By Teagan Ladner (BFF 2019; Bates Class of 2021)
Planning of the Festival
I think it is worth considering quality over quantity when it comes to programming films. I feel like we tried to jam a lot of films into a short amount of time, and because we had so many films, I don’t feel we could give them the attention they deserved – in terms of programming surrounding each film, advertising, and attendance. We had a large class of 22 students, and yet we still did not have that many board members attending every event because of scheduling conflicts. If the class is any smaller, I imagine it would be even more difficult getting people to attend the events and give it their all in terms of preparation. Personally, I felt our busy lineup was unfortunate, because I wanted to attend every event possible, but simply could not devote that many hours over the course of five days. I tried though. On Saturday, I spent seven-straight hours in the same seat in Olin 104 with only two bathroom breaks. I watched screening, after panel, after screening, after Q&A; it was draining not having a lunch break, but those were three main events I really wanted to attend.
While I see how it is advantageous to have something always in the space and include minimal transition time so people might feel compelled to stay for the next thing, it also might discourage people from staying for certain events if they have other things they need to accomplish in a day – same goes for our board members. People need to eat or go to the gym or do homework, but because of how our events are scheduled, they do not have an opportunity to do that and still attend events. While it is true that not every film will attract the same audience, it is equally true that if someone attends one event and enjoys it, you can make a compelling case for them to attend another screening, if time permits, that is.
Looking back, I wish we would have thought more about the times we would be screening the films when we made our decisions for the festival. There were some films, like Farming, that I felt were powerful and important films to share, but looking at the slots, we had limited times to screen them. In theory, I wanted to show Farming because I thought we could recruit a lot of classes and professors to support the film and have an important discussion about race and violence afterwards, but the schedule did not allot time for that, so we screened it on a Saturday morning. I think we were very idealistic on how these films would be screened when selecting them, but then realized we had limited time slots to work with.
I also wish we discussed and determined what the time slots would be ahead of time, as I felt this would have swayed some of the decisions made. However, that would have required coordination with the documentary team, which would have been difficult. It would be extremely beneficial to make those decisions on what films to screen as quickly as possible, because then we could have worked on more logistical components sooner.
“I cannot imagine depriving the audience of any of the films we showed. While some events were not highly attended, at least they were accessible for people to watch and people were able to have takeaways they could have otherwise not had.“
Similarly, I wish that we were able to advertise the schedule more, however, it was impossible since we did not finalize the schedule until very close to the festival, which leads me to my next topic. One possible thought to consider is to potentially pick less films to program, so you have more time to invest in advertising and creating other programming events. The counterargument to this is that I cannot imagine depriving the audience of any of the films we showed. While some events were not highly attended, at least they were accessible for people to watch and people were able to have takeaways that they would not have had otherwise.
Marketing the Festival
While it might be a waste to aimlessly pass out programs to people at the Kickoff Event if we do not know whether they will attend, I think somehow sharing the elements included in the program, such as the descriptions of the films, is an important element to increase awareness of what the festival is about and thereby, attendance.
While I think it is important to advertise the festival, and particularly the schedule, as a whole, I worry that our choices and our rationale for those choices get lost when we do not highlight the content of films and speakers individually. Instead of posting on Bates Today, I think it is essential to have a customized Bates Today announcement for each of the days. For example, “Today’s Screenings: The Feeling of Being Watched, Midnight Traveler, Woman at War, & Ms. Purple all day in Olin 104” and in the longer description once you click on the film, it gives a synopsis of what each of the films are about. We could also use Bates Today to highlight special guest filmmakers we have on campus, in addition to making flyers. It is not just our job to advertise the titles of these films and names of BFF guests, but to convey a quick synopsis of the film or bio of a guest to get people interested in the content. If we sat down and took the time to do those smaller details, I think it would have helped increased participation and general exposure of what types of films are being shown, instead of expecting people to do research on their own or blindly showing up.
Preparation before the Festival
Retrospectively, I wish I had learned more about the content that I did not have a role in programming. I did not have any idea what the Documentary shorts or Bates block would entail until I showed up. In the future, it would be cool to do a share-out between the two sections, as well as have Professor Cavallero fill us in on what the Bates block would look like. Had I known the topic of what some of the documentary and Bates shorts would cover, I could have marketed them accordingly and reached out to certain groups or people I think would have had particular interest.
The more familiarity you have with what the event will look like, the better, easier, and more fun it is to market. We were able to create hype around events that we were familiar with: The Last Black Man in San Francisco would be Thursday night in Schaeffer, Changing the Game was Saturday night with a Q&A with Sarah Rose Huckman that some of us were running, Tazzeka would be in Muskie with dinner and you needed to reserve seats. When it came to other events with less details, they had lower attendance.
“My favorite part of the festival was having the different guests and speakers attend and hearing filmmakers talk about their work, as well as people featured in the documentaries talk about their experience.”
Additionally, it was easy to get lost in all these names of different guests that were attending. I wish we mapped out all the different people coming and what times they were coming. After all, my favorite part of the festival was having the different guests and speakers attend and hearing filmmakers talk about their work, as well as people featured in the documentaries talk about their experience. In the future, I would encourage everyone in the class to get familiar with who is coming, when, and to do a little background research on them. It felt like we had so many names thrown at us, it was hard to keep track, but I think we should spend more time focused on who is coming and highlighting them.
Closing Remarks
I want to make sure that themes of accessibility stay ingrained in the Bates Film Festival. We had a key debate over whether to include subtitles or not for the English-speaking films and I am so glad we included them. After all, as B. Ruby Rich has shown, an important part of film festivals has been “to invite films in which other languages are spoken and other cultures are made tangible” (163). I believe this extends to different abilities and making English accessible to those who might primarily speak different languages.
“I would argue that the Bates Film Festival is even more diverse than other film festivals, because we are free and open to the public. There are no class barriers like you might face at other payment-based festivals. Because of this, we have the opportunity to get a wide array of voices attending our screenings and panels.”
I also think it could have been cool to attend part of the Emerge Film Festival in order to see how other, local film festivals are run. Additionally, this could have helped us think about the Lewiston/Auburn demographic beyond Bates and learn about what content interests them. Film festivals are one of the few places “such diverse communities can be seen to come together – at least in the lobby – to meet each other, to debate ideas in public, to open minds and hearts to others, to extend the boundaries of their own daily lives and to imagine and empathize with stories and players, characters and dramas, cultures and times, entirely different from their own.” (Rich, 164). I would argue that the Bates Film Festival is even more diverse than other film festivals, because we are free and open to the public. There are no class barriers like you might face at other payment-based festivals. Because of this, we have the opportunity to get a wide array of voices attending our screenings and panels. I think we should utilize that to our advantage and make sure our future mission statement includes the greater community involvement and therefore selects films not simply based on Bates students’ interests, but those of the larger L/A community as well.
Works Cited
Rich, B. Ruby. “Why Do Film Festivals Matter? (2003-2004).” In The Film Festival Reader. Edited by Dina Iordinova. St. Andrews: St. Andrews Film Studies, 2013.
