Programming a film festival can be daunting, especially if you’re a one-person operation.
“I used to watch everything and finish everything, but that no longer stands,” says Xan Aranda, producer of Prime Shorts, a bimonthly short film show at The Hideout. “Time is an issue; there is more stuff than I have time to watch.”
So, Aranda has a system: If any video from the teetering stack in her living room begins with images of a gun, a bong, a pimp or a whore, she hits the eject button. And she’s not alone.
“The first two or three minutes of the film has to pop; they have to tell you what the film is about or at least keep you engaged enough to make you want to hang around,” says Mike McNamara, event director and programmer for Chicago Community Cinema.
We asked a few local film fest programmers what their early warning signs are, the red flags that, in their experience, signal a bad movie.
Xan Aranda
Producer and programmer for Prime Shorts, a bimonthly short film show.
1. A bong.
“In the first 30 seconds, if that shows up in a short film, it’s a long road back. “
2. A gun.
3. A pimp, a whore, a homeless person or any combination thereof.
4. Long credits on a short film.
“If the credits for a three-minute film are elaborately done at the beginning, and are themselves three minutes long. That’s asking a lot of an audience.”
Nicole Dreiske
Director of children’s programs, Chicago International Children’s Film Festival.
1. Intense violence.
“Films that start out with splatter violence, with blood flying everywhere.”
2. Existential films about suicide.
“Generally, not a happy festival topic.”
3. Therapeutic films.
“Someone’s well-intentioned documentary about therapy . . . a few of those can be brilliant, but only later on in the film.”
4. Appallingly bad technical work.
“We will still see it. . . . It’s a huge issue.”
5. Condescending tone.
“Anything that precludes any intelligent life among children. Slow talk. When they are extremely or overly preachy.”
Carolina Posse
Program director, Chicago Latino Film Festival.
1. Stoic documentary narration.
“For documentaries, it’s a very trained educational voiceover, like those documentaries you used to see in school — stoic and masculine. It separates the audience from the story. The voice-over has to be very, very human.”
2. Travel lines on a map.
“When you see a map, and they try to link two cities with a line or dots when someone is traveling. That’s just way too old-fashioned.”
3. Poor opening titles in primary colors. “The opening logo can tell you about the quality of the film — if it has poor animation and only primary colors, that’s usually a bad sign. That’s very ’80s.”
4. Latino stereotypes.
“When you see stereotypes of Latinos on the screen, the gang member or the single-father detective with no jacket and loose tie — we just see them too often. It’s copying TV. Once you see that, it’s no good.”
Brenda Webb
Festival director and lead programmer, Reeling: The Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival.
“I feel like I haven’t seen the movie, until I’ve seen the movie. I find the films I love the best are the ones other people want to turn off in the first three minutes. I have a really strong feeling against what is typical festival viewing, which is to look at a film and make early judgments about it. That’s really wrong, wrong, wrong, especially if you’re supporting experimental film. I go the extra mile to make sure that somebody has seen every single film in its entirety. I couldn’t sleep at night otherwise.”
Mike McNamara
Event director and programmer, Chicago Community Cinema, a monthly film festival.
1. Credits in Times New Roman font.
“It’s a pretty boring start and probably a pretty low production value. It sends a message that this isn’t an imaginative piece.”
2. Starring, directed by, edited by and produced by the same person.
“That means that we’re probably in for a rough ride.”
3. Noisy bodily functions.
“If we hear any burps or farts in the first few minutes of film, usually we’ll go for the fast forward button.”
4. Poor sound.
“If you hear humming in the background. Or you see a boom mike in shot.”
Rusty Nails
Director/programmer, Movieside short film festival.
1. Opening shot over a lake, a sunset or a sunrise.
“Usually they turn out to be these horribly melodramatic films that are 26 minutes, when they should be 6 minutes.”
2. Bad or pseudo-Hollywood style acting.
“It’s a bizarre mixture of over-acting and woodenness. It’s like someone standing in one place trying to scream and whisper at the same time. You can tell that they are trying to remember their lines as the scene goes on. It’s like all the life has been drained out of a person.”
3. Hollywood copycats.
“I call them business-card films, because they want to make Hollywood films — when independent films try to be Hollywood movies: the wannabe gangsters flicks, the pseudo-Tarantino films . . . “
4. Homophobic, racist or sexist themes.
5. The “Merchant Ivory” indie.
“The Victorian style of short film — with the upper-class milieu, the woman whose marriage has gone awry, and now she’s 90 and now can live a full life. Surprisingly, I’ve seen more of those than I ever would. At least 30 or 40, and two is more than enough.”
6. Gratuitous female nudity.
“I’m waiting for more gratuitous male nudity to even it out.”
7. Jokes about disabled people and midgets.
Usama Alshaibi
Festival director, Z Film Festival, annual festival of experimental films.
“The way that we set it up, we have a submission fee. It’s a fee that filmmakers pay, and I feel obligated to watch the film all the way along.” However, Alshaibi isn’t without a red-flag list:
1. Anything that tries to resemble Hollywood.
2. When they spend more time on the marketing than the film. “A lot of filmmakers put a lot of time and money into the packaging, and sending us postcards and stickers and toys . . . and then there’s nothing there. If a movie can stand on its own, I don’t need fancy posters.”
3. Joke films.
“Things that look like movie trailers and bad parodies.”
Helen Gramates
Program director of feature films, Chicago International Film Festival.
1. Clones of indie hits.
“When people try to copy a breakout indie hit, you’re not going to see something original or fresh. Sometimes you can see that happen right when you’re reading the material. A few years ago, it was `Memento,’ then `My Big Fat Greek Wedding.'”
2. Poor production values.
“Even if the acting and script are good, most people can’t get beyond a poorly shot film.”
