Reel Time
Still in its infancy, the Wisconsin Film Festival is filling seats and earning accolades.
By Michael Penn MA'97
Of the 138 films shown during last year's Wisconsin Film Festival, almost all went off without a hitch. One that didn't was a three-hour story about Inuit life called Atanarjuat - The Fast Runner, which accidentally began without sound. For a few minutes, the film rolled wordlessly on, until projectionists got the problem fixed and started it from the beginning.
Remarkably, no one seemed to mind. There were no catcalls or disgusted groans from audience members. "People just took in what was there," says Liesel de Boor, a filmmaker who was in the audience that night. "They were happy to watch it that way. It was almost like it was a treat to get to see it in a different way."
Those few moments of silence say a great deal about the kind of event that the festival has become. Starting in 1999 as a modest on-campus showcase for a few obscure films, the festival has mushroomed into a regional happening, showing more films to more people at more Madison theaters. Last year, about 18,500 tickets were sold for the four-day fete - a 30 percent jump from 2001 and six times the number of people who attended the first year. Local arts writers have described it as a "monster hit," a "critical and audience blockbuster," and "a first-rate Midwestern cultural expo."
By Michael Penn MA'97
Of the 138 films shown during last year's Wisconsin Film Festival, almost all went off without a hitch. One that didn't was a three-hour story about Inuit life called Atanarjuat - The Fast Runner, which accidentally began without sound. For a few minutes, the film rolled wordlessly on, until projectionists got the problem fixed and started it from the beginning.
Remarkably, no one seemed to mind. There were no catcalls or disgusted groans from audience members. "People just took in what was there," says Liesel de Boor, a filmmaker who was in the audience that night. "They were happy to watch it that way. It was almost like it was a treat to get to see it in a different way."
Those few moments of silence say a great deal about the kind of event that the festival has become. Starting in 1999 as a modest on-campus showcase for a few obscure films, the festival has mushroomed into a regional happening, showing more films to more people at more Madison theaters. Last year, about 18,500 tickets were sold for the four-day fete - a 30 percent jump from 2001 and six times the number of people who attended the first year. Local arts writers have described it as a "monster hit," a "critical and audience blockbuster," and "a first-rate Midwestern cultural expo."
But such thesaurus-mining praise only begins to get at the spirit that seems to take hold of downtown Madison during the festival. In short order, the event has become the kind of phenomenon that generates its own buzz. People stop each other in the street to talk about it. Gossip flows. Tickets are scarce. Nearly one-third of the movies shown last year sold out before the first reel ever ran, and many of the rest - like The Fast Runner, which nearly filled the Orpheum's Main Theatre - attracted long lines of people who sometimes queued up without knowing what movie they were waiting to see.
Organizers expect similar hordes this year, when the festival takes over six Madison theaters from March 27 to 30. Mary Carbine '86, MA'88, who directs the festival for the UW-Madison Arts Institute, its presenting organization, says she began fielding calls for tickets in December, two months before the festival announced what films it would show. "There's a real sense of excitement at being able to see all these different types of films together in one event," she says.
But it's the kind of audience, rather than the size, that sets the festival apart from your average trip to the local multiplex. This is no multiplex crowd, and these are no multiplex movies.
In these days of test marketing and targeted demographics, genuine surprise hardly ever enters a movie theater. Major motion pictures are carefully tailored to meet audience expectations, and when disappointments are expensive, spontaneity is expendable. Film festivals, on the other hand, typically piece together variegated rosters of foreign, independent, and experimental film. Surprise is the house special.
Organizers expect similar hordes this year, when the festival takes over six Madison theaters from March 27 to 30. Mary Carbine '86, MA'88, who directs the festival for the UW-Madison Arts Institute, its presenting organization, says she began fielding calls for tickets in December, two months before the festival announced what films it would show. "There's a real sense of excitement at being able to see all these different types of films together in one event," she says.
But it's the kind of audience, rather than the size, that sets the festival apart from your average trip to the local multiplex. This is no multiplex crowd, and these are no multiplex movies.
In these days of test marketing and targeted demographics, genuine surprise hardly ever enters a movie theater. Major motion pictures are carefully tailored to meet audience expectations, and when disappointments are expensive, spontaneity is expendable. Film festivals, on the other hand, typically piece together variegated rosters of foreign, independent, and experimental film. Surprise is the house special.
"A festival is like a game," says James Kreul '92, MA'96, a film studies graduate student who has had a hand in programming all five Wisconsin festivals. "The way you pick a [standard] movie is that you wait for a review, or word of mouth, or something to let you know that it's worth your time. At a festival, you can't wait for the buzz. The reason it's fun is because you have to just dive in and take chances. Sometimes you misfire, but sometimes you have this liberating, exhilarating experience, because you had no idea that a film would take you to those places."
It's like a giant, celluloid buffet, where there's every reason to try new tastes. And if the patient way in which audiences digested the unintentionally silent Fast Runner shows anything, it's that Madison is ready for the unexpected.
"I just thought it was the most incredible audience I'd seen," says de Boor, a Madison native who came back from New York City to show her film, Cat Lady. "I remember thinking that this would only happen in Madison."
It's like a giant, celluloid buffet, where there's every reason to try new tastes. And if the patient way in which audiences digested the unintentionally silent Fast Runner shows anything, it's that Madison is ready for the unexpected.
"I just thought it was the most incredible audience I'd seen," says de Boor, a Madison native who came back from New York City to show her film, Cat Lady. "I remember thinking that this would only happen in Madison."
Few people will mistake Madison for a Midwestern tinseltown. Yet the trappings of civic cinephilia are there. UW-Madison hosts frequent film series and owns one of the largest archives of film history and ephemera in the world. And downtown is home to the gloriously restored Orpheum Theatre, as well as the Four-Star Video Heaven rental shop that Roger Ebert once called "the best video store outside Chicago."
"There has been a particularly long interest in film here, going back to the time when I was a young assistant professor," says Tino Balio, executive director of the Arts Institute, who came to Madison in 1966. "In those days, you could see a foreign film on almost any night."
The ultimate hallmark of a movie town, though, is a film festival of its own. As many as 1,200 communities around the world have them, from the big and glamorous ones at Sundance and Cannes, to idiosyncratic little celebrations organized around a specific director or theme. (Get your tickets now for the New Orleans Worst Film Festival, devoted to the most dismal in new cinema.)
Ideally, festivals are more than just agglomerations of film. They bring together communities of movie lovers, united by popcorn and long hours of sitting in dark rooms, who give the events ethos and attitude. At Cannes, for example, there's an overwhelming air of celebrity, and who you see is as important as what you see. At Sundance, industry networking is the name of the game. At Slamdance, an alternative festival that runs parallel to its more famous cousin, it's about slamming the films at Sundance.
"There has been a particularly long interest in film here, going back to the time when I was a young assistant professor," says Tino Balio, executive director of the Arts Institute, who came to Madison in 1966. "In those days, you could see a foreign film on almost any night."
The ultimate hallmark of a movie town, though, is a film festival of its own. As many as 1,200 communities around the world have them, from the big and glamorous ones at Sundance and Cannes, to idiosyncratic little celebrations organized around a specific director or theme. (Get your tickets now for the New Orleans Worst Film Festival, devoted to the most dismal in new cinema.)
Ideally, festivals are more than just agglomerations of film. They bring together communities of movie lovers, united by popcorn and long hours of sitting in dark rooms, who give the events ethos and attitude. At Cannes, for example, there's an overwhelming air of celebrity, and who you see is as important as what you see. At Sundance, industry networking is the name of the game. At Slamdance, an alternative festival that runs parallel to its more famous cousin, it's about slamming the films at Sundance.
"Festivals are about celebrating the whole idea of film," says Wendi Weger '98, one of the Wisconsin festival's original programmers, who now coordinates the New York Underground and Hamptons film festivals. "There are loads of reasons that films get into commercial theaters, and many of those reasons aren't based at all on the merit of the films." Festivals, she says, give films outside the mainstream a chance, while at the same time allowing audiences to appreciate a fuller scope of creative work.
Wisconsin's foray into that realm began, as do all good Badger ideas, at a tailgater. In February 1997, the Wisconsin Film Office, a division of the state tourism department, hosted a party for Hollywood insiders, many of them former Badgers who had gone on to influential roles in movie production and distribution. Because the business of the film office is business - and, specifically, generating some for Wisconsin - its officials were less interested in community-building than in getting the Hollywood film industry to take notice of (and, in turn, make movies in) the Badger state.
Over brats and beer, the partiers plotted an event that would put Madison on the film map. A few months later, state officials initiated the Great Wisconsin Film Festival, an event whose name signaled its optimism. The big draw was to be an appearance by Robert Redford, who had agreed to drop in to accept something called the Cheesehead Award - a self-deprecating honor that promised the sort of klieg-lighted celebrity that was sure to accompany any Hollywood megastar on State Street.
Wisconsin's foray into that realm began, as do all good Badger ideas, at a tailgater. In February 1997, the Wisconsin Film Office, a division of the state tourism department, hosted a party for Hollywood insiders, many of them former Badgers who had gone on to influential roles in movie production and distribution. Because the business of the film office is business - and, specifically, generating some for Wisconsin - its officials were less interested in community-building than in getting the Hollywood film industry to take notice of (and, in turn, make movies in) the Badger state.
Over brats and beer, the partiers plotted an event that would put Madison on the film map. A few months later, state officials initiated the Great Wisconsin Film Festival, an event whose name signaled its optimism. The big draw was to be an appearance by Robert Redford, who had agreed to drop in to accept something called the Cheesehead Award - a self-deprecating honor that promised the sort of klieg-lighted celebrity that was sure to accompany any Hollywood megastar on State Street.
But Redford later backed out, beginning a string of setbacks that threatened to end the event before it could begin. The festival was initially postponed from October 1998 until April 1999. Then, with two months to go and still no big-name premiere to anchor the event, the state gave up and canceled nearly all its plans.
About all that remained was a schedule of films to be shown on campus, which originally was supposed to be a side dish to the big feast going on up State Street. Sponsored by the Arts Institute and programmed by students Kreul and Weger, the films were mostly off-the-radar independents and documentaries; there were certainly no Redfords among them. But the planners figured that, even if a Great Wisconsin Film Festival was no longer possible, they had a shot at a pretty good one.
"We had a good idea of what we wanted to do, and we thought it would have been crazy to cancel the whole thing," says Kreul, who was then a program assistant for the UW's Cinematheque film series. "We knew that if there was no festival at all, if we let the whole thing end, there probably wouldn't be any film festival in Madison for a long time. We had to take advantage of that momentum."
About all that remained was a schedule of films to be shown on campus, which originally was supposed to be a side dish to the big feast going on up State Street. Sponsored by the Arts Institute and programmed by students Kreul and Weger, the films were mostly off-the-radar independents and documentaries; there were certainly no Redfords among them. But the planners figured that, even if a Great Wisconsin Film Festival was no longer possible, they had a shot at a pretty good one.
"We had a good idea of what we wanted to do, and we thought it would have been crazy to cancel the whole thing," says Kreul, who was then a program assistant for the UW's Cinematheque film series. "We knew that if there was no festival at all, if we let the whole thing end, there probably wouldn't be any film festival in Madison for a long time. We had to take advantage of that momentum."
Kreul and Weger, then a senior communication arts major who coordinated the Wisconsin Union's Starlight Cinema, stuck with the goal that guided their campus programming efforts: find high-quality movies that were out of the mainstream and stood little chance of enjoying wide commercial release. "We thought it was very important to build it from within the film community," says Weger.
The festival featured sixteen films, headlined by an eighty-minute, black-and-white comedy titled Man of the Century, produced by Adam Abraham, a first-time filmmaker and the twenty-eight-year-old brother of a UW student. The rest of the schedule offered little high-caliber celebrity, but some tantalizing story lines. One film, made by Carrie Ansell '93, revolved around what goes on (aside from the obvious) in the rest rooms of New York City nightclubs. Another was a restored copy of the 1928 Frank Capra film The Matinee Idol, which had almost disappeared from circulation. The state film office also came through by landing Jim Abrahams x'66, of Airplane! fame, for a lecture on comedy.
The screenings were free, and, although Kreul and Weger had toiled to arrange appearances by filmmakers and participatory discussions, there were few trappings that evoked a "festival" atmosphere. "It felt more like a really great weekend of films," Kreul says.
The festival featured sixteen films, headlined by an eighty-minute, black-and-white comedy titled Man of the Century, produced by Adam Abraham, a first-time filmmaker and the twenty-eight-year-old brother of a UW student. The rest of the schedule offered little high-caliber celebrity, but some tantalizing story lines. One film, made by Carrie Ansell '93, revolved around what goes on (aside from the obvious) in the rest rooms of New York City nightclubs. Another was a restored copy of the 1928 Frank Capra film The Matinee Idol, which had almost disappeared from circulation. The state film office also came through by landing Jim Abrahams x'66, of Airplane! fame, for a lecture on comedy.
The screenings were free, and, although Kreul and Weger had toiled to arrange appearances by filmmakers and participatory discussions, there were few trappings that evoked a "festival" atmosphere. "It felt more like a really great weekend of films," Kreul says.
Opening night was the last Thursday in April, when students were busy with term papers and preparing for spring semester finals. And it didn't help that Mother Nature picked the same weekend for the debut of warm weather.
"It was gorgeous," Kreul recalls. The sun broke through the interminable gray of Madison spring, and temperatures neared seventy degrees. It seemed like the weekend's hottest seat would be a prime Terrace chair, not one for, say, Outer and Inner Space, a nearly plotless experimental video shot by Andy Warhol in 1965.
"If you had a choice between sitting outside on the first nice day in a long time, or going inside to watch this minimalist Warhol film, well, I know what most people would do," Kreul says. "I went with Warhol." To his surprise, so did a lot of other people. Three thousand people attended the festival that year - and almost all thought it was, well, great.
"It was gorgeous," Kreul recalls. The sun broke through the interminable gray of Madison spring, and temperatures neared seventy degrees. It seemed like the weekend's hottest seat would be a prime Terrace chair, not one for, say, Outer and Inner Space, a nearly plotless experimental video shot by Andy Warhol in 1965.
"If you had a choice between sitting outside on the first nice day in a long time, or going inside to watch this minimalist Warhol film, well, I know what most people would do," Kreul says. "I went with Warhol." To his surprise, so did a lot of other people. Three thousand people attended the festival that year - and almost all thought it was, well, great.
Perhaps the most important thing that happened during the first festival was that Mary Carbine came. A graduate of UW-Madison's film department, Carbine had been working for Wisconsin Public Television as a fund raiser. But she was fresh from stints in Los Angeles and Chicago, where she worked for a collection of film organizations, including the University of Chicago Film Studies Center, IFP/Midwest, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It seemed obvious to Kreul that she should be involved.
Kreul invited her to take part in a panel on the future of the film festival, which took place on May 2, the last day of the 1999 event.
On May 3, he says, Carbine essentially began running the next festival. "If Mary hadn't been involved, year two would not have happened. There is no doubt about that," Kreul says. "She turned it into a professional film festival."
Carbine has a caffeinated personality that matches the intensity of her blaze-red hair. A fitness fanatic who is training for a triathlon, she had not only the experience, but the resolve, to build on what the students had started. Living inside the Hollywood bubble had taught her not only the operations and language of the movie business, but its often quirky realities. Once, at a Women in Film gala, Carbine was appointed to secret Robin Williams through a back entrance where he wouldn't be mobbed by crowds. That's how things got done out there; most of the really interesting stuff happened in the backrooms.
Kreul invited her to take part in a panel on the future of the film festival, which took place on May 2, the last day of the 1999 event.
On May 3, he says, Carbine essentially began running the next festival. "If Mary hadn't been involved, year two would not have happened. There is no doubt about that," Kreul says. "She turned it into a professional film festival."
Carbine has a caffeinated personality that matches the intensity of her blaze-red hair. A fitness fanatic who is training for a triathlon, she had not only the experience, but the resolve, to build on what the students had started. Living inside the Hollywood bubble had taught her not only the operations and language of the movie business, but its often quirky realities. Once, at a Women in Film gala, Carbine was appointed to secret Robin Williams through a back entrance where he wouldn't be mobbed by crowds. That's how things got done out there; most of the really interesting stuff happened in the backrooms.
After the modest success of the 1999 event, the Arts Institute allocated money to hire Carbine half time to coordinate future events. She was, says Tino Balio, the only person who possibly could do the job. Carbine combined the talents of a film programmer, a fund raiser, an event manager, and a public relations agent in one body - a blessing, Balio says, given the festival's scant budget for bodies.
"Really, we need three people," Balio says, "but we can only afford half of one. Fortunately, Mary gives us about 110 percent."
In her first year as director, Carbine more than tripled the number of films shown, expanded the festival off-campus into downtown theaters, and turned screenings into ticketed events. The planning team also scheduled the festival for earlier in spring, hoping to avoid a repeat of the previous year's crowd-thinning weather. With the event still half a year away, someone noticed that they had chosen the same weekend as the NCAA men's basketball championships.
Kreul recalls dismissing the concern. "I said, 'Don't worry. There's no chance Wisconsin will even get close to the Final Four,' " he laughs.
But, as it turned out, the Badgers tipped off in Indianapolis right in the middle of the festival, competing with at least three movie showings and stealing the spotlight. Walter Mirisch '42, the longtime independent producer who was there to appear at a tribute honoring his career, carried around a portable television, so that he could catch the Badgers between films.
"Really, we need three people," Balio says, "but we can only afford half of one. Fortunately, Mary gives us about 110 percent."
In her first year as director, Carbine more than tripled the number of films shown, expanded the festival off-campus into downtown theaters, and turned screenings into ticketed events. The planning team also scheduled the festival for earlier in spring, hoping to avoid a repeat of the previous year's crowd-thinning weather. With the event still half a year away, someone noticed that they had chosen the same weekend as the NCAA men's basketball championships.
Kreul recalls dismissing the concern. "I said, 'Don't worry. There's no chance Wisconsin will even get close to the Final Four,' " he laughs.
But, as it turned out, the Badgers tipped off in Indianapolis right in the middle of the festival, competing with at least three movie showings and stealing the spotlight. Walter Mirisch '42, the longtime independent producer who was there to appear at a tribute honoring his career, carried around a portable television, so that he could catch the Badgers between films.
Yet the filmgoing public was undeterred. Even screenings that went head-to-head with the game sold out, and, when the stubs were totaled, the festival had drawn in twelve thousand people - more than twice Carbine's own projections. "I think at that point I realized that this was going to be big," she says.
These days, Carbine has what many people might consider the perfect job, given that a lot of her work is watching movies. But there are so many movies. She sees three hundred films each year, many of them during blitzkrieg trips to film festivals around the country, where she works overtime to recruit films for Madison's event. At Toronto's ten-day international film festival in September, she will take in about fifty screenings.
At Sundance, she'll try to catch another twenty-five. What she hasn't seen herself she gets a read on by working |the phones, staying in constant contact with critics, fellow programmers, film professors, and others who closely follow moviemaking.
"Being able to do that is the part that reminds me why I do all the other things," she says.
These days, Carbine has what many people might consider the perfect job, given that a lot of her work is watching movies. But there are so many movies. She sees three hundred films each year, many of them during blitzkrieg trips to film festivals around the country, where she works overtime to recruit films for Madison's event. At Toronto's ten-day international film festival in September, she will take in about fifty screenings.
At Sundance, she'll try to catch another twenty-five. What she hasn't seen herself she gets a read on by working |the phones, staying in constant contact with critics, fellow programmers, film professors, and others who closely follow moviemaking.
"Being able to do that is the part that reminds me why I do all the other things," she says.
As the festival has grown, so has the effort needed to pull it off. Carbine manages arrangements for the more than one hundred events during the long weekend, including appearances by some sixty filmmakers and other speakers. She sweats all the details personally, from shipping films to booking hotel rooms to approving marketing materials. Finding money is never far down the to-do list. Last year's festival cost about $650,000, and ticket revenue covered less than 10 percent of the tab. More than 80 percent of the budget comes from in-kind donations; the rest consists of cash gifts, secured from as many as fifty companies and organizations. "It's not just a matter of getting a bunch of films and showing them," says Balio.
Building the Lego-like structure of screenings, lectures, and other events takes months of viewing, reviewing, and recruiting. This year, Carbine's office received 170 tapes from filmmakers hoping to be part of the festival, and each was screened carefully. Most of the films, though, are solicited by Carbine and a handful of programming volunteers, including several students from the UW's communication arts department. A few themes usually emerge in the final schedule, but films are chosen primarily based on what's good and what's available.
In many cases, the festival organizers try to woo not only the films, but also the filmmakers, to Madison. Screenings are often followed by audience dialogues with the people behind the films, helping to ensure that the festival offers more than just passive viewing. "We always try to find ways to create a filmgoing community so that we can foster a deeper understanding of the film and the process of making it," says Carbine.
Building the Lego-like structure of screenings, lectures, and other events takes months of viewing, reviewing, and recruiting. This year, Carbine's office received 170 tapes from filmmakers hoping to be part of the festival, and each was screened carefully. Most of the films, though, are solicited by Carbine and a handful of programming volunteers, including several students from the UW's communication arts department. A few themes usually emerge in the final schedule, but films are chosen primarily based on what's good and what's available.
In many cases, the festival organizers try to woo not only the films, but also the filmmakers, to Madison. Screenings are often followed by audience dialogues with the people behind the films, helping to ensure that the festival offers more than just passive viewing. "We always try to find ways to create a filmgoing community so that we can foster a deeper understanding of the film and the process of making it," says Carbine.
Work on the 2003 line-up was ongoing as On Wisconsin's deadline arrived. (For a few highlights check wifilmfest.org for a full schedule.) But expect the festival to follow the pattern of years past, offering diverse selections encompassing foreign and domestic features, documentaries, new media, animation, and revivals of forgotten classics. There will be some familiar names and faces, including an appearance by Roger Ebert, but most of the films will arrive with more hope than hype, having drawn little attention from mainstream audiences or press.
But that doesn't mean that they won't. Festivals usually operate ahead of the grapevine, often giving audiences their first taste of movies that may go on to bigger things. In past years, Wisconsin's festival has featured such emerging independent hits as The Straight Story, Thirteen Conversations about One Thing, and Y tu mamá también, as well as dozens of other films on the cusp of notoriety. Typical of this year's crop is Better Luck Tomorrow, whose director, Justin Lin, recently graced the cover of Filmmaker magazine. "The fun of a festival is presenting and seeing those films that will be big in the specialty arena ahead of everyone else," says Carbine.
The festival's roots, however, are in the joys of discovering the next little thing - in seeing movies that have only a remote chance of appearing on the radar screen of the wider public. For all its growing pomp, the event is still deeply provincial, with about one-fifth of the films coming from writers and directors with Wisconsin ties. And, as much as the Wisconsin Film Festival is about bringing good movies to audiences, it's also about bringing good audiences to the movies.
But that doesn't mean that they won't. Festivals usually operate ahead of the grapevine, often giving audiences their first taste of movies that may go on to bigger things. In past years, Wisconsin's festival has featured such emerging independent hits as The Straight Story, Thirteen Conversations about One Thing, and Y tu mamá también, as well as dozens of other films on the cusp of notoriety. Typical of this year's crop is Better Luck Tomorrow, whose director, Justin Lin, recently graced the cover of Filmmaker magazine. "The fun of a festival is presenting and seeing those films that will be big in the specialty arena ahead of everyone else," says Carbine.
The festival's roots, however, are in the joys of discovering the next little thing - in seeing movies that have only a remote chance of appearing on the radar screen of the wider public. For all its growing pomp, the event is still deeply provincial, with about one-fifth of the films coming from writers and directors with Wisconsin ties. And, as much as the Wisconsin Film Festival is about bringing good movies to audiences, it's also about bringing good audiences to the movies.
"It's just a thrill to show your movie to audiences like the ones in Madison," says Liesel de Boor, who has screened Cat Lady, a dark comedy, at festivals throughout the country. "I got to sit in the audience and hear people laugh at my movie. And that's kind of the whole reason you make movies - for audiences like that."
