Spring 2008
Behind the Screens
The Green Mountain Film Festival readies Montpelier to roll 'em
By Marcelle Langan DiFalco
"Too slow. Needed a car chase."
"An absolute delight. Escapist — but what the heck — it's MARCH for heaven's sake."
"A relief from Hollywood films."
"Unbearable."
"Slower than death."
"I'm sure I'm not the only one who hated this film..."
"Yuck—but sticks with you and makes a point."
"One of the best films in the festival."
"Mesmerizing."
Everybody's a critic, judging from the comments above that appeared on critique cards after the film "Climates" was shown at last year's Green Mountain Film Festival. Candor, criticism, controversy and conversation are no small part of the fun of any film festival, and Vermonters seem to enjoy it just as much as anyone else — especially if the festival is held in March.
"I think that choosing late March was a brilliant choice for us, because people have been through a Vermont winter, and even if it's a wonderful winter, people are feeling cooped up. They need to see friends, faces they have not seen for five or six months," says Andrea Serota, who, with her husband, Rick Winston, owns and manages Montpelier's Savoy Theater, the main venue for the festival. "People are really ready."
Film festivals are increasingly popping up in places where people might otherwise not expect to see them, like Montpelier. "There is a lot to be said for seeing a film in the company of others, and it's getting harder and harder to do that," says managing director of the Green Mountain Film Festival, Donald Rae. The Green Mountain Film Festival, an annual 10-day, mud-season event, has seen solid growth in recent years: in 2003, the festival sold 4,487 admission tickets; in 2007, that number ratcheted up to 10,337.
"I think people associate events with the scope of films we present with being in a big city, and, really, that's not the case," says Rae. "When you think of the country's most popular film festivals, many of them take place in small towns."
In 2006, the estimated population of Telluride was only 2,267, yet in 2007 the tiny Colorado mountain town squeezed in 5,000 filmies for the annual Labor Day weekend movie marathon. Likewise, Park City, Utah, home to the Sundance Film Festival, hosts a residential population of around 8,000. Attendance records from Sundance 2004 indicate that event drew a staggering 39,000 visitors to Park City.
Montpelier (population 8,035), shall be so immersed — if not submerged — March 21 through March 30, as The Green Mountain Film Festival officially marks its 11th year.
"There is something particularly pleasant in the coming together of a Vermont small town with an arts festival; the scale is right," says Rae. "It has a unique charm that seems to sit well with a film festival. If you go to a big festival, like the one in TriBeCa [New York City], you could walk through TriBeCa and almost not know the festival is going on, whereas in a small town like Montpelier, you can't not notice."
Film historian Stephen Bissette says Montpelier's focus on film actually goes back 30 years. "There was a group called the Lightening Ridge Film Society, which used to show 60mm films in downtown Montpelier," says Bissette. "This film society was a real important thing for those of us growing up in Vermont at a time when the only way to see a movie was when it was out in theaters or, perhaps, months or years later, edited and interrupted by commercials on TV."
The Lightening Ridge Film Society was founded by Montpelier's Savoy Theater co-owner/co-manager Rick Winston. "Rick Winston and the work that his group did made it possible for us kids to see great films," says Bissette. "There have been other film societies that have been around since, but Rick is one of those anchors. He never left Vermont."
Winston has selected and screened films in Montpelier since the Lightening Ridge days; in addition to choosing the non-mainstream films for the Savoy Theater, Winston is the programmer of the Green Mountain Film Festival, leading the screening committee of 16 people.
Despite a smattering of film review cards that question the committee's taste: "What were you thinking?" the lion's share of feedback suggests that the organizers of the Green Mountain Film Festival are doing something very right. But the goal is not to impress or please. "There are films that we show that we think people ought to have a chance to see, which is separate from whether we think they might enjoy it, or if we enjoyed it," Rae explains.
Attendees aren't looking to the Green Mountain Film Festival to provide access to the latest Hollywood cookie-cutter blockbuster du jour, or a super-sized sequel to a sequel to a sequel. Rather, festival-goers apparently crave more exotic fare, like cultish South Korean horror drama "The Host," or "Beauty in Trouble," the movie that captured three 2007 Czech Lion Awards.
Roughly speaking, about half of the films shown during the festival are documentaries and the other half are feature films from around the globe, all of which, with the notable exception of a few classic films, are very new releases.
"Last year," laughs Rae, "we shoe-horned in a documentary so new the ink was still wet." The movie was "Living on the Fault Line" by Vermont filmmaker Jeff Farber. "Many of the films at the Festival are Vermont premiers," says Rae, "But that one might have been a world premier."
"The main goal is to present really quality feature films and documentaries," says Serota. "We also strive to get films from all over the world — especially films from countries from which we have not seen any films before. Over the years, I think that people have learned they can take chances on films that they might not have even heard of and feel assured that what they will see at the festival will be a high-quality film."
The festival has intentionally never had a unifying theme of any kind — never an entire lineup of films from any one particular genre, era, country or director. And unlike many of the high-profile film festivals across the country, the Green Mountain Film Festival has never given any "prize" or "place" ranking for films shown at the festival as the organizers take the view that the prize thing is a distraction. "It just doesn't appeal to us, and it seems kind of arbitrary. Hardly anyone is able to see every film in the festival, so how can one give a prize to the 'best' film?" asks Serota. "It feels a little bit like drumming up excitement when we don't actually need to." Besides, she asks, "How can you compare a documentary on Carthusian monks ["Into Great Silence"] with an Asian creature feature ["The Host"]?"
Another distinction between the Green Mountain Film Festival's modus operandi and that of many other film festivals is that it doesn't put out an open call soliciting films for each year's festival, or an application fee, which other festivals might view as a source of revenue. "We choose our films," says Rae. "We hunt them down; this is a curated festival."
In addition to 38 or so films shown in two different locations — the Savoy and The City Hall Arts Center — the festival brings in special guest speakers to run "sidebar" events and lead post-film discussions for most of the films. The centerpiece of the festival is the film critic event. "We've been lucky enough to get very good people like Kenneth Turan, the film critic for the L.A. Times and NPR's Morning Edition," says Rae. "We get our critics to come by persuading them that Montpelier is where they want to be at the end of March."
Another strand of the festival involves short films, which are screened before about half of the features.
"There is a large number of short films being made locally," says Rae. "So, last year we helped the Langdon Street Café organize a roster of films made by Vermont high school and college students." The free event was very successful and created space for Vermont's youngest film talent.
"It's important to try and pass on what you know to other people," says Serota. "I would love to see even more young people coming to see the film festival. Now we have a vital and interesting film culture, but we won't if younger people don't learn to love and appreciate these kinds of films."
"We're not that interested in the past," she says. "We just want to keep doing it — keep having one good festival after another. The only 'past' we're interested in is film history."
Reel Intense
How the Green Mountain Film Festival selects and gets the goods
When it comes to organizing the Green Mountain Film Festival, there is as much informality as is compatible with a well-run festival, says Donald Rae, the festival's one paid employee. Yet it is still quite an undertaking. The festival hires eight professional projectionists, and an army of 100 volunteers navigates upward of 10,000 admissions between four festival venues for 102 events, starting as early as 9:30 a.m. and as late as 10:45 p.m. There are no assigned seats, and performances run back to back; one audience needs to be ushered out as another is ushered in before the next film rolls.
During the non-festival weeks of the year, volunteers are divided into two groups: one that runs the operating logistics of the festival, communicating with the patrons and sponsors. The other, the screening committee, selects the films.
Spearheaded by the festival's programmer, Rick Winston and his wife, Andrea Serota, who own the Savoy Theater in Montpelier, the business of identifying films as candidates for the festival is best likened to a treasure hunt in which the value of the treasure is almost entirely subjective.
The quest includes poring over trade magazines and mainstream press, traveling the world via the Internet to ingest reviews from publications around the globe, listening to people talk about movies, keeping tabs on other film festivals, attending other film festivals, and generally being resourceful and open-minded.
Once a film is identified as a possible candidate, the question becomes whether it can be physically available during the days of the festival, and if so, whether it is affordable. Half of the films in the festival are on 35mm film that travel the globe on 35-pound reels in two big metal cans. A film festival is obligated to make sure that the cans reach their next appointed destination on a scheduled time, so depending on where in the world the next venue is, the expedited shipping — say for Moscow — on such a heavy package could be prohibitive.
Once it is known that a film is available and affordable, the committee requests a "screener" — a version of the film to preview, usually on DVD. The committee reviews far more screeners of films than the festival will actually show, assessing them for things from pure artistic integrity to whether or not they would otherwise never see the inside of a theater in Vermont.
Sometimes, after all the work, a film gets lost in transit. "There is a sense in which a festival is not a festival unless there is one calamity," says Rae, "and it's always a relief to get the calamity out of the way..."
Paramount to Montpelier?
Destination events like the Green Mountain Film Festival could prove to be an important part of the mix in achieving a sustainable downtown.
The Green Mountain Film Festival's operating philosophy includes spending its money locally wherever possible. The stationery is purchased on Main Street rather than at a mall or superstore. Smaller print jobs are done in town, larger jobs are all printed within the central Vermont area.
"The essential character of this film festival," says managing director Donald Rae, "is an absolute absence of glitz and glamour. Ours will never be the kind of festival where people come to 'be seen' or 'see.' It's always a temptation to court celebrities to attend, not that we have anything against celebrities, but it changes the character of the event."
The intimacy of scale in Montpelier is what has defined the intrinsic understated feel of the festival. While the event does attract a few film devotees from Montreal, New York City, and even one man from Seattle, and while uber-sophisticated films come from points across the globe, the event is primarily and essentially a community affair.
Lars Torres, a 37-year-old freelance writer who lives in Cabot, is a current member of the festival's operations committee. "We do a range of things, but fundraising is a biggie," he says. "It's amazing how much financial support the community gives, it's almost 50 percent of the budget."
"I believe our local community supports us so generously," says Rae, "because it understands that the festival contributes to a thriving downtown."
Vermont's Annual Film Festivals
From cinéma vérité to cartoon documentaries, these Vermont events and venues deliver film culture extraordinaire:
- 2008 Women's Film Festival, Brattleboro
A benefit for the Women's Crisis Center in Brattleboro
March 14-23 - Green Mountain Film Festival, Montpelier
A 10-day, independently run international film festival
March 21-30 - White River Indie Films, White River Junction
An educational non-profit dedicated to engaging the public in current political and social issues and to supporting the visual arts through film
April (dates TBA) - Vermont Samurai Kaiju Film Festival, Brattleboro
Kaiju is the genre of "mysterious beasts" such as Godzilla movies. Films will all be in Japanese. Launching this year as a proposed annual event.
Sept. 5-7 - Vermont International Film Festival, Burlington
Entering its 16th year, the four-day event will present documentary films and video, and juried awards in three categories: "War and Peace," "Human Rights" and "The Environment."
October (dates TBA) - FiveTown Massive, Bristol
A week-long film and music festival exhibiting independent and personal media
December (dates TBA). - MountainTop Human Rights Film Festival, Waitsfield
A five-day human rights film festival.
January (dates TBA)