The first to see films: film festival gatekeepers
How does this gig sound:
It sounded like a dream job: plop down on a couch, throw some popcorn in the microwave and spend your days watching movies.
That’s what Christine Davila thought, anyway. The 32-year-old Los Angeles resident had spent years toiling as an assistant to a number of Hollywood producers before she finally got a shot at her ideal gig — working as a programming associate for the Sundance Film Festival, the annual independent movie mega-event that kicked off in Park City, Utah, this week.
Davila landed the job in 2008, and every year since, she’s been paid to screen hundreds of hours of film for the festival’s international section. From June to November, she has to meet a quota: watch 200 films. After viewing each, she fills out an elaborate “coverage” form — writing a synopsis of the plot, sharing her opinion on the film’s production quality or storytelling, noting if any famous actors or directors are involved and ranking it overall from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. Her comments are used to help determine which movies make it into the prestigious festival.
“I love telling people what I do, because it sounds glamorous,” admitted Davila, who now spends the other half of the year screening films for the Los Angeles Film Festival. “But the truth is that it sounds a lot more glamorous than it is.”
I’ll bet. It’s one thing to watch a movie that made it through all the hoops to land some sort of distribution deal. There you can be pretty much assured it’s not going to be a total loser. But do you know how many entries Sundance had this year? Read on:
With the technology to make a film — especially an indie film — getting cheaper and more accessible, the volume of submissions to festivals across the country is on the rise, meaning more work for people like Davila. This year, Sundance had more than 10,000 entries — including narrative and documentary features as well as short films — up from about 7,500 in 2006. To handle the deluge, the Utah festival employs 32 part-time screeners and eight part-time programming associates including Davila, in addition to the 22 full-time staff members who also view films.
10,000! You have to imagine some, maybe many, perhaps most were just not that good. And here’s Davila having to screen 200 of them each year.
But you know what? If I was young, looking for a way to immerse myself in the world of cinema, and hoping to work my way up the SFF food chain, I would have tried to do what Davila is doing. Even if most of the movies you screen for the festival are not that good, you can learn something about storytelling from them.
And then there’s always this possibility:
“I would love to find the next ‘Run Lola Run’ or ‘City of God’… I recognize that I probably watch more bad films than anyone I know in the process of finding the diamond in the rough, but then when I find it, I’m the one who did.”
For more of the LAT article, go here.