I often get asked how programming gets done, how choices are made, what inspires us to showcase certain films and ideas in certain years. This year’s Sarasota Film Festival retrospective Environmental Spaces: Christo and Jeanne-Claude On Film is a great example of how the process often works. This past December, I attended the International Film Festival Summit in Las Vegas and sat on a panel with the esteemed Richard Lorber. Afterward, as we all gathered for dinner, a few of my colleagues and I sat with Richard and discussed some of his company’s upcoming plans, which included the launch of his Alive Mind label and that label’s acquisition of Albert and David Maysles and Antonio Ferrera’s film The Gates. As a fan of the films about Christo and Jeanne-Claude, I talked with Richard about how we might try to do something special and put a retrospective together. Richard put me in touch with Antonio Ferrera, who loved the idea, and Antonio put me in touch with Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s office. They also liked the idea. Voila! A program is born.
This year, The Sarasota Film Festival is presenting a complete retrospective of the films documenting the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, beginning with Michael Blackwood’s Wrapped Coast (1969) through to the World Premiere of Wolfram Hissen’s work in progress Along U.S. 50 (2009), which documents the ongoing work to complete the Over The River project on the Arkansas River in Colorado.
In addition to our screenings, the festival is hosting an event called In Conversation with Christo and Jeanne-Claude on Saturday, April 4 at 1:00 PM at The Historic Asolo Theater. This event promises to be very interesting, as the artists have requested it be an unmoderated, direct dialogue between themselves and the audience. I am excited to see where this leads and how the audience will engage this amazing opportunity. I have to say, having recently watched these films again, I really do admire Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work; the hurdles these two have conquered to have their projects realized makes the pieces even more amazing. You can’t help but be moved.
THE FILMS
Umbrellas, Saturday, March 28th, 3:15 PM Running Fence playing with Christo’s Valley Curtain, Sunday, March 29th, 1:00 PM Christo & Jeanne Claude, Monday, March 30th 7:00 pm, Historic Asolo Theater (Michael Blackwood in Attendance) Islands playing with Wrapped Coast, Tuesday, March 31st 6:30 PM (Michael Blackwood in Attendance) Christo In Paris playing with Wrapped Walkways, Wednesday, April 1st, 3:00 PM Dem Deutsche Volke: Wrapped Reichstag 1971-1995 Thursday, April 2nd 4:00 PM (Wolfram Hissen in Attendance) Along US 50 (World Premiere) playing with Wrapped Trees, Friday, April 3rd at 5:00 pm (Wolfram Hissen in Attendance) The Gates, Friday, April 3rd, 7:30 PM, (Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Antonio Ferrera in Attendance) In Conversation with Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Saturday, April 4 at 1:00 PM, Historic Asolo Theater (Christo and Jeanne-Claude in Attendance)
Jon Gerrans and Marcus Hu, true champions of international cinema with their company Strand Releasing, have acquired Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Womanfor theatrical release in the USA. The film opens August 19 at my favorite haunt, Film Forum. This is great news, in my opinion, not only because the film is excellent, but also because it signals something important; despite the loss of New Yorker Films (still devastating), films like The Headless Woman and Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s brilliant Three Monkeys (which was picked up by Zeitgeist) can still find a home in the USA.
We’ve lost so many excellent distributors, I can’t articulate how important these acquisitions press releases have become to me; they are literal buoys, something to cling to as I swim through my days. When I read them, I get a smile on my face. I realized this past month that I will always carry many of these lost companies around as holes in my heart; Wellspring, New Yorker, Cowboy, Lot 47, etc. It all makes small victories like this one seem even more important. I can’t wait for August, can’t wait to see this film again.
In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for a certain other excellent Argentinean film from Strand at a certain unnamed film festival announcing its line-up on Wednesday…(no, not THAT one…). Congrats and thanks to Jon and Marcus for making this film available to audiences.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Kent Jones and Lucrecia Martel (NYFF Press Screening of The Headless Woman, October 5, 2008.)
After reading a recent article in the Hollywood Reporter outlining a grim economic future for film festivals, any doubt that I had about the way in which the economic downturn might impact my work at the Sarasota Film Festival has come into quick focus; since arriving in Sarasota last Saturday night, I have been working harder than ever before on the festival and, while I expect that this year’s event will be every bit as excellent as in years past (with a lot of possibilities still working themselves out), it has been a true eye-opener to move from the relative comforts of Brooklyn and into the eye of the economic storm.
Sarasota is a city built upon real estate and retirement wealth and the economic downturn this past year has had a devastating impact on the local economy; Home values have plummeted and individual savings, especially among recent retirees, has taken a massive beating. Sarasota even had it’s own Bernard Madoff-style Ponzi Scheme; a local investment manager (and I use the term loosely) named Art Nadel is accused of running a $350 million dollar Ponzi Scheme of his own, and 75% of that lost money has come from individual investors in here in Sarasota. And not just investors, arts patrons; many of the people who have given generously to arts groups like ours over the years are out over a quarter of a billion dollars. Throw in stock market losses and the housing collapse and you see that every single business in town, every potential sponsor, every ticket buying film lover—everyone—is hurting. The result has been absolutely brutal on non-profits here; The city’s Arts Day Festival was cancelled, the Reading Festival closed its doors, and attendance and donations appear to be down all over the area.
In the midst of this crisis, our festival has undergone a change in leadership, has re-staffed with new seasonal employees and has faced the grim reality of re-budgeting, line by line, trimming away every item, reducing ticket prices, costs, expenditures. At first, I felt a little sense of outrage that our growing organization was being forced to tighten its belt, but now, it’s clear I was just being precious. In the wake of the reality of what is happening here and all over the country, it’s a little bit hard to gripe about the economic impact on a film festival, any film festival. Still, I take my work very seriously, and we’ve been doing a lot of heavy lifting here to make the festival go. To be honest, while its been exhausting for everyone involved (the elbow grease is visible everywhere), it is clearly a luxury to work on and care about film and filmmakers in the face of this terrible situation.
Which is why I am so excited and proud about what has been accomplished so far; we’ve used this crisis (and it is a real crisis here) as an opportunity to re-think the entire event, to find new partners and explore new ideas, to try all sorts of new things. While our festival will still look pretty much the same to the casual observer, I can’t wait for our March 11th press announcement to outline what we have planned. It is going to be kind of exciting to stare this problem squarely in the eyes and move forward, step by step, in the hopes we can provide some fun and excitement for Sarasota, our friends in the industry and our visiting filmmakers. We have been promised the full support of our Board, and taking it all on good faith, I am hopeful for a great year in Sarasota when we open the Film Festival on March 27, 2009. If you want to join us here, this city and our festival could use your support. The door is always open.
Earlier this month, I was honored to receive an e-mail from indieWIRE Editor-In Chief Eugene Hernandez, inviting me to cast an official ballot in the 2008 indieWIRE Critics Poll. I hadn’t really begun thinking about “the year that was” yet; Maybe I’m just waiting for the Obama inauguration and a sense of real closure, but I will remember 2008 as one of the most important, wonderful years of my personal life (first year of marriage, my son’s birth), one of the most trying on a professional level (management changes at work, the horrifying economic deline, the tectonic shifts in the film industry, etc.), and one of the most nerve-wracking political seasons in my lifetime, which is really more a gauge of my own identity; Where do I fit in this society? All of these issues are woven together for me in my memory of the year, of how I watched movies and struggled to keep my mind on the screen.
As far as film is concerned, there were only three things that kept me going and highly motivated in 2008; My friends and colleagues in the film world, who truly define the word “community”, the chance to write about my passion for the movies on this blog (the contents of which have waxed and waned in rhythm with my own thoughts of throwing in the towel and my desperation to fight for what I care about), and a few of the movies themselves, which have given me hours worth of escape, pleasure and the chance to find my feelings in a way that only the movies can.
The ballot I cast in the IndieWIRE Critics Poll is really just a personal snapshot of a much longer relationship with many of these films; It is not a look at my year at the movies (I will post that soon), which would have to include films that were not yet released theatrically (many of which remain the best of what I saw this year) and would not include some of the films on this list, which I saw in previous years but were only released in this country in 2008. I also found myself, for whatever reason, using the single slot for Best Documentary Film to voice my appreciation for Man On Wire instead of including it in my Top 10 and opening up the list to non-fiction films. In retrospect, I don’t know why I was guilty of mindless segregation like that and I can only say that I hope my participation on the selection committee for The Gotham Awards Documentary prize and the upcoming 2009 Cinema Eye Honors will provide a chance for redemption.
The other issue I have with myself is that this list is so back-loaded with films I saw later in the year, which is proof of my own bias for movies toward which I feel less emotional distance. But in the heat of casting a ballot, I had to go with my heart and choose the films that were resonating for me when I complied my ballot. Obviously, the sway of an autumnal release is not a fiction, at least not for me, at least not this year. That said, many of these films were seen over a year ago and it was a treat to find them on the list of films released in 2008, a reminder of their power over me. In the end, I am happy enough with this ballot, but I will be offering my Top 10 Cinematic Moments of 2008 over the course of the holidays. While it won’t serve as a corrective for this ballot, it will better reflect my own year at the movies and provide a chance to remember the experience of going to the movies in a year when everything seemed to be shifting underneath my feet.
Best Film The Edge Of Heaven by Fatih Akin A Christmas Tale by Arnaud Desplechin Frownland by Ronald Bronstein The Wrestler by Darren Aronofsky Silent Light by Carlos Reygadas XXY by Lucia Puenzo Ballast by Lance Hammer Wendy and Lucy by Kelly Reichardt Reprise by Joachim Trier Before I Forget by Jacques Nolot
Best Performance
Sean Penn, Milk
Michelle Williams, Wendy and Lucy
Mathieu Amalric, A Christmas Tale
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Rebecca Hall, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best Supporting Performance
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Tarra Riggs, Ballast
James Franco, Milk
Catherine Deneuve, A Christmas Tale
Best Director
Arnaud Desplechin, A Christmas Tale (*gasp*! *shock*! Who knew?!?)
Best Screenplay
Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York
Best First Feature
Ronald Bronstein, Frownland (no,really,it’sgreat,youhavetoseeit, I wouldn’tusuallyjustasksomeonetogoseeafilmbutinthiscase,inthisspecificcase, IthinkitisimportanttosaythatIlovedthismovieandIwouldn’tjustIwouldn’tjustIwouldn’tjusttellyouaboutitifIdidn’tthinkitwasagreatfilm,
becauseI’mnotthetypeofpersonwhodoessomethinglikethat,I’mnot,ormaybeIam,butIdon’tthinkIam,soIthinkyoushouldjustdropeverythingand,
sorry,sorry,butit’strue,justdropeverything,sorry,andfindawaytoseeit!)
Best Documentary Man on Wire by James Marsh
Best Undistributed Film Three Blind Mice by Matthew Newton (criminally under-discussed, I think) Of All the Things by Jody Lambert (criminally undistributed).
(Also, having participated in an awards list for Hammer To Nail, I would have had a ton of overlap with my undistributed picks, but I didn’t want to repeat myself… That list is here and is excellent.)
Thanks again to Eugene, Brian, James and Peter and the whole indieWIRE gang for including me in this process and for hsoting this blog for what is now my fourth year (jesus). It’s an honor to be included and I’ll continue to try not to let you down.
Congrats to the team at indieWIRE on their recent sale to SnagFilms. I am going to be honest here; One never knows how an acquisition will fit or how the day to day will work out. Change is never a guarantee. But I trust everyone involved that they have done the right thing and have been justly rewarded and financed for 12 years of exceptional, hard work. I hope that the next dozen years are as meaningful and exciting for everyone involved.
I do know that, for me personally, indieWIRE is homebase for the independent film community. I got my first job in NYC in 1997, working as a Manager for New Media at IFC; I literally don’t know what the independent film world would be like without an indieWIRE in it. I also know that the team who has produced the site are great people who have been tireless in their advocacy and reporting on the independent and foreign film community. Without indieWIRE, I don’t know how I’d stay in touch with my community. It is essential.
May indieWIRE continue to thrive content in the knowledge that there is now economic stability and more support on the way to realize some of your greater ambitions. My only advice? Don’t go on some nonsensical dot com spending spree! You don’t need pinball in the office! Stay true to your mission and you cannot fail. Congrats, guys!
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