[2] The Highway 61 Film Festival is sponsored by a non-profit organization, Pine Center for the Arts,[3] 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.

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.

[4] 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[5] 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.