[Frameworks] current situation with film festivals

[Ken Bawcom]

Quoting Bryan Konefsky <bryank at unm.edu>:

> An interesting and ongoing discussion... some
> observations:
>
> The Ann Arbor Film Festival is no longer an experimental
> film festival... They now call themselves an "independent"
> film festival.  One of the reasons they receive so many
> submissions dates back to when they first signed on with
> Withoutabox.  There, they made the decision to include
> narrative and documentary works as well as experimental,
> and their submission numbers skyrocketed... However, for
> the kind of festival they are, I think they still do a
> good job.


I'm afraid that I have to correct Bryan. I attended my first AAFF in  
1967. I was on the screening committee from 1989, until 2006, IIRC. I  
was also involved in programming most of that time. Even though it is  
primarily experimental, the AAFF has accepted documentary, animated,  
and narrative films for decades, well before Withoutabox. The first  
year I screened, I think there were almost 400 entries. The last year  
I screened, I believe it was about 2500.

There are several reasons for the increase in entries. WAB is only  
one. From its beginning, the AAFF accepted only 16mm film. All entries  
were viewed in their entirety, by the screening committee as a group.  
Then 35mm and videos were accepted for programming. That increased the  
entries quite a bit, and the screening system went through radical  
changes. Due to philosophical differences, I resigned from the  
screening committee. Under the current director, the process has  
improved from what it was when I resigned, and may well be as good as  
at any other festival. But I believe it is still quite different from  
what I would consider ideal. I believe there are ways to organize a  
screening committee, so that it need not depend on prescreeners. But,  
the screeners would have to devote so much time that you could  
probably only recruit them by offering a decent honorarium. And not  
many festivals could afford that.

Back to Dominic's original concern. Of those thousands of entries, a  
lot is truly awful. I have seen what amounted to soap opera narratives  
labeled "experimental" by their maker. I have seen calling card films  
where you could tell what the filmmaker's favorite TV show was. I've  
seen lame adolescent humor that looked like it was made in a day by a  
highschool kid.

But, there really IS enough good film to program two AAFFs. In the  
last few years I screened, I'd say that there were enough really good  
feature-length films alone to fill the total programming time, and I'm  
not talking mostly narrative features either. Every year, there are  
films that don't get programmed that are so good I want to cry when  
they don't get shown. I did prescreen last year, and saw a film of  
Myron's that I thought really should have been programmed, but wasn't.

What to do? Well, the AAFF has expanded programming some films in  
competition in a second, smaller, screen at the Michigan Theater. That  
added some time. I don't think it possible for the festival to get  
much longer. It is so much work that staff are worn out at the end of  
the six days. Actually, they are probably pretty beat before the  
festival even starts, as there is so much work.

There are special showings of curated films not in competition, both  
in the main theater, and the smaller one. For years, and to several  
directors, I lobbied to eliminate all but one of the special events,  
to free up more time for competition programming, but it hasn't  
happened. Even that would be problematic. The judges can't be in two  
theaters at once. So, they either have to watch screeners of some  
things before they come to the festival, or spend all their off hours  
watching programmed films in the office. That's a big load.

I believe the AAFF does waive entry fees for filmmakers who have been  
programmed. I lobbied for that too, but I don't know that my lobbying  
brought it about. I want to make it clear that I don't speak for the  
AAFF. My only involvement this year, besides attending the festival,  
is to smoke meats for the green room.

Ken B.





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