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Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Festival Officials Share Ideas
By Kathaleen Roberts
Journal Staff Writer
When Rose Kuo attended a Czech Republic film festival sans toiletries, organizers paired her with a college student who found her a toothbrush at 10 p.m.
"That was such a small, easy thing to do and it doesn't cost money," said Kuo, the new co-executive director of the Santa Fe Film Festival. "It's not about high-end hospitality," she added, "it's more personal hospitality."
Kuo and co-executive director Michael Hare spoke to a group of about 30 film-lovers and volunteers about their vision for the festival at La Posada de Santa Fe on Wednesday.
Hare and Kuo follow in the steps of festival founder Jon Bowman, who retired in December after 10 years at the helm. Marked by programming and scheduling problems and a 50 percent drop in national sponsorships, the festival faces mounting debt — officials have refused to say exactly how much.
For December's event, organizers pared the menu of selections to about one-third the 2008 lineup. Board members have agreed to move the festival from December to October to attract more people. Organizers also have discussed centralizing the festival to the downtown area so that filmgoers don't have to drive across town between screenings.
Both Kuo and Hare repeatedly named the Telluride Film Festival, rated among the top 10 international festivals, as the standard as they take Santa Fe to "the next level." They said they want to tie the event more closely to the community to take advantage of the city's unique assets, including the Santa Fe Opera, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the area's galleries to distinguish it from other festivals around the world. Neither seemed worried about the debt.
"I'm not really concerned about it because I think (the festival's) potential has not been reached," Kuo said. "I think there's a lot of room for growth and sponsorship."
Kuo acknowledged that her background and experience could have taken her anywhere, but she chose Santa Fe despite the problems. She envisions the festival as a boutique event with an international flavor.
"There's a uniqueness about the region and the culture that lends itself to a unique cultural event like a film festival," she said. "This place is very much like Telluride. This place has the high desert, the people and the culture that comprise a film festival."
Hare, the producer of "Martin Lawrence Presents: The 1st Amendment" TV series on Starz, now in its fifth season, has lived in Santa Fe for 12 years and has served on the festival board since last year. As a producer, his job is to bring in the show on time and on budget as comedians parachute in from around the country, he said.
"I surround myself with a team of people that are very talented," he said.
Hare has been talking to hoteliers about potential festival time slots. He plans to meet with organizers of the Santa Fe International Folk Art Festival to get their ideas about organization.
Hare also wants to lure talent through personal interest. The film festival could leverage that into programming, he said
"Most people in the industry consider themselves artists and have a wide interest in other arts," he said. Hare suggested linking a film subject to a gallery or a local musical or dance performance.
Kuo is well-traveled on the festival circuit, gleaning ideas from across the globe.
Her jaunts have included a visit to Naples, Italy, for its film festival. The city had trouble drawing patrons because of its reputation as a Mafia stronghold, she said. It screened just 30 films on a tiny budget. But prominent community members opened their homes for a series of cocktail parties, and the patrons got to know one another.
"When we all left, we all sat down and said this has got to be our favorite festival," Kuo said. "I think it was because we had a sense of the town. It was intimate; we all got to know each other."
She first came to Santa Fe two years ago as an underdressed Californian.
"When I came to Santa Fe, I was expecting that experience," she continued. But "it was in December. It was very cold. It was so cold our group didn't walk around much. When I left, I felt like I didn't get the real flavor of Santa Fe. The local flavor of the town isn't getting infused into the festival."
Kuo is the former director of the American Film Institute Festival in Los Angeles, where last year's event drew Oprah Winfrey and Tom Ford, among other stars. In December, the International Film Festival Summit named Kuo the winner of its prestigious Excellence Award, which pays tribute to festival executives. Kuo heard about Bowman's retirement from board member Fred Roos, executive producer for "Apocalypse Now," "The Godfather" and "Lost in Translation," as well as local resident Val Kilmer.
"There was something about the region that I really fell in love with," she said.
Also a filmmaker, Kuo started out at the bottom of the festival food chain. She has worked at film festivals in Berlin, Mill Valley and Santa Barbara, as well as the AFI event. By the late '90s, she was known as the person to call to turn a festival around.
"I know exactly what it is to take tickets and stand in the cold for 12 hours," she said.
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