Better than my own scattered memories, for my Sundance diary, I wanted to round up some good writing that might help to establish a lateral picture of this year from many different critical points of view.

The shadow outline of Quvenzhané Wallis on the front page of the arts section of The New York Times was almost a shock to see—BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD felt too intense, too personally magical, for it to be real that anyone outside of the Eccles at its morning premiere would know that this film even existed. It took me a second to digest that BEASTS was the central title in Manohla Dargis’ Sundance wrap-up, and also in her opinion, “the best film to play at Sundance in two decades.”

Manohla’s take on the film summarizes the visceral glory and excitement of experiencing BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD for the first time at Sundance. It is so rare that a film seems to be introducing a new language onto the screen, so fresh and inspiring that it leaves most at a loss for description. BEASTS dominated the atmosphere of the festival, leaving little room for the same level of excitement elsewhere.

Similar to Manohla’s Sundance wrap-up, James Rocchi’s brief history of Sundance-past gets at what felt special in 2012. Rocchi documents the ennui of mini-majors in the mid-2000s followed by an ambivalent and uneven climate post-financial crisis, and believes that this is the year that the festival’s relevance in handling the cultural zeitgeist through independent film reasserted itself.

However, for many festival attendees, last year’s festival was the one that seemed like a return to form, when the festival presented many low-budget outside-the-box gems like TAKE SHELTER, THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM, TERRI and THE OREGONIAN. Mike S. Ryan at Hammer To Nail champions the independent spirit of the 2011 lineup to cast a critical eye at this year’s festival, but still found some shining talent in the new independent auteurs of 2012, particularly COMPLIANCE and THE COMEDY (which he produced).

Tom Hall’s reports for Filmmaker are insightful Sundance diaries. His “Sex, Drugs And Falling Apart” alludes to the festival’s external influences: the mountains, the feeling of remoteness and insularity of snow and ice, offer a backdrop for movie watching that can intensify our experiences as movie goers—as Tom says, “the perfect weather for introspection.”

One oft-overlooked element of festival coverage is the mood of the festival environment, so heavily influenced by off-screen factors such as the Saturday blizzard, which effectively stopped traffic and destroyed well-laid plans on what is typically the festival’s busiest day. Also in the air was the fact that some of the most highly buzzed about films were also those dealing with sobering realities: rape in the military (THE INVISIBLE WAR) and rapidly melting glaciers (CHASING ICE). There are always many difficult films in the documentary competitions, but somehow this year the brokenness of our society and culture really burned.  Surrounding all this was the independent film industry’s own tragic loss, the untimely death of veteran distributor, Bingham Ray, in the middle of the festival.

I don’t know if it was the overriding solemnity, but this year’s Sundance had a sense of palpable earnestness. I heard more conversations dealing with the films than about budgets and sales numbers. It felt grounding—like the industry was there because they believed in all of this, in spite of everything.

And yet Karina Longworth, who always does bring really worthwhile thoughts to elucidate the big picture of Sundance, noticed a continued upsetting festival trend in a conversation published on Indiewire.  Says Karina: “It’s shocking how little debate actually happens about the merits of any individual film at the festival, because too many attendees with a “voice” approach the festival as though it’s a place of right and wrong answers.”

This, to me, is an essential point about major festivals in general: ‘What did you like?’ and ‘What is your favorite?’ are the dominant questions. In our fear not to miss a film, we ask everyone we encounter what they thought of what they just watched. A curious colleague who asks, ‘What did you think?’ usually doesn’t care to stick around to dig in and try to read the film with you. And this atmosphere of heavy consumption defines every Sundance—for many of us, our job is to see as much as possible, and often that means we’re not digesting as well as we should be. Sometimes the less assuming yet very thoughtful film is lost in the mix. (For me, the overlooked victims this year were the weighty and complex THE ATOMIC STATES OF AMERICA and the intensely cinematic FOR ELLEN.)

There was almost too much work to love at this year’s Sundance. I can’t believe how much excellence and artistic ability I experienced at the festival this year, and I missed seeing many films that were highly praised by others. Speaking of earmarks, it will be very difficult for next year’s festival to compete with this year’s anomalous crop of exceptional films.

Supplementing my contribution to the 2011 Hammer To Nail Awards, I thought I would create a “Best Overlooked of 2011” list, including films that I had seen at festivals and that I worry have been under-recognized both critically and within the industry. As I was thinking of titles that I wanted to include in a list like that, a trend emerged: many of those films were directed by women.

I recently sat down with a 2011 theatrical release list and began making hash-marks, only to discover that another year has revealed another set of depressing statistics about female directors. In 2011, about 15% of films released theatrically in New York City were directed by women. As NYC sees far more films in release than most places in America, many of those are low budget, foreign or documentaries. You can slice that percentage in half in order to talk about films directed by women in the mainstream arena, and you get the 7%—if that—reported as a yearly trend of the average percentage of women directing Hollywood’s top grossing films.

Instead of focusing on that dire figure, I’d like to mention a few of my favorite, year-defining independent narrative features that made the rounds on the 2011 festival circuit, all of which happened to be directed by women. Fortunately, these are not the only independent narratives directed by women on the circuit last year—they are just six excellent films that were personally memorable for me and that I felt were greeted a bit too quietly.

Alpha by director:

Alison Bagnall, THE DISH & THE SPOON (SXSW ’11)

THE DISH & THE SPOON proves that sometimes the smallest films have the most room for nuance. While Bagnall is the co-writer of one of the best independent American films of the past 20 years (BUFFALO ’66), she proves here that she is a writer/director with a sure hand and a compelling, original style. [The film is going to be released theatrically in 2012.]

Megan Griffiths, THE OFF HOURS (Sundance ’11)

THE OFF HOURS is longtime AD Megan Griffiths’ first feature as writer/director, and it establishes her as a mega-talent. She exhibits patience in crafting this beautiful drama, which features a sharp, layered, and star-making performance from Amy Seimetz. [Film Movement picked up the digital rights for the film, which is now available on VOD.]

Liza Johnson, RETURN (Director’s Fortnight ’11)

I found Liza Johnson’s first feature, a kitchen sink drama about a female soldier’s unsettling reintegration into suburban American life, to be startlingly good. Johnson depicts the complete downward spiral of her main character without ever letting the melodrama overwhelm the tight and naturalistic narrative, and she shows her humanity further by allowing for swells of gentle humor. [RETURN was picked up for distribution by DADA Films and opens theatrically in NYC and LA on February 10^th.]

Miranda July, THE FUTURE (Sundance & SXSW ’11)

While July is certainly not a fresh face, THE FUTURE ranks for me as by far the most underappreciated film of the year. It is disappointing to think that this was financed completely outside the US and greeted with little enthusiasm by certain key critics, particularly given how masterful, creative, funny and sincere this film is. It is important for July to be recognized and celebrated on the occasion of the release of her second feature, and I think it is so worthwhile to discuss how much, and in what ways, she’s grown profoundly as an artist, writer and director. [The film was picked up for distribution by Roadside Attractions and is now available on DVD.]

Madeleine Olnek, CODEPENDENT LESBIAN SPACE ALIEN SEEKS SAME (Sundance ’11)

After this week, I’m hoping that a lot more New Yorkers will realize how funny writer/director Madeleine Olnek is. CODEPENDENT LESBIAN SPACE ALIEN SEEKS SAME is wrapping up a weeklong run at the re-Run Gastropub Theater. Madeleine is an actor’s director with a solid grasp for good comedy. Read more here.  Also, here.

Dee Rees, PARIAH (Sundance ’11)

Writer/director Dee Rees created a tight, Hollywood-friendly narrative, with characters and situations that could not be further from multiplex fare.  One bit of good news: this solid, down to earth coming-of-age story about young black lesbians in Harlem is currently performing well in limited release. [Distributed by Focus Features]

The elation comes with some heart-stabbing moments; there were many projects, particularly narrative features, which I was hoping to see listed among the chosen yet that will not be premiering in Park City in January. I realize I’m not the only one who noticed that A LOT of good filmmakers made movies this year. This means we should be expecting some really all-star lineups coming out of festivals throughout the year, and I don’t just mean at the “top tier” fests.

If you are a first time feature filmmaker, or are bringing a feature around the festival circuit for the first time in 2012, I think it’s pretty safe to say that competition is particularly stiff this year for those coveted spots at the next big target fests: Slamdance, SXSW, Tribeca and LAFF.  If you are being a good strategist, then you’ve already applied to these festivals. But if it doesn’t work out, what are your options to get the most attention for your film without a market fest or “top tier” premiere?

The good news is that it is far from the end of the world if you choose to premiere at a great regional festival. There are many great, successful, award-winning and critically lauded independent films that have had amazing festival runs without the filmmaker setting foot into Sundance, Slamdance, SXSW, Tribeca or LAFF.   And contrary to some kind of bizarre urban legend that I feel like we programmers are constantly trying to shut down, you do not need to premiere at a top tier festival to get noticed by the good regional festivals.  The best regional festivals take their submissions processes very seriously. While there are tips to making sure your submission doesn’t get buried in the pile, and while there are good films that constantly slip through the cracks, it is simply a fallacy that regional festivals ignore films that haven’t played anywhere yet. In fact, programmers enjoy inviting these films the most, for they are the ones that give us the opportunity to discover new films and artists. That’s part of the reason WHY many of us are in this game: to expand our cinematic horizons and help others to do the same.

Another big question when it comes to the regional festival run is obviously one of priorities. What you won’t get at the best regional film festivals is the slew of buyers, publicists, agents, journalists and other various industry reps that are simply on site at any market festival. And without a doubt, the easiest way to get buyers to watch your film is to have it premiere at Sundance. However, many up-and-coming directors find it really hard to get the attention of the greater industry at a festival with so much to talk about and so many distractions. But maybe you’ll go to a regional festival, and one or two of the industry’s finest will be on a panel on a jury, and you might actually be able to have a normal conversation. The same is true for meeting other filmmakers—regional festivals provide a great opportunity for this, sometimes more so than the biggest festivals. Sundance and Tribeca do not exclude these possibilities by any means—it’s just that regional festivals tend to be so much smaller and MORE easily navigable, that smaller films can often become bigger focal points.

Removing film sales from the conversation, I consider films to be really successful on the festival circuit when the filmmakers are able to meet some not-too-rigidly-defined goals in their festival travels. Often these can be as simple as building a community and network of filmmakers, programmers and industry that like your work and will continue to be supportive of it.  When you can get your film seen across the US at good festivals that know how to build an audience for it, that’s quite a reward. And even if it’s not a monetary one, it provides the building blocks for a career that may eventually pay you.

Let’s look at some case studies.  Below are six low-budget independent narrative features that premiered, and got some serious mileage, out of top-notch regional film festivals. This is an incredibly limited list, but I think it offers a diverse swatch of situations and strategies (again, this really does not cover the options for documentary films, whose festival travels would look noticeably different):

THE COLOR WHEEL, directed by Alex Ross Perry
Alex Ross Perry’s undeniably original low-budget 16mm feature debuted at the Sarasota Film Festival in April 2011, followed by an appearance the Maryland Film Festival in May and a subsequent New York Premiere at the wonderful BAMCinemaFest in Brooklyn in June. International programmers began to take notice, including Olivier Père, and the film made its international premiere in Locarno, and recently premiered on the west coast at the Los Angeles AFI Film Festival.  While I’m not sure what’s next sales- or release-wise for the film, the prestigious festival run has made THE COLOR WHEEL a big part of the conversation about American Independent cinema this year, and Alex a sure-fire “someone to watch.”

FANNY, ANNIE & DANNY, directed Chris Brown
Opening its week-long engagement at the reRun Gastropub in New York last Friday, FANNY, ANNIE & DANNY began its long and wildly successful festival run when it premiered at the Kansas City Film Festival in 2010, winning the top prize for US/International Feature. It went on to play a significant number of smaller festivals like Anchorage, Marfa and Charlotte, all the while hitting up some premiere regional spots like Mill Valley, Starz Denver, Florida and Independent Film Festival of Boston, and picking up some considerable awards, as well as positive nods from critics.

GENERAL ORDERS NO. 9, directed by Robert Persons
(Note: While this film has been characterized as a documentary, it is so categorically defiant that it begs inclusion here.)
Robert Persons was pretty much a stranger to the film world when he began submitting his startlingly poetic, genre-defying feature to festivals. As he is Georgia-based, he began at the Atlanta Film Festival in 2009, and in January 2010 the film headed to Slamdance, where it won a cinematography prize.  Thus began a longer festival run: Hot Docs, Seattle, RiverRun, Indie Memphis, and many more; two years later, the film is still doing limited engagements at theaters and universities domestically and internationally.

IN THE FAMILY, directed by Patrick Wang
IN THE FAMILY was virtually ignored by the festival world, being rejected from thirty festivals before its premiere at the Hawaii International Film Festival in October, where thankfully, the buzz immediately began to build. It’s been getting rave reviews since it opened, and was subsequently held over at NYC’s Quad Cinema this fall, and has recently been nominated for best first feature at the Independent Spirit Awards.

THE NEW YEAR, directed by Brett Haley
Brett confessed to being rejected by a very significant number of festivals before his ultra micro-budget film started getting some festival love. The film premiered at Sarasota in 2010 and was the dark horse of the festival, selling out screenings before picking up the festival’s narrative feature Audience Award. The film went on to play the Los Angeles Film Festival, Starz Denver, Philadelphia, and a number of other notable fests, as well as pleasing New York critics during its week-long run at Brooklyn’s reRun Theater. he New York Times noted that Haley has “a fine future before him.”

SAHKANAGA, directed by John Henry Summerour
The Independent Film Festival of Boston and the Atlanta Film Festival teamed up to present the co-world premiere of this low-budget southern fable, which ended up getting the Audience Award nod in Atlanta. The film traveled to the Woodstock Film Festival, New Orleans, Sidewalk and others before joining the Southern Circuit Traveling Film Festival, hugely expanding its regional exposure.

For your quick reference, here are some of the notable festivals mentioned that I’m characterizing as regional fest in the breakdown below:

Atlanta Film Festival, Independent Film Festival of Boston, Starz Denver Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival, Indie Memphis Film Festival, Kansas City Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, Philadelphia Film Festival, RiverRun Film Festival, Sarasota Film Festival, Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, Woodstock Film Festival.

A big cornerstone for my work has always been to develop programs that I think will be important for an audience of filmmakers.  It turns out that many of my personal highlights of the festival were the ways in which the festival provided a forum for filmmakers, a temporary community in a moment in time.  Oftentimes, the festival’s role as a conversation center might create the right alchemy for filmmakers to be inspired with ideas about their careers, methods and craft, and expand their exposure to new work.

While I don’t see the sole purpose of this space as an opportunity to write about festivals that I program for (!), a few weeks out, I feel the need to debrief.  Here are just a few very quick highlights from our festival, a little collection of memories of what went on (of course, this doesn’t nearly begin to cover everything that we did those 5 days—if you want a more comprehensive look you can visit the HIFF website).

At the Hamptons, 2011:

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

Celebrating American Auteurs.
This year’s festival opened with the wonderful JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME, directed by indie-credentialed Mark and Jay Duplass.� It was an honor to open the festival with two filmmakers who rely on their original ideas, writing and vision as the basis for their careers.  It is exciting to see directors who make very personal films reach a wide audience.

Mid-festival, we welcomed Joe Berlinger and PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY.  It was a momentous occasion to be one of the first festivals to present the final installment—complete with new epilogue!—of one of the best, most important documentary projects in film history.

Alexander Payne x 2:� In addition to screening THE DESCENDANTS, we got to treat ourselves to a visit with Tracy Flick and friends and screened a print of ELECTION in honor of Matthew Broderick’s well-documented visit to the festival.

Filmmaking Craft
Ed Lachman spoke with Tom Hall in an epic conversation at our annual Kodak Cinematography Master Class: Ed is an incredible DP and a true artist, and we couldn’t have been more honored to host him.  Museum of the Moving Image Curator (and former HIFF Programming Director) David Schwartz has done a truly outstanding job every year as the moderator of the annual class.  However, when a conflict arose that prevented David’s attendance at the festival, we knew that Tom Hall would step up to the plate like the pro that he is.  This was especially true given how important some of Ed’s work is to him personally; particularly the Todd Haynes oeuvre.  Tom and I had screened the first two episodes of MILDRED PIERCE in Sarasota this year as a collaborative promotional event for The Sarasota Film Festival and HBO, and we both fell in love with the series.  Ed spoke about MILDRED PIERCE in addition to a number of other past projects, including THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, THE LIMEY, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION and IMPORT/EXPORT.  (I also overheard him revealing some old secrets about LA SOUFRIERE to eager ears).

HBO's Mildred Pierce, beautifully composed by Director of Photography Ed Lachman

I always do my best to encourage filmmakers to attend this annual class; not only is it a lot of fun, but some truly invaluable information about working director/cinematographer collaboration always surfaces.

And speaking of craft, Lisa Schwarzbaum’s coffee talk with Carter Burwell about the art of composing for film (day 2 of the festival) was an unforgettable morning treat.

Other Artists.� The Hamptons being such an important destination for artists, the festival is always refreshingly overlapping with non-cinema arts.   This year we welcomed David Bailey, the famed British fashion photographer whose life was the basis for David Hemming’s character at the center of Michelangelo Antonioni’s BLOW UP and who also spent some time with motion pictures. In the early 1970s, Bailey produced 3 films as slice of life biographies of some of the era’s most famous personalities: Luchino Visconti, Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol, the latter two of which the affable and entertaining Mr. Bailey presented at the festival.  His sensitive eye for his subjects, combined with his unique compositional style, makes these films a rare document of the time.

A few of our other guests from the greater art world: Rufus Wainwright, now in production on a documentary about his mother Kate McGarrigle (directed by Lian Lunson); installation artist Jim Denevan, the subject of a short documentary, who created a large scale sand sculpture on a public beach during the festival; and Winfred Rembert, a southern painter from the and the subject of a biographical documentary, whose work was on display at a local gallery throughout the fest.

Fellipe Barbosa's LAURA

Awards Surprises
Awards are never my favorite part of film festivals. As most filmmakers who have done the festival circuit come to realize, some films are just simply more ‘awardable’ than others, and this is not consistently a result of greater quality or artistry. There are reasons that films will stand out to a jury or score higher on audience votes, and every year, incredibly worthy films are never recognized with an audience or jury award.  A five minute brainstorm of essential & break out films not formally awarded in their time: Ozon’s SEE THE SEA, DAZED AND CONFUSED, Claire Denis’ CHOCOLAT, and the all-time stand out of war epics, COME AND SEE.  This shouldn’t be news, but unheralded films are in excellent company.

However imperfect, awards are useful in our industry.  When talented filmmakers are flying under the radar, it is especially exciting to see them achieve some much-deserved recognition for their efforts.  You can see who won here, but I wanted to take note of a few true up-and-comers who took home some awards:

Lauren Wolkstein and Christopher Radcliff, who received the Golden Starfish Award for Best Short Film, for their acutely atmospheric THE STRANGE ONES. While this film is certainly making the rounds, Lauren and Christopher are young filmmakers who everyone should have their eye on (as are the rest of the filmmakers whose work was featured in this year’s competition!)

Mark Jackson’s WITHOUT, which premiered at Slamdance and has been faring strongly on the regional—and now world—festival circuit, took home two more prizes: one for cinematography, the second for Pioneering Vision (with the festival’s Wouter Barendrecht Award).

Felippe Barbosa, whose short films made festival rounds a few years ago, won highest honors in the documentary category with his first ever documentary feature, LAURA, seen for the first time ever by an audience at the Hamptons.  I am so excited to see what happens next with this excellent and unusual film. You can read our description of it here.

I won’t get through a first blog post on this space without an introduction: Since 2004, I’ve worked with a wonderful festival in Florida—The Sarasota Film Festival, where I now serve as Director of Programming, (under the Festival Directorship of Thomas Wilson Hall).  For the past four years, beginning in 2008, I have programmed at another gem of a festival, The Hamptons International Film Festival, where I am a Senior Programmer working alongside a terrific team of collaborators.  The festivals are six months apart– Sarasota is in April, Hamptons in October—keeping me busy with a full calendar of non-stop programming work.  My years go by with the rhythm of festival seasons, Cannes and Sundance signal the kick-off of each busiest time; submissions turn into selections, and selections turn into a festival.

There is no doubt that understanding how to run any festival requires a very specific set of knowledge: It is a job that demands immeasurable professionalism, and yet is often perceived as an amateur ambition, a source of much frustration to those of us who pour our energy into it. (i.e—“you get paid to watch movies?”)  Most commonly overlooked is that being a programmer for a regional film festival is our industry’s answer to the general practitioner.

Programming a festival calls for careful curation, insight into audiences and how to reach them, and to a certain extent, understanding the business of exhibition.  It is also about single films and filmmakers and their careers.  Festival programmers need a bag of tricks; we have to produce and organize, negotiate, problem-solve, publicize.  In addition to being able to spot a rising star, we should know how to throw a good party.  As non-profit workers, we are generally our own assistants.  We don’t always answer our email… (we try). I am speaking mostly for what I know–regional festivals, which tend to have a very small staff and a majority non-industry audience.  However, seeing festivals like Toronto and Sundance in the works, I have reason to believe that some of this extends to even the largest and better-funded festivals.

The point is that within every good festival programmer lies a producer. Selecting films is not only spotting rising stars and slotting them into your program, or courting distributors to have the most popular new titles at your festival. If you can’t deliver a successful event–one that tells a story to the press, communicates a mission to the public, offers a respectful, proper environment for exhibition, holds the promise of identifying new talent to the industry—then your best intentions as a curator are lost.

This is the most active time of the year for submitting to festivals, and as filmmakers, sales agents & distributors vie for those very few select spots at Sundance, and begin to build their back-up plans, it’s a good time to consider the professional motives of the people who are watching your films.  Even though programming is largely about being passionate about the films, and while there is certainly no accounting for personal taste (and it’d be grossly naïve to say it doesn’t play an enormous role), I’d also maintain that festival selection doesn’t depend entirely on whether a programmer unconditionally loved the movie. We also don’t have a wall made of flypaper in our programming office against which we hurl submissions to see what sticks.   We like to ask these questions: What can this festival do for your film (Are we a good platform for your voice?)  What could your film do for our festival (in other words, for our audiences or our community, how could it add the diversity and reach of our line up, do we feel it is vital that your voice is heard at our festival, for whatever reason?)  As producers, exhibitors, and people in the (non)business of supporting films and filmmakers, these are the questions on our mind.

While I intended for this post to be an introduction and not an advice column, in this season of submitting, it could only be helpful for filmmakers to try to answer these questions–Where will my film have the biggest impact? Which festivals will best understand my mission as a filmmaker?