by jon bosworth jaxvillain@yahoo.com
“[The Jacksonville Film Festival] has grown substantially. It’s grown by 25% each year in terms of attendance, and it’s getting better every year.”
Jean Tait is the director of programming for the annual film festival, now in its fifth year, so she is in charge of picking the films that show. She recently returned from the illustrious Sundance Film Festival.
Started in 1978, Sundance was a panel for filmmakers that included a selection of films that were made outside of Hollywood. When Utah resident Robert Redford became the chairman, it began to gain momentum and erstwhile became increasingly commercial as nearby Hollywood started using it as a market to generate good buzz about a movie they want to succeed in the “independent” market. It is currently one of the top film festivals in the world and ranks alongside Cannes and the Toronto Film Festival.
Tait knew all of this because she used to work for the Sundance Channel and this year’s festivities mark her eighth Sundance festival.
“Every year Redford comes out and says this is not a market, which is kind of silly. Cannes and Toronto are film markets, but Sundance claims that isn’t their purpose. It always happens anyway. Last year it let up a little bit but this year it was back stronger than ever.”
In the life cycle of a film, once the filmmakers have completed the work, the next step is getting the right people to be talking about it. The hope being that you would find someone that loved the film and would pick up the cost of distributing and marketing it.
“Giving their film out is part of their advertising cost. You pay to bring in the filmmaker, but you don’t pay a rental fee unless it’s an international picture, usually. Films have a whole festival strategy to build up word of mouth. They don’t advertise in the paper or on TV.”
Obviously Sundance is one of the most prestigious festivals in the United States, so when a filmmaker’s movie shows there it is well on its way to financial success. So does Jean Tait go Sundance to shop for movies to appear in the Jacksonville Film Festival?
“Sundance is hard to compare. They get the top-of-the-line films. Everyone wants to get into Sundance. It’s one of those fests. Filmmakers don’t even talk to us until after Sundance.”
Tait wouldn’t disclose fully what films we might see at the Jacksonville Film Festival based on her Sundance experience, but she did report back on some of her favorite films from the festival.
“There were two that were over-and-above the rest. Son of Rambow, the misspelling is intentional, is a really charming British film. The other was a documentary called Protagonist. It’s hard to describe… [The filmmaker] used puppets to re-enact scenes, which sounds juvenile, but it was beautiful, moving, and very effective.”
Tait bulked up her wish list for the Jacksonville festival while at Sundance, but nothing is confirmed yet. As for what film she guesses will be the breakout hit from this year’s Sundance:
“You know, I’m bad at picking what’s going to be the commercial success. (Laughing) I knew Little Miss Sunshine would be popular, but I didn’t think it would be Academy material.”
Ultimately the Jacksonville Film Festival selects films they find from a variety of sources, including reading Variety, Film Threat, and Indie Wire, going to festivals, talking with other festival programmers, and they accept submissions directly from filmmakers. Many of the films they showcase are made right here in Jacksonville. Tait found out for herself just how small the world is when she was at Sundance.
“I was on one of the shuttles, which is where you have the best conversations at the festival, and this lovely woman asked if I was Jean Tait. It was so bizarre to be recognized at an event like that by some stranger. She was a student that volunteered at the Jacksonville Film Festival a couple years back. She was traveling around just volunteering at film festivals. She went on and on about what a great time she had at our fest, and now she’s at Sundance.”
If you are too eager and you can’t stand to wait until May 17, the festival hosts the REEL People series that goes on throughout the year. The next feature in that series is a film called Caffeine playing at the San Marco Theatre on Monday February 19th. They are also hosting an Oscar party on the 25th at WJCT Studios. But what everyone is talking about is the appearance of John Waters for the second installation of the TALKIES. John Waters himself will be at the San Marco Theatre to provide live commentary on his film Polyester as the 35mm print is displayed on the enormous San Marco screen. As for the festival fare, you’ll just have to wait for the official announcements.
“No surprises yet that we can reveal. We’re working on some big things, but nothing confirmed yet.”
Check jaxfilmfest.com for updates or to make a submission to the Jacksonville Film Festival.
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