bringing in those filmmakers, but also just really showcasing all the incredible talent that’s based here in the Pacific Northwest, and I’m just so pumped and thrilled to be a part of the inaugural Portland Panorama.

Karabaic: What message are you hoping audience to take away from your film? Not just being scared of the dark corridors in the Lloyd Center, I assume.

Ripper: I think the film itself, it’s about this woman in the workplace, but then it transforms and it kind of lends itself to these mythologies and themes of werewolves or the she wolf, and one of the things I discovered in my research was that the she wolf comes from this place of people or society being afraid of women transforming when take up space.

It’s scary and intimidating and in some ways the women don’t need to change what they’re doing or how they’re doing it. It’s really the individual or the society that needs to transform. And that’s the ultimate message of my film is that society needs to wake up to women’s strength.

Karabaic: That was Karina Ripper, director of “Chispa,” a short film that is part of the Portland Panorama film festival this month. Thanks for joining us.

Ripper: Thank you.

Karabaic: Another film in Portland Panorama is a film about a different kind of transformation. Instead of electrician into she wolf, "Mall Town" documents the transformation of the Lloyd Center from mall to artistic community hub.

Joining me now is Paula Bernstein, director of “Mall Town.” What made you want to tell the story of the Lloyd Center’s evolution? What started your work on this film?

Paula Bernstein: Well, honestly, it was late 2021. It was during COVID and it was announced that Lloyd Center was going to close, and I was blown away. I’m not from Portland originally, and I was so blown away by the number of people who were near tears at the idea of the mall disappearing. That led me to go back and discover what made them all so special over the years, including looking back at the history of the mall, which is fascinating.

Karabaic: So, you did extensive research on the Lloyd Center’s history for this film. What surprised you the most?

Bernstein: Most people would be surprised to know that malls were not always where there were chain stores? Initially when they were created in the mid-20th century, the idea obviously was to focus on commerce, but also on community. So there was original art commissioned for the Lloyd Center. There were celebrities and famed performers. Ella Fitzgerald performed at the Lloyd Center. Bobby Kennedy came and one of his last appearances before he was killed was a public appearance at Lloyd Center. So it’s quite amazing the history of that space and what it means to people in the community.

Karabaic: Something that was interesting in your film is you really talked about how as these large anchor stores have left, there’s a new renaissance taking place, artists and indie businesses are taking over the space. I think your film kind of explores the question: Can capitalism and community coexist? What do you think after working on this?

Bernstein: I think it can coexist, but not forever. And I think that most of the creators who were there at the mall doing everything — there’s a magic show, a comic bookstore, there’s been roller disco. I mean, it’s in a way a makeshift small town, which is sort of where I got the title. But the point is it’s still going on and it’s still vibrant. Will it last? Probably not. It doesn’t make commercial sense, but in the meantime, I love that creative people and artists or seizing on this moment.

Karabaic: I’m disclosing my bias here, but I appear briefly in “Mall Town” as an ice skater who skates in the Lloyd Center each week. How important do you think the Lloyd Center’s iconic ice rink is to its next act?

Bernstein: I think it’s essential, and from what I have been told — not that I know all the secrets — but I have been told that whatever happens next, there will be an ice skating rink. Will it be big enough for you to do all your fun tricks? I hope so. I want people to know that Lloyd Center is still open. It is not the mall. You may have imagined it or remembered it as, and you may even see it as sort of sad, but I like to see it as hopeful.

"Mall Town" and "Chispa" are screening at Portland Panorama. The full festival schedule is at portlandpanorama.org.