Though the touring Hola Mexico Film Festival (HMFF) was woefully under-attended during its San Francisco stint at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinema, it nonetheless provided a welcome program of both arthouse and popular films representing Mexico's cinematic output in the past year or so. The festival received some assistance from the Mexican Consulate, and near-to-negligible support from Landmark's publicist Steve Indig (an e-mail blast in the middle of the festival? A "you're on your own" attitude? C'mon, Steve!). Hopefully next year HMFF will hire a publicist and not rely exclusively on either the Mexican Consulate or Landmark to generate buzz on the event and, hopefully, they time the festival to not run the day after the San Francisco International wraps, by which time even the most resilient cinephiles are exhausted. I know I was. I would hate to think that—in a community that boasts such a large Latino demographic—support for HMFF will not increase in the years to come.
HMFF is continuing its national tour, currently screening in Miami at the Tower Theater through May 16, next in Chicago at Landmark's Century Centre Cinemas (May 20-25), then Washington, D.C. at Landmark's E Street Cinemas (May 27-June 1), wrapping up in New York at the Quad Cinema (June 2-June 6). Keep abreast of developments at HMFF's Facebook page.
As Festival Director Samuel Douek states in his introduction to HMFF's souvenir program: "Film has always been an important part of [Mexico's] culture and heritage, but we are now beginning to form a new chapter in Mexico's film history. More than 80 films have been produced this last year in Mexico, the government is giving filmmakers incentives, and numerous private production companies are emerging. Even more exciting, film festivals around the world are continuing to award Mexican films and the new wave of brilliant talent is beginning to emerge. Some would call this the modern day Golden Age of Mexican Cinema."
The proof's in the pudding. No less than a few days before HMFF launched at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinema, Alamar—Pedro González-Rubio's sophomore feature—won the New Directors Award at the 53rd edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival. Alamar was just one of the excellent films hand-picked by Douek for his festival.
Australia's strategic concept of touring festivals that spotlight national cinemas and the communities imagined as their respective audiences have been interestingly discussed by Adrian Martin and Dina Iordanova in the recently-published Film Festival Yearbook 2: Film Festivals and Imagined Communities. At her site DinaView, Iordanova has offered up their exchange. How this strategy applies in the United States is just one of the many topics touched upon in my conversation with HMFF Director Samuel Douek.
Samuel Douek is a man who appreciates film, international travel and—above all—his heritage. Combining his three favorite things, Douek founded HMFF in 2006 with the goal of exposing the international community to the creativity, ingenuity and charm of Mexican culture through film. Douek was raised in Mexico City and at age 23 moved to Sydney, Australia where he received a Marketing degree from Mcquarie University in 2002 and a Masters degree in Event Management from UTS. Once in Sydney, Douek began to visit local festivals in the Sydney area and noticed the lack of Mexican influence in cinema. From that point on, he became inspired to create an international Mexican film festival and HMFF was eventually born. Douek's festival brings misunderstood Mexican culture to educate the entire world, one film at a time. His diverse but well-edited selection of 20+ films allows viewers to experience the unique walks of life that characterize Mexican identity and culture. Over the past four years, the festival has extended its reach to the United States, providing an opportunity for American citizens to experience the beauty, creativity and talent in Mexican film. Currently, Douek splits his time between Australia and Mexico, while also taking advantage of travel opportunities that send him across the globe. Inbetween afternoon screenings, we sat down to talk.
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Michael Guillén: Samuel, what motivated you to create a traveling film festival of Mexican cinema?
Samuel Douek: I didn't know I was doing a traveling film festival at the beginning. I was just following the trend in Australia, which was that all these different film festivals were organized to be ready to travel. They would screen in Sydney, then the next week they would be in Melbourne, then Brisbane, then Adelaide, then to Perth. Two or three of these festivals would run in those cities. For example, they would buy the rights for all these Italian films and screen them. Then the Goethe Institut did the same in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane. And then there was a Spanish Film Festival and a French Film Festival and all of them used the same strategy. I decided I wanted to do a Mexican Film Festival using the same idea.
My first year (2006) I did it only in Sydney and Melbourne and we did really well so the year afterwards we added Brisbane and Perth. In our fourth year, last year, we went to six cities: Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and Perth.
During the second year of my festival, I came to the U.S. on holiday. I saw that there wasn't a Mexican Film Festival at all: not in New York, not in L.A., not anywhere! I thought about doing the same festival I was doing in cities in Australia, only here in cities in the U.S. Although it's not the same because in Australia the festival has the same sponsors everywhere. In the U.S. every city has its own sponsors.
Also, in Australia HMFF plays in the same chain of cinemas, whereas in the U.S. I work with Landmark, the independent Quad Cinema in New York, the independent Tower Theater in Miami, and the Arclight Cinema in L.A. So it's different in every city with marketing. The U.S. is much bigger and it's harder to do everything. The news spreads faster in Australia. If there's news in Sydney, it will go everywhere; if there's news in Melourne, as well—it's a 22-million people country—whereas in the U.S., if things are going on in L.A., people in San Francisco won't know. Same with New York. Every city is their own, so marketing is much more difficult than I thought it was going to be at the beginning when I was trying to replicate in the U.S.A. what I was doing in Australia.
Guillén: In Australia, what's your estimate of the Latino population? Are they coming to see your festival? Who comprises your audience?
Douek: It's 70% Australian, 30% Latino. Sometimes there's more, sometimes there's less. Mexico is seen as unique and "exotic" in Australia.
Guillén: Ah, that explains why in your press release you bill HMFF as "Your Escape to Exotic Mexico"?
Douek: In Australia they really enjoy watching Mexican stuff because they don't have that much. HMFF has built a great audience there. It works very well for us.
Guillén: At last year's Toronto International Film Festival I had the opportunity to talk to Diana Sanchez who programs most of their Latino films. After acknowledging that Toronto does not have a sizeable enough Latino demographic to target, she indicated to me that she programs films more with a non-Latino audience in mind, aware that many of these are films that Latinos themselves wouldn't go see because they're more arthouse than genre and don't have enough charge. Do you find that to be true?
Douek: A hundred percent. There are amazing Mexican films that go out into the film festival circuit and win awards all around the world but—when they open in the cinemas in Mexico—Mexicans won't go out to see them. That's due to a lot of things. A film like Silent Light by Carlos Reygadas wins awards everywhere in the world, but then he could hardly sell it in Mexico.
Guillén: He told me he initially had difficulty selling the U.S. distribution rights for $10,000.
Douek: So it's not something that just happens in Mexico. A Romanian film that wins top honors at the Cannes Film Festival doesn't know if they'll go home and make a lot of money. Usually those films—though talented and amazing, breaking through with cinematic achievements—don't translate into financial success, and vice versa. Some films like El Estudiante (The Student, 2009) or Arráncame la vida (Tear This Heart Out, 2008) that make millions of dollars in Mexican box office wouldn't go to any festivals around the world because they don't translate. Film festivals are more about the art part of cinema, whereas the box office is more about the commercial side. In saying that, HMFF is a portrait of Mexican cinema and we bring films like El Estudiante and Amor En Fin (Love On A Wknd, 2009), which are both commercial, but then we also bring films like Vaho (Becloud, 2009) or Norteado (Northless, 2009), which are more artistic. At the end, we're just trying to bring cinema that's well-produced with good sound, good acting.
Guillén: I understand that you scout for most of your films at the Guadalajara Film Festival?
Douek: That's where I've started to try and build the core of my festival for the last few years; but, this last year there weren't many good films there.
Guillén: Do you scout at the Morelia Film Festival?
Douek: I haven't been there because it's very close to the time that I'm in Australia launching the new HMFF. It's too problematic to go for a week to Morelia and then back to Australia. But this year I'm really looking forward to going to Morelia because now I think it's the festival to go to. The bulk of great Mexican films this year—Vaho, Norteado, Alamar and La Mitad Del Mundo (The Half of the World, 2009)—all came from the Morelia Film Festival. From Guadalajara this year, I only have Bala Mordida (Bitten Bullet, 2009) and Oveja Negra (Black Sheep, 2009).
Guillén: Since it narrows down to a matter of personal taste, what is it that you're looking for when you scout for films at these festivals? And how do you go about negotiating and securing these films for HMFF?
Douek: What I'm looking for is, as I said, films that are well-produced, that have something unique, that tell a story, that have something to say—not necessarily about Mexico—but a story. I want to see films that are edited well, that have good sound and lighting, and that have good acting: all in all, well done. Unfortunately, a lot of Mexican films are still being made under bad conditions. It's unbelievable that these badly-made films are being made simply because there's the production money to make them. I also look for variety in my program. I want a film like El Estudiante—which is a charming family-oriented film—and then a film like Alamar, a film festival favorite that has won awards all around the world.
To negotiate for the films, if I know the directors I will contact them. If not, I will contact the producers, the distribution company or IMCINE. By now, any film that's Mexican I have a way to get to.
Guillén: What do you offer your filmmakers? Why should they participate with HMFF?
Douek: We offer them the opportunity to screen their films in other countries. There are a lot of Mexican films that would never come to the U.S. if HMFF didn't bring them.
Guillén: I am personally grateful to HMFF for that.
Douek: Thank you. So that's one thing we offer. We also promote each film individually the best we can. At each city where HMFF plays, we invite the filmmakers to travel with us. [Laughs.] Imagine a huge touring bus with about 20 bunk beds so that the 12 filmmakers could travel with me for one month from city to city. Imagine me driving the bus with all the 35mm cannisters loaded underneath! That would be interesting to do ... once!
Guillén: Speaking of the spectacular dimension of HMFF, I'm aware that Alejandro Gerber Bicecci (Vaho) is the only director attending the San Francisco festival; but, there were several of your directors in attendance in Los Angeles?
Douek: We had a lot of talent, about 15 people. We had an opening night red carpet event for all the Hollywood media and received national coverage from Univision and Telemundo.
Guillén: Will there be talent at the remaining venues on the HMFF tour?
Douek: We always, at least, try to bring the director of the opening night film and one or two more, if possible. The important distinction is that HMFF is a festival but not a festival in the usual sense. In another way, we want to establish ourselves as a week of Mexican films in each city. For one week people can come and know that every time they go to the cinema they're going to see Mexican movies.
Guillén: I mentioned to you that one of the factors I feel is working against you this go-round is the fact that HMFF opened one day after the San Francisco International finished. What determined the timing of HMFF in San Francisco?
Douek: This year, in particular, there is the World Cup coming up on June 11 so we finish up in New York on June 6. Working back from that date, we set up the festival dates by working backwards every week. Unfortunately, San Francisco's dates were very close to the San Francisco International Film Festival. We didn't do that on purpose. Originally we were going to open in L.A., then go to Miami and then San Francisco and on to Washington D.C., but that became a bit of a logistic nightmare. Next year we would love to tour in June.
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Here is is the promotional video for HMFF USA 2010, made by Jason Archer. Archer has worked with Radiohead, Molotov and on such films as A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life.
Before finding words to describe my pleasure in viewing my first Lino Brocka film You Have Been Weighed and Found Wanting (1974), I'd like to render a few comments on the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) and this year's focus on Filipino and Filipino American Cinema. When Festival Director Chi-hui Yang first mentioned to me that the festival hoped to build connections with the Bay Area's Filipino American community by "bringing them into the festival", I was impressed with CAAM's strategic outreach to the second largest community in the Bay Area after the Chinese; but, I was also slightly confused because I had long imagined the Filipino community as being more of a Latino community by way of shared colonial histories and a Catholic substratum. In retrospect, I realized this understanding had been shaped by a 1994 Mexican Museum exhibit "Paraiso Abierto a Todos" curated by Enrique Chagoya, and featuring the work of Philippine artist Manuel Ocampo.
I phoned my friend Tere Romo, former curator for The Mexican Museum, and asked her what she recalled of that exhibit. She remembered that the Manuel Ocampo retrospective was already in the works when she arrived on the scene and—though she did facilitate it—it had largely been set into motion by curator Enrique Chagoya and fellow artist Rupert Garcia, who were both enthusiastic about the political dimension of Ocampo's work; a dimension they felt affirmed a shared identity between Mexicans, Mexican Americans, Chicanos and Filipinos.
I asked Tere if it had been the exhibition's intention to diversify the Mexican, Mexican American and Chicano community by focusing on a Filipino artist? Romo confirmed that Chagoya and Garcia approached the Mexican Museum to mount an exhibition of Ocampo's work simply because they loved his work and wanted to show it; but, Tere saw it as the perfect opportunity—not only to extend the community to draw in another audience for the sake of drawing in another audience—but, more, to enunciate linkages already present historically, socially and culturally. She accomplished this by setting up a complementary exhibit in the orientation gallery next to Ocampo's retrospective. She drew pieces from the Mexican Museum's collection that showed the actual influences via the Manila galleon trade in Mexican art. For example, she looked at the Chinese influence on Mexican laquerware and floral rebozos. The Museum's collection even had a Filipino buto—a statue of a saint—which confirmed a direct reference. These trade items manifested during the time period when Mexico was—in a sense—the viceroy for the Philippines. Trade passed through Acapulco, was transported across Mexico to Vera Cruz, then transferred to Spain. In the process, handlers—often artists themselves—influenced by the work from China and Japan, adapted the imagery.
But Tere wanted to emphasize that the connection between Mexican and Filipino communities was not only a historically distant trade connection. More recently—with the United Farm Workers effort—the Filipinos were the first to go on strike for farm workers rights. Filipino organizer Larry Itliong formed the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). César Chávez and Dolores Huerta became involved when the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA)—which they co-founded—voted to join the AWOC, creating what is now known as the United Farm Workers of America. Additionally, the first martyr in that cause was a Filipino farm worker.
Having now experienced the Filipino community approached by both the Mexican Museum and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), I can more fully appreciate what Dina Iordanova has proposed in her contextual essay "Mediating Diaspora", published in Film Festival Yearbook 2: Film Festivals and Imagined Communities (2010:12-44).
The concept of "imagined communities" comes from Benedict Anderson's 1983 study Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, wherein Anderson proposed "an imagined political community" as a definition for "nation". Iordanova found this applicable to film festival communities. She writes: "The festivals that we zoom in on here are all linked in some way to the concept of the nation as 'imagined', precisely as Anderson conceives it, and, in most cases, to 'diaspora' as well. Members of the community probably will never meet face-to-face; however, they may have shared interests or identity as part of the same group." Film festivals, however, instigate community by being a live event that convenes "only in one place at a time, usually at regular intervals as yearly events. For the festival to happen, organizers and audiences must come face-to-face in exactly the same place at exactly the same time. They practically suspend the 'imagined' element of the community by substituting it with a very real one that is, nonetheless, configured around the same axis of imagination that drives the ideas of nation and nationalism. There is a double-step process when transnationally-positioned film festivals are involved. On the one hand, audiences and programmers involved with the festival are invited to experience themselves, by an undisguised act of imagination, as an extension of a community that is 'headquartered' somewhere else but to which they, by virtue of their very attendance at the festival, now relate to through a mental image of affinity and through the act of their very real togetherness. Yet, a secondary act of imagination is implied as well, linked to the need to experience a certain degree of identification with imaginary, fictional characters whose stories are told in the films projected at the festival. In the 'live' space of the festival, organizers and audiences form a community, an actual one, that congregates face-to-face for the purpose of fostering an 'imagined community' that comes live in the act of watching a film and imagining distant human beings becoming part of one's own experiences. Thus, the festival's set-up extends an invitation to engage in what is essentially a political act of imagined belonging and to continue the nation building process that is pre-supposed by extending it to the diaspora and beyond." (2010:12-13, emphasis added.) This concept of festival attendance as "a political act of imagined belonging" speaks to me on many different levels.
SFIAAFF's focus on Filipino Cinema finds precedent—according to Variety reporter Christopher Alford—in a comparably-mounted program at the 2006 Hawaii International Film Festival whose "generalist approach of the festival," Iordanova observes, "cuts across ethnic divides and aims to draw large crowds of diverse backgrounds." In a way, Iordanova adds, festivals such as the Hawaii International and SFIAAFF "work with a political vision of a certain imagined community and target a diasporic audience that is intrinsically diverse." (2010:24)
Here, Iordanova expands her thesis to juxtapose diaspora with "the global city". She writes: "Within multicultural societies, film festivals related to diasporas and 'imagined communities' all happen at the periphery of the mainstream public sphere." Though conceding that some skeptics criticize that such ethno-specific film festivals not only remain isolated from each other but contribute to "the profound fragmentation of an ideally public sphere", Iordanova balances with an alternate viewpoint that celebrates multicultural hybridization, "undoing diaspora in favor of the global city concept." In other words, though "the existence of various 'imagined communities' within the multicultural sphere may lead to fragmentation, there are also processes of hybridization and integration, of 'situated' yet mobile identities that come about as a result of [what Dr. Avtar Brah (1996:1, 187) has termed] 'the honing of diaspora'." (2010:33) Mobile identity is an apt term, especially in light of SFIAAFF's "Filipino Or Not?" phone game app.
All of this is to suggest that I no longer see SFIAAFF as a film festival catering to diasporic identities as much as a festival committed to celebrating its hybrid citizenry in a global city. Their focus on Filipino cinema confirms as much and allows for the Latino community to share equally in solidarity.
Here I will reiterate Michael Hawley's consummate overview of the Filipino sidebar: "One of the strands running through 2010's festival is a Focus on Filipino and Filipino American Cinema, the highlight of which is a long overdue tribute to Lino Brocka. Openly gay and often at odds with Ferdinand Marcos' regime, Brocka directed 60-plus films between 1970 and his death in 1991, most of them melodramas with a social/political bent. To the best of my knowledge, with the exception of one-off screenings of 1988's Macho Dancer (for better or worse, his best known film in the U.S.), the Bay Area hasn't seen a Brocka film since the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) showed Dirty Affair in 1992. (And if memory serves, the screening I attended was cancelled after the film broke midway through). Even the venerable Pacific Film Archive lists only one Brocka screening in its entire online archive; again the 1992 SFIFF presentation of Dirty Affair.
"The SFIAAFF mini-retrospective consists of only four films, but they seem very well chosen. Yang explained that SFIAAFF wanted to program more, but prints were extremely hard to acquire. 1975's Manila in the Claws of Neon is a neo-noir about a country boy in the mean city, which I first saw at the 1980 SFIFF under the title Manila in the Claws of Darkness. (Oddly, the film is a.k.a. Manila in the Claws of Light). SFIFF also screened Brocka's mother-from-hell masterpiece Insiang in 1984, but I missed it. Bayan Ko is the film that got Brocka's Filipino citizenship revoked, and a print had to be smuggled out of the county for its competition screening at Cannes in 1984. The fourth selection is 1974's You Have Been Weighed and Found Wanting (what a title!). All four films will be screened in 16mm or 35mm prints.
"The rest of SFIAAFF's Focus on Filipino and Filipino American Cinema can be found scattered throughout the line-up. "Classic Filipino American Shorts" is, well, exactly that. From this year's Documentary Competition comes Ninoy Aquino & the Rise of People Power, about the revolutionary leader, political prisoner, exile and martyr to the cause of Philippine democracy. Manilatown is in the Heart—Time Travel with Al Robles is part of the CAAM@30 Documentary Showcase and the latest from director Curtis Choy (The Fall of the I-Hotel). From the Narrative Competition we have the world premiere of Gerry Balasta's The Mountain Thief, a docudrama about one family's struggle to live amidst a garbage dumpsite. And finally, the one I'm most looking forward to, Raya Martin's hyper-stylized allegory of early 20th century American colonialism, Independencia."
I also replicate my capsule review of Independencia from the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival:
Listening expectantly in the dark is Miguel (Sid Lucero), the son in Raya Martin's lustrous Independencia who—crouched still with vigilant eyes—hears the sounds of war approaching within a raging storm that ravishes the Philippine rain forest. The wet foliage—as Joni Mitchell phrases it—"looks like slick black cellophane" and as if to emphasize the film's irreality, Martin purposely employs theatrical devices and fabulist artificiality to emphasize not only the history of his country, but the history of his country's cinema. Martin describes Independencia as "an intimist film in the woods."
I am pleased to announce the publication of Film Festival Yearbook 2: Film Festivals and Imagined Communities, edited by Dina Iordanova with Ruby Cheung, published by University of St. Andrews Film Studies in conjunction with their Dynamics of World Cinema project. The book is the second in the series; the first volume, the Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, was published in 2009. I'm pleased—not only because I was invited to contribute my essay "Diasporas by the Bay: Two Asian Film Festivals in San Francisco"—but, primarily, because my essay promotes two of my favorite film festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area: the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and the 3rd i Film Festival.
As the publishers have synopsized: Film Festivals and Imagined Communities, the second volume in the Film Festival Yearbook series, brings together essays about festivals that use international cinema to mediate the creation of transnational "imagined communities". There are texts about the cultural policies and funding models linked to these festivals, as well as analysis of programming practices linked to these often highly politicized events. The case studies discuss diaspora-linked festivals that take place in Vienna, San Francisco, San Sebastian, Havana, Bradford, Sahara, South Korea, and London and that feature cinema from places as diverse as Nepal and Kurdistan, Africa and Latin America. Authors include Lindiwe Dovey, Ruby Cheung, Michael Guillén, Jérôme Segal, Miriam Ross, Roy Stafford, Yun Mi Hwang, Isabel Santaolalla and Stefan Simanowitz, Mustafa Gündoğdu, and Dina Iordanova. The Resources section features an up-to-date bibliography on film festival scholarship (by Skadi Loist and Marijke de Valck) and an extensive thematically-organized listing of a variety of transnational festivals. Dina Iordanova has offered the volume's contents at her own site DinaView.
Jonathan Rosenbaum has written: "The very ambitious aspiration of the Film Festival Yearbook is, quite literally, to define a new area of film study. Part of the implied agenda of the book, given the scope and seriousness of the aspiration, is to combine some of the best and most valuable features of scholarly rigor with some of the most valuable features of journalism. The book can be useful to potential and actual film festival programmers as well as to academics who are studying film festivals as a social phenomenon. Filmgoers with particular interests of their own as well as those who are invested in specific national or ethnic groups will also be attracted to this volume."
Faye Ginsburg, Director of the Center for Media, Culture and History at New York University has written: "Film Festivals and Imagined Communities—the second volume in the series—opens up new horizons both for those who study media and those who create the significant but often overlooked "media worlds" where films first get launched: film festivals from the "periphery". Anyone who has attended or helped run one knows the intensity and significance of these distinctive social arenas in calling attention to new work as well as to emergent cultural possibilities. This excellent collection clarifies the role that film festivals play as venues that constitute a social universe for diverse groups, audiences, and artists (diasporic, indigenous, LGBT, migrant workers). With articles addressing how these festivals work—from the economic and artistic considerations of those who produce them to the way they help to 'imagine communities'—we start to understand the role these festivals play for members of minority communities that too rarely see cinematic work related to their lives. This collection is indispensable for anyone interested in understanding contemporary global media and what makes it work."
Finally, of related interest, is a recently-published article by Konrad Ng (University of Hawaii, Mānoa)—"Thoughts from Oslo, Norway: Film Festivals and Expanding the Moral Imagination"—published at FlowTV. In his article Ng aligns certain lines of reasoning from President Obama's acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize with cinema, especially with regard to "the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there's something irreducible that we all share." Following this line of reasoning, Ng proposes that film festivals can serve as a "model of engagement that may help expand our moral imagination." Citing Michael Shapiro's Cinematic Geopolitics, Ng suggests that "film festivals can be a space for envisioning possibility and articulating critical attitudes towards acts of violence and oppression; film festivals can 'provide a venue for films with significant anti-violence and anti-war themes and cinematic styles' and by doing so, assist the expansion of the moral imagination." By way of case study, Ng takes a look at how grassroots Asian American film festivals such as the Los Angeles Pacific Film Festival (sponsored by Visual Communications), and the International Asian American Film Festivals in both New York (sponsored by Asian CineVision) and San Francisco (sponsored by CAAM) contribute "a critical role in translating and transforming a notion of community into cultural and political engagement."
CAAM's Executive Director Stephen Gong acknowledges Ng's thesis as "provocative and convincing" and states: "There are many kinds of film festival, [of] course. Some of the largest are integral to the marketing and distribution of cinema as entertainment. Some at the other end are more geared toward civic boosterism. Our sector, and one shared by dozens, if not hundreds of other culturally specific festivals, reflect, as Konrad asserts, an important connection to a cultural or identity-community, and as such, play a key role in the continued evolution of the community and its place within the larger world."
06/02/10 UPDATE: I'm so pleased that the Film Festival Yearbooks are receiving some coverage in film journals. Adam Nayman's review for the current issue of Cineaste surveys both volumes, along with On Film Festivals—the third edition of the Dekalog series guest edited by Cineaste staffer Richard Porton. Nayman has been especially kind to me. He writes: "This plurality of voices extends also to FFY2, which gestures towards the margins of the international film festival network, focusing on festivals geared towards different ethnicities and social groups. It's heartening, for instance, to see a piece written by somebody best known as a blogger—Twitch.com critic Michael Guillén, whose 'Diasporas By the Bay' patiently explicates the ways in which two San Francisco-based initiatives—the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and the San Francisco South Asian International Film Festival—have thrived by matching "content to constituency." Thanks for the shout out, Adam!
With the 47th edition of the New York Film Festival currently in progress, I thought now would be a good time to follow-up on my response to Section One of Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, edited by Dina Iordanova with Ragan Rhyne, published by the Center for Film Studies at the University of St. Andrews and Wallflower Press; namely because Section Two of the Yearbook provides six festival case studies, including Rahul Hamid's informative and fascinating historical essay "From Urban Bohemia to Euro Glamour: The Establishment and Early Years of the New York Film Festival" (2009:67-81).
As stated in Iordanova and Rhyne's introduction, Hamid's contribution to the Yearbook plumbs the depths of NYFF's archives to narrate the establishment of the festival through a description of the institutionalization and organizational politics of NYFF's first edition. I was particularly captivated by this strategy because—in essence—by laying out the conflicts, issues and compromises that characterized the first years of the NYFF, it addresses "the curatorial challenges still faced by the festival today and can offer insight into the epicurean world of contemporary film festival culture." (2009:67)
"Epicurean" is a lovely and apt term to emphasize the role of curatorial taste in shaping any festival's given program and how conflicts in taste texture festival experience. What has become perhaps the most important value of my appreciation of Hamid's case study of the NYFF is how it has provided an ameliorative perspective on some of my ongoing complaints about the San Francisco International Film Festival, which I now understand are neither specific to SFIFF nor "original" in any sense of the word. Said complaints have longstanding historical precedent and reflect the ongoing challenges compromised by curatorial choice. That choice can (and perhaps should) always be questioned by audiences and press; though that's not to say the challenges become resolved even if the choices are commuted. More and more I've come to understand the staged irresolution of these conflicts through the film festival platform. No one is to blame. It is the nature of the beast; film festivals the cage within which the beast paces.
Hamid situates his discussion by deferring to the seminal work of Thomas Elsaesser, who "describes the post-war film festival circuit as a direct response to the growing power and hegemony of Hollywood and the US film industry. This antagonistic relationship to Hollywood colored much of the international discourse around festivals, situating festivals and the European art cinema they programmed as anti-commercial 'high art' and American cinema and theatrical distribution as the province of the masses and lowbrow commercialization (though famously, Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut challenged this distinction)." (2009:67-68) As the awkward fate of commercial distribution of films presides over the future of so-called festival "art film" and alternative exhibition practices, this current concern appears to have been built into the film festival phenomenon from its onset.
Amos Vogel—along with his wife Marcia—created Cinema 16, which had a direct influence upon how the NYFF was initially programmed. His 1975 book Film as Subversive Art was (as Hamid describes it): "Part manifesto, part celebration, and part detailed cinematic catalogue, there is no better introduction to Vogel's curatorial philosophy, which prioritized the examination of form over content, allowing industrial film, experimental work and auteur cinema to be appreciated on an equal plane." (2009:70). Vogel and his compatriot Richard Roud—then director of the London Film Festival—were instrumental in the establishment of the NYFF.
The NYFF helped to elevate the stature of cinema on parity with more established art forms, such as theater and literature, largely due to the advocacy of Andrew Sarris at The Village Voice and Eugene Archer at The New York Times; both of who did not see film as subordinate to the established art forms, in contrast to older critics (like Stanley Kauffmann at The New Republic) who did (2009:75).
Kauffmann emerges as a problematic figure in discussing the formative years of the NYFF, especially for his 1965 essay "Are We Doomed to Festivals?" in the October 2 issue of The New Republic. As detailed by Hamid: "In 1965, Kauffmann viciously attacked the [NYFF], homophobically complaining that Roud's descriptions of the films were written with a 'limp mind and wrist'. He called Special Events a 'circus sideshow', maintaining that festivals were for selling films and not for the display of art. Good films will be released, so ran the logic, and the rest were not worthy of the exalted status given to them by the festival in the first place. Kauffmann argues that the festival films should be shown in small venues year-round like Vogel's Cinema 16 (Kauffmann 1965:30-32)." (2009:77) I'm not familiar enough with Kauffmann's work to know if he has since retracted his initial impressions, though Bart Cardullo—in his important Bright Lights Film Journal interview with Kauffmann—bravely circumambulates around Kauffmann's opinions shaped by nearly 50 years of film criticism.
Kauffmann was, by no means, singular in his criticism. Several older critics and the business establishment itself complained throughout 1964 and 1965. This criticism was compounded by that of younger critics who took objection to the establishment of the "hold review" policy (which has since become de rigeur for festival press coverage). "According to Sarris, the rule that films could not be reviewed during the festival (because this was too far in advance of their theatrical releases and therefore not useful for film promotion) grew to become a major cause of anger among critics, who were not primarily interested in the films' profitability." (2009:77).
Again, to be made aware that this longstanding conflict with the hold review policy has been in place since the onset of the NYFF serves to mollify my disgruntlement with the hold review policy at SFIFF. I now more fully understand the compromise struck between commercial and art cinema within the parameters of the film festival proper as a tension that is hardwired into the festival experience. That concession being made, however, I am still critical of the questionable policy of the tiering of press at film festivals, where celebrity "red carpet" journalists are granted more privilege and access than journalists who—like myself—elect to focus on first-time directors from the Global South or auteurial cinema. If reliance on studio fare provides essential financial backing and a spectacular dimension to film festivals—which I can appreciate—it should not, however, occlude the role of film journalists in advancing the work of non-studio fare. I plead for more parity in this instance.
Finally, "The NYFF also pushed the culture of film festivals one step further by being, in a sense, a festival of festival movies. The films selected were for the most part self-consciously artistic, created for an educated, international audience. On the other hand, the NYFF was non-competitive and stayed away from the hyperbolic atmosphere that surrounds festivals like Cannes and Venice. It was created as a haven for art appreciation. A staid and reverent atmosphere remains at the festival even today, as it approaches its fiftieth year. Further insulated from a promotion-crazed commercial atmosphere by the proliferation of festivals on this continent (Toronto in particular), the NYFF seldom hosts any North American premieres any more. Contemporary critics might also view the event as elitist and think of the festival as a completely bourgeois and irrelevant institution, but ironically that was part of the original point of the festival—to give film a place in the cultural establishment of the city." (2009:79-80)
In summation, Hamid's historicization of the NYFF serves as a template to understand the organizational precedents of international film festivals in general, drawing into focus the perhaps necessary contention between art and commercial cinema and the role of film festivals and their audiences in negotiating that tension.
The remaining case studies in Section Two of the Yearbook include Charles-Clemens Rüling's organizational analysis of the Annecy International Animation Festival as a "field-configuring event"; Kay Armatage's hands-on recollection of the 1973 Toronto Women & Film International, which examines—as the editors state in their introduction—"the ephemeral history of women's film festivals through her own memory" (2009:3-4); David Slocum's look at two African film festivals: FESPACO and the Zanzibar International Film Festival; and, finally—of related interest to the NYFF's current Masterworks series "(Re)Inventing China: A New Cinema for a New Society, 1949–1966", expertly graphed out by Kevin Lee at The Auteurs Notebook—Ruby Cheung's narration of how the Hong Kong International Film Festival transitioned from a government-run program to a model influenced by corporate efficiency and sponsors, and Ma Ran's examination of how "that policy and aesthetics collided as underground Chinese cinema found its way onto the international film festival circuit, much to the chagrin of Mainland Chinese bureaucrats" (2009:4).
All of these essays are fascinating, informative reading that broaden an appreciation of the film festival experience in its contemporary unfolding. I would also recommend Richard Porton's erudite Moving Image essay "The Festival Whirl", wherein he references the Yearbook in his consideration of "the utopian possibilities—and dystopian realities—of the modern film festival."
Hello. My name is Michael and I am a film festival junkie, which means I cycle through addiction (should I watch four movies today or five?), recovery (I'm feeling oppressed with movies and I'm going to stop watching so many of them) and recidivism (the Toronto International's coming up!). Thus, you can imagine my unbridled delight in Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, edited by Dina Iordanova with Ragan Rhyne, published by the Center for Film Studies at the University of St. Andrews and Wallflower Press.
As synopsized: "The first installment in an annual series, the Film Festival Yearbook features essays on the global proliferation of film festivals, focusing on the dynamics of the festival circuit. Contributions discuss the function of individual festivals within a larger and more complex network and the cultural policies that shape channels of film exhibition and distribution. The inaugural volume will include essays by Dina Iordanova, Charles-Clemens Rüling, Ragan Rhyne, Ruby Cheung, and Rahul Hamid. Forthcoming volumes cover gay and lesbian film festivals; festivals of Asia and the Asian diaspora; and the relationship between festivals and geopolitics."
Dina Iordanova is professor of film studies at the University of St. Andrews, where she directs the project Dynamics of World Cinema. She is the author of Cinema of the Balkans and Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and the Artistry of East Central European Film, both published by Wallflower Press. She guest-edited a recent Festivals issue for Film International, where I first became acquainted with her work and which I reviewed for The Evening Class. Highly-recommended reading.
As is Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, which impressed me straight off for its staged parity between academics and critics-practitioners. Walking their talk even further, I was honored—as a non-academic and more practitioner than critic—to be invited to contribute to the next volume. Reviewing the worth of this first volume is almost impossible, if not implied—its necessity and timeliness are givens—so, instead, what I've decided to do is to respond to the essays themselves in a series of four entries that correspond to the sections of the book to set an (idiosyncratic?) example of how I've rendered the information relevant to my own festival experience(s).
As editors Iordanova and Rhyne lay out in their introduction to the volume: "By launching the series of the Film Festival Yearbook with this inaugural volume, we aim to: 1) explore festivals in a systematic manner that, while relying on individual case studies, will foreground theoretical concerns at the intersection of arts management, cultural policy and film studies and 2) chart the complex structure of the international film festival network, bringing along a better understanding of World Cinema. A level of abstraction is needed for the study of festivals to gain momentum and translate the currently scattered research environment of festival studies into a sufficiently structured context. Our hope is that the Film Festival Yearbook will serve this function.
"In a programmatic essay, Thomas Elsaesser described the festival network as a specifically European industry response to Hollywood's distribution mechanisms and explored festivals in the context of actor-network theory. With respect to Europe, Elsaesser claimed, the festival circuit had become the key force and power grid in the film business, with wide-reaching consequences for the respective functioning of other elements of film culture, such as authorship, production, exhibition, cultural prestige and recognition." (2009:2) That "programmatic" essay—"Film Festival Networks: The New Topographies of Cinema in Europe"—was published in Elsaesser's European Cinema: Face to Face With Hollywood (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005). Although film festival scholarship had been ongoing for some time, Elsaesser's essay provided a fulcrum through which existing scholarship could be incorporated into the burgeoning field of film festival studies as well as a gameplan on how to proceed systematically. As important as his essay is to the field of film festival studies, I'm heartened that it has been made available in PDF format. Again, highly recommended reading.
"It is only through the continued development of both strands of festival studies—case studies and the theorization of their broader relevance to our understanding of the festival as a circuit—that this research will continue to progress," Iordanova and Rhyne argue in their introduction. "Just as the study of museums and galleries has become crucial to our understanding of the institutionalization of arts and heritage, so too must the study of festivals be central to understanding the socio-cultural dynamics of global cinema and international cultural exchanges at large." (2009:1)
As mentioned earlier, the volume has been divided into four sections. The first section on the film festival circuit begins with an analysis by Ragan Rhyne—"Film Festival Circuits and Stakeholders"—wherein she "deploys some of the case studies in this volume, arguing that the various interests of festival stakeholders are negotiated through the administrative and economic structures of a newly-globalized non-profit sector." (2009:3) Ragan Rhyne is a Research Associate at the Center for Film Studies at the University of St. Andrews on the Dynamics of World Cinema project. Her work has been published in GLQ, Velvet Light Trap, and the Journal of Homosexuality. It is perhaps of contextual import to note that the Dynamics of World Cinema project is a major research project undertaken by the Center for Film Studies at the University of St Andrews and sponsored by The Leverhulme Trust. This two-and-a-half-year-long study hopes to examine the patterns and cycles of various distinctly active circuits of contemporary film distribution and exhibition, and the dynamic patterns of complex interaction between them. Their attention will focus predominantly in four areas of the global circulation of non-Hollywood cinema: the international penetration of international blockbusters mainstream distribution, the film festival circuit, the film circulation via diasporic channels, as well as the various Internet-enabled forms of dissemination. The project's distinctiveness is in the endeavor to correlate these diverse strands and foreground their dynamic interactions.
Rhyne's essay poses the provocative consideration that the film festival "circuit" might be a misnomer. "The trouble," she writes, "is that materially, the film festival circuit is not nearly as connected as we have thought. In fact, we might abandon the structural idea of the festival circuit as a single entity altogether and instead understand it as an international cultural sector linked by a common economy of public and private subsidy." (2009:9) This economic understanding of the festival as a cultural industry managed through a global non-profit sector necessarily places a spotlight on who the stakeholders are in any given film festival. By "stakeholders", Rhyne references "filmmakers and studios, journalists and press agents, professionals and programmers, local cultural councils and supranational agencies, tourist boards, cinephiles, and others", all of whom she proposes "have particular interests in seeing the network proliferate." (2009:9) As both journalist and cinephile, I'm primed to question my own staked interests.
Rhyne's historical purview of the role the non-profit mechanism has had in enabling film festivals to function—being funded by "some combination of earned income, government funding, corporate sponsorship and private donations" (2009:10)—likewise raises thorny issues about the hazardous reliance on such means of economic backing. Most recently, at the 29th edition of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Executive Director Peter Stein and the festival's programming staff came under severe fire from conservative constituencies protesting the inclusion of Simone Bitton's Rachel, a documentary about Rachel Corrie and her controversial death. Conservative private donor Maurice Kanbar—who felt Rachel had no business being in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival line-up—was overheard proclaiming that the Jewish Film Festival would not receive one more penny from him. The Koret Foundation and Taube Foundation likewise pulled their funding, protesting injuries to the Israeli state. They were deeply offended that the SFJFF invited Rachel Corrie's mother to the festival, and that the program was co-presented by the American Friends Service Committee and Jewish Voices For Peace; organizations which they claim are "virulently anti-Israel, anti-Semitic groups that support boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel." At Tikun Olam, Richard Silverstein staged debate on the issue. Statements by both The Koret Foundation and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival have been posted at JWeekly.com, where coverage on this "controversy" has continued.
I, in no way, want to deminimize the economic impact that withdrawal of funding from Kanbar and the Koret/Taube Foundations might have on the operations of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, albeit momentarily, and I consider this an unfortunate blow; however, this is a classic example of funders trying to manipulate a festival's programming, and thereby cultural policy. Perhaps Kanbar and the Koret/Taube Foundations should concert their conservative efforts to financing their own Zionist Film Festival—spelling it out clearly for all concerned—and leave the mission objectives of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival alone?
In a less vitriolic but no less important example, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently jettisoned their 40-year-old film program. Doug Cummings has provided a masterful synopsis of the controversy at his site Film Journey; a controversy that, once again, underscores how withdrawn funding can strangle film culture. Critic Kenneth Turan lays out the hazards competently for the L.A. Times.
Both examples confirm Rhyne's hypothesis: "From the outset, geopolitics and cultural politics have been co-articulated in the institutional structures and commercial affiliations of international film festivals." (2009:11) Rhyne cites Daniel Dayan's essay "Looking For Sundance: The Social Construction Of A Film Festival" (published in Moving Images, Culture and the Mind) wherein Dayan remarked that the film festival—referencing Sundance specifically—is often "an agonistic site of negotiation" dependent "upon a variety of conflicting interests" and "structured to not only contain them but also to deploy them toward institutional goals through what he calls the collective performance of the festival—a performance that actually requires the negotiation of these conflicting interests. Ironically, these conflicts, he argues, are fundamental to the cohesion of the festival as an event.
"…Dayan argues that the festival is constituted not only through the negotiation of these conflicts but also through journalistic chronicles of it—what he calls the 'written festival'. 'Like the physical event, but even more acutely so, the written festival turned out to be made of different versions, relaying different voices, relying on different sources of legitimacy. But it also provided its own common threads.' (Dayan 2000:52).
"Through his concept of 'the written festival', Dayan suggests that film festivals—or at least Sundance in particular—are constituted not only through the negotiation of various stakeholders, but through the articulation of these conflicting positions in journalistic coverage of the festival. This negotiation, in other words, is not incidental to the festival institution itself, but crucial to both its function as an event and to the way that the festival is understood as a cultural phenomenon. We might understand this as suggesting that the constant public discussion of the battle of festivals for aesthetic autonomy from the varying pressures of Hollywood, audiences, critics and corporate sponsors is theoretically misleading. The festival cannot solve these conflicts. Rather, it has an interest in playing them out in the cultural public sphere." (2009:18-19). San Francisco and Los Angeles have certainly had the opportunity to do so in recent weeks.
It's perhaps important to remember that the festival as a cultural industry managed through a global non-profit sector was an evolved response to the administration of the world's first film festival in Venice, founded by none other than Benito Mussolini and conceived as a tribute to fascism in Italy and Germany.
Moving on to Dina Iordanova's entry "The Film Festival Circuit", she "challenges the standard line in festival studies that film festivals constitute an alternative system of distribution. Instead, her suggestion that it is better understood as an exhibition network sheds light on how the economy of the festival circuit actually functions." (2009:3)
Cautioning that the art of cinema has been taken over by seemingly "secondary concerns like the rank of celebrities on the red carpet and the numbers of accredited journalists" (2009:23-24)—take heed San Francisco International!—Iordanova concludes: "The global film festival phenomenon is not inherently networked. Most festivals come about as singular ventures, independently from each other as temporary entities and discrete exhibition sites. They mushroom autonomously from each other, copying each other's model and replicating it in their own locality. It is only after a festival is established locally that the issue of its relationship with other festivals in what constitutes a loose network comes about. In that, individual festivals are discrete phenomena that spring up independently rather than as part of an orchestrated move." (2009:26).
The notion of film festivals as an alternate distribution model surfaced for me during my days on the board of the Global Film Initiative and was articulated by Jonathan Marlow in his fiercely opined Greencine editorial "They didn't build their sales model for you" (which remains a good read all these months later).
Film festivals as an alternative exhibition network, however, raises questions about the fees extracted by filmmakers and distributors from festivals to offset costs which will most likely never be achieved by a theatrical distribution (rendered incidental). Transparency on this subject is woefully inadequate. Any input encouraged.
Finally, Janet Harbord's essay—"Film Festivals-Time-Event"—"takes a somewhat different approach to her conception of the festival circuit, calling for renewed attention to the temporality of the festival circuit, rather than a strict focus on festival geographies." (2009:3) Harbord is Reader of Film and Screen Media at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is the author of Film Cultures (Sage, 2002), The Evolution of Film (Polity, 2007) and Chris Marker: La Jettee (Afterall/MIT Press, 2009).
Harbord's essay thoroughly fascinated me, as much on a philosophic level as on a cinephilic one. "While attempting to think of a film festival, its meaning is inseparable from its particular location. And if it is not possible to make sense of a film festival without its emplacement, it is increasingly difficult to imagine certain cities apart from their film festivals." (2009:40). Hello, San Francisco! In my recent research project on the community-based festivals in the Bay Area, it's already becoming apparent how crucial the multiculturalism and ethnic diversity of San Francisco and environs plays out in its ongoing festival culture. In some respects when it comes to personal experience, some cities are their film festivals. Though I have been to Toronto several years in a row, I know nothing about the city itself except the infrastructure of TIFF. The same for the Palm Springs International. I do not extend myself past the festival experience to familiarize myself with what else the city might have to offer. But those are the admitted failings of an affirmed film festival junkie.
The spatial qualities of film festivals not only have to do with urban settings but the venues within those cities. For example, I have a vigilant eye on negotiations to move the San Francisco International out to the Presidio and away from the more-convenient Sundance Kabuki theaters. I hope to determine why this is considered a necessary choice; what—if any—connection it has to civic subsidies for development of tourism; and if this choice can escape a critique of classism, especially from a population committed to public transit? Has the San Francisco Film Society thought out a solution to access? Transit to the Presidio is highly problematic, let alone that the site itself is insular, with few amenities for the public. Will SFFS consider shuttles from convenient transit nodes (much like the Palm Springs International) or are they catering to an upper echelon of membership who can drive their fancy cars to the festival; lower minions be damned? I propose that one of the most winning aspects of the Toronto International Film Festival is how its public transit system efficiently connects its various venues, insuring egalitarian attendance.
As for time? Her essay could have just as aptly been entitled: "Does anybody really know what time it is?" Harbord defines a film as a recorded document of something past, which is then exhibited in the present. She argues that festivals gather together "the time of film and the time of viewing and recenters the time of projection as a live event. This choreography of a dance between the live event on one hand and the recorded, pre-fixed film on the other is the manufactured time of the festival. The alchemy resulting from these different temporalities, the now and the then, characterizes the potency of the film festival as event." (2009:44)
Further considerations of time involve when a festival is scheduled within a yearlong calendar. One of the specific challenges encountered by the San Francisco International, let's say, hinges on its being perhaps the very last festival of the calendar year, coming into play as Cannes announces its line-up of what is presumed to be the next year's bumper crop of films. Then there is the somewhat addictive intensity of film festivals produced by the compression of time anywhere within a few days to a few weeks. Then there's each person's selection of films, the choices made to best manage time spent at a festival; choices that include film length, film stock, conflicted screenings, and how much time one has to get from one venue to another, or to nourish the body with food, social networking or unapologetic down time.
If truth be told, my film writing was conceived by diary entries; my journalism from journal entries. Anaïs Nin encouraged me to consider that attending a film was a valid moment of life experience. She faithfully recorded cinematic events in Paris in her diaries, which inspired me to endeavor the same. This habit of writing in my diary about films I've seen has reached its seeming apotheosis in The Evening Class, which has become my running account of the sociality of Bay Area film culture. Harbord reflects on same: "A critical factor in the manufacture of live time is the role of reporting, the witness statements of journalists and bloggers sent out to the wider public to describe the event that has already happened. If the gate-keeping functions of film festivals are most evident in spatial terms, the barriers and ropes that demarcate internal worlds, the temporal also has a function in this practice of demarcating the event from everyday life, from the outside. Written reportage, which is the main form of festival journalism, is a delayed experience, a postcard as it were emitted from the place of happening. The newspaper report helps to seal the time of the event as a live happening that can only be recounted afterwards to those outside of its boundary.
"The task of the film festival is to make time matter," Harbord asserts, "to give urgency to the viewing of film in an historical context in which the public release of film is no longer a necessary compelling event of itself. The condensed structure of the festival makes the here and the now of viewing critically important. Contingency, which marks the festival as an unfolding event whose details are unknowable in advance, affords a singularity to the experience: to see a film here and now will be unlike any other time of viewing. This moment of viewing will attach itself to the film in many cases, bringing a film notoriety or award that then becomes part of its circulation, a moment 'carried over'." (2009:43-44).
These are fascinating concerns that ramify into considerations of what the difference is between the advance previewing of films on screener in contrast to the in-cinema reviewing of films in a festival, modes of distribution and exhibition, and how both anticipation and fulfillment are temporally and spatially structured.
Though the touring Hola Mexico Film Festival (HMFF) was woefully under-attended during its San Francisco stint at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinema, it nonetheless provided a welcome program of both arthouse and popular films representing Mexico's cinematic output in the past year or so. The festival received some assistance from the Mexican Consulate, and near-to-negligible support from Landmark's publicist Steve Indig (an e-mail blast in the middle of the festival? A "you're on your own" attitude? C'mon, Steve!). Hopefully next year HMFF will hire a publicist and not rely exclusively on either the Mexican Consulate or Landmark to generate buzz on the event and, hopefully, they time the festival to not run the day after the San Francisco International wraps, by which time even the most resilient cinephiles are exhausted. I know I was. I would hate to think that—in a community that boasts such a large Latino demographic—support for HMFF will not increase in the years to come.
HMFF is continuing its national tour, currently screening in Miami at the Tower Theater through May 16, next in Chicago at Landmark's Century Centre Cinemas (May 20-25), then Washington, D.C. at Landmark's E Street Cinemas (May 27-June 1), wrapping up in New York at the Quad Cinema (June 2-June 6). Keep abreast of developments at HMFF's Facebook page.
The proof's in the pudding. No less than a few days before HMFF launched at Landmark's Embarcadero Cinema, Alamar—Pedro González-Rubio's sophomore feature—won the New Directors Award at the 53rd edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival. Alamar was just one of the excellent films hand-picked by Douek for his festival.
Samuel Douek is a man who appreciates film, international travel and—above all—his heritage. Combining his three favorite things, Douek founded HMFF in 2006 with the goal of exposing the international community to the creativity, ingenuity and charm of Mexican culture through film. Douek was raised in Mexico City and at age 23 moved to Sydney, Australia where he received a Marketing degree from Mcquarie University in 2002 and a Masters degree in Event Management from UTS. Once in Sydney, Douek began to visit local festivals in the Sydney area and noticed the lack of Mexican influence in cinema. From that point on, he became inspired to create an international Mexican film festival and HMFF was eventually born. Douek's festival brings misunderstood Mexican culture to educate the entire world, one film at a time. His diverse but well-edited selection of 20+ films allows viewers to experience the unique walks of life that characterize Mexican identity and culture. Over the past four years, the festival has extended its reach to the United States, providing an opportunity for American citizens to experience the beauty, creativity and talent in Mexican film. Currently, Douek splits his time between Australia and Mexico, while also taking advantage of travel opportunities that send him across the globe. Inbetween afternoon screenings, we sat down to talk.
Michael Guillén: Samuel, what motivated you to create a traveling film festival of Mexican cinema?
During the second year of my festival, I came to the U.S. on holiday. I saw that there wasn't a Mexican Film Festival at all: not in New York, not in L.A., not anywhere! I thought about doing the same festival I was doing in cities in Australia, only here in cities in the U.S. Although it's not the same because in Australia the festival has the same sponsors everywhere. In the U.S. every city has its own sponsors.
Guillén: In Australia, what's your estimate of the Latino population? Are they coming to see your festival? Who comprises your audience?
Douek: So it's not something that just happens in Mexico. A Romanian film that wins top honors at the Cannes Film Festival doesn't know if they'll go home and make a lot of money. Usually those films—though talented and amazing, breaking through with cinematic achievements—don't translate into financial success, and vice versa. Some films like El Estudiante (The Student, 2009) or Arráncame la vida (Tear This Heart Out, 2008) that make millions of dollars in Mexican box office wouldn't go to any festivals around the world because they don't translate. Film festivals are more about the art part of cinema, whereas the box office is more about the commercial side. In saying that, HMFF is a portrait of Mexican cinema and we bring films like El Estudiante and Amor En Fin (Love On A Wknd, 2009), which are both commercial, but then we also bring films like Vaho (Becloud, 2009) or Norteado (Northless, 2009), which are more artistic. At the end, we're just trying to bring cinema that's well-produced with good sound, good acting.
Douek: I haven't been there because it's very close to the time that I'm in Australia launching the new HMFF. It's too problematic to go for a week to Morelia and then back to Australia. But this year I'm really looking forward to going to Morelia because now I think it's the festival to go to. The bulk of great Mexican films this year—Vaho, Norteado, Alamar and La Mitad Del Mundo (The Half of the World, 2009)—all came from the Morelia Film Festival. From Guadalajara this year, I only have Bala Mordida (Bitten Bullet, 2009) and Oveja Negra (Black Sheep, 2009).
Douek: Thank you. So that's one thing we offer. We also promote each film individually the best we can. At each city where HMFF plays, we invite the filmmakers to travel with us. [Laughs.] Imagine a huge touring bus with about 20 bunk beds so that the 12 filmmakers could travel with me for one month from city to city. Imagine me driving the bus with all the 35mm cannisters loaded underneath! That would be interesting to do ... once!
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