ii: Matt, you called it “throwing a festival.” I’ve never heard that expression before. Like throwing a party.

Matt: Yes, it is like throwing a party.

Brian: That’s a good way to describe it.

ii: How do you program and who are you programming for? Are you programming for yourself, your audience, your board of directors, your sponsors?

Rachel: Some combination of the above. Mostly I am programming for my audience, which doesn’t mean I am going for the lowest common denominator. I am trying not to pander to my audience but to keep their interests in mind.

Matt: Certainly I don’t program for myself. I love having some checks and balances in place because even though I do have the authority to say yes, I will still give it to someone else and say, “See if this is just me, but I really like this.” We get to make up a lot of our own rules. Our sponsors probably won’t mind The Ring II because they know that SXSW is the type of festival that just for the hell of it would program The Ring II.

Rachel: When I say, “I am programming for the audience,” I mean the potential audience. So if I see something I love and I think I can find an audience for it in Los Angeles— even if it’s not the people who have been walking into our door—then I’ll try to include it.

Brian: I want to make this a festival for everybody—and that doesn’t mean showing lowest common denominator films, but finding a few things, like Spellbound, that are going to draw a real mainstream audience and people will really enjoy and have an extra-special experience, because not only will they see this great documentary or feature, but the filmmaker will be there for Q&A, and they will say: This festival is really cool. Maybe next year they will see a Romanian film. It’s really important to try and broaden the audience.

ii: What’s your favorite part of the job?

Rachel: My favorite part of my job is being with a filmmaker when the audience greets the film with emotion. It’s kind of like being a matchmaker. When the match works, it works for everyone. There’s nothing better than that. My least favorite part is rejecting people. It’s a hard thing to do. There’s nothing that feels good about dashing someone’s hopes and desires.

Matt: That’s a great way to put it, Rachel. That matchmaker analogy is pretty perfect. When something you saw on your crappy TV in your living room and fell in love with, and then 500 or 600 people fall in love with it, too, on a Saturday night when they could be doing anything else, is gratifying. The least favorite parts are anything that could be filed under not meeting the expectations of the artist; that can be a drag. Whether it's saying no to their film or whether they feel that something in the process wasn’t right. The reality is this: no matter how many sponsors you have, no matter how big or little your staff is, we are not the big corporate machines that filmmakers might think we are.

Brian: What Rachel and Matt said about being a matchmaker is just great. It’s a toss-up between that and when you see people who see a film that just blows them away. They don’t just love the film, they love the whole experience of the Q&A, talking to the filmmaker, and you can tell in some little way that their lives have changed. The toughest part of the job is rejecting something that’s a good film, maybe not a great film but a really programmable film, for whatever reason just doesn’t fit into the festival. I think the toughest part is when something is really deserving, but there’s just no room.

ii: Do you have any desire to put on a wacky-themed film festival?

Brian: Oh, gee whiz. This is something I could really get in trouble for. Every once in a while there’s a film that comes into the festival that is so ineptly done—not necessarily poorly done, but ineptly done—that you just can’t turn it off.

Rachel: Brian, I have a little section in my closet with some titles that, if I named them, you would have a vivid picture….

Brian: Same here. I could picture some sort of clandestine secret film festival. A weekend would be enough time before people would OD on it.

Matt: Enough sad karma.

Brian: Exactly. It’s something that would be in a locked room and you would need a password to get in.

Rachel: A midnight screening with enhancements, is what I think is called for.

Brian: I’m not going to mention any titles though.

Matt: I live in Austin, and thanks to people like Harry Knowles (Ain’t it Cool News) and theaters like the Alamo Drafthouse—which have really good reputations— there are already so many wacky film festivals going on in this city. I have been consulting with this new festival in Austin called Fantastic Fest, which is kind of a sci-fi/horror/fantasy festival involving Harry and some other people. Read More