By Dennis D. McDonald

After 7 years of volunteering with the Alexandria Film Festival in Alexandria Virginia I’ve decided to move on to other things. The ride was fun. I’ve participated in a range of activities including event photography, email and newsletter management using Mailchimp, film selection and reviewing, grant proposal writing, post-screening Q&A session moderation, table setup and teardown, and occasional Square account configuration for onsite ticket sales. I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences.

Reading the recent article in the LA Times titled A year later, 7 festival filmmakers reflect on ‘the real-world payoff of Sundance’ got me thinking about these experiences. The Alexandria Film Festival is small in size and influence compared with Sundance, but reading about filmmakers’ own experiences as reported in the article did bring back memories:

• Volunteering is hard work. Running a film festival requires a lot of behind the scenes work throughout the year. People expect to be treated professionally. That takes care, time, and attention. That gets harder as you approach the final weeks before an annual festival when all the loose ends need to be tied together. But you get through it.

• Meeting filmmakers is inspiring. One of the Alexandria Film Festival’s slogans is “Celebrating Independents.” There is something about independent filmmaking that attracts a range of very dedicated people, people who are willing to stick it out through sometimes years of hard work, no money, and constant challenges related to logistics, talent equipment, and weather. It requires dedication.

• Moviemaking can be painful. You learn this when you gather with filmmakers for drinks in after-hours meetups. Many seem to have scars, some of which still cause pain, some of which they can now laugh about. One of the most effective questions to ask in an after-screening Q&A session is, “Why did you make this film?” The “why” is oftentimes personal and revealing, with the less “Hollywood” oriented filmmakers being the most forthcoming.

• There’s nothing like seeing a small film on a big screen. For a first-time festival showing it’s not unusual for filmmakers to comment on how wonderful it is to see their film on a big theater’s screen with a decent sound system. Their joy is often palpable especially if they have labored for months in front of a laptop screen doing the necessary editing.

• Promoting a multi-film festival to multiple markets is challenging. Each film has a potential market, part of which is determined by the filmmaker’s intentions and part by the festival’s own promotional efforts. As the number of films selected and screened increases the number of non-overlapping markets also increases, as do the challenges of locating markets and communicating with them. There may be a core market of “film festival fans” but reaching them goes only so far. Remember, you’re a volunteer festival and have limited time and money for promotion.

• There’s no replacing in-person events. We went through the pandemic and conducted a festival in online only fashion including post-screening Q&A sessions with filmmakers, some of which were recorded in advance. That experience was tough but taught us a lot about online screening—and how much online competition there is out there for eyeballs. It also reminded us of the magic of sitting in a darkened theater with a group of people and how important that social experience is to a successful festival.

• Losing the Traverse City Film Festival was a shock. Attending the Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan was what got me and my wife interested in film festivals; that, plus the fact that one of my wife’s professional buddies helped found and run the Alexandria Film Festival. The Traverse City festival was a big summertime deal with events spread throughout the downtown of a beautiful lakeside pedestrian friendly city. We were all shocked when Michael Moore announced the closure of the festival and did some serious head scratching about the implications which we are still adjusting to.

• Technology can be a bear. Hardware reliability, software updates, digital formats, equipment malfunctions, spotty internet access, unanticipated incompatibilities of all kinds, wrong projections lenses, walkie talkie reliability, snaking extension cords across carpets, loose wall plugs—the list of things that can break down or just plain not work as expected is endless. Preparation is everything!

• Is less more? We started promoting and screening specially selected individual films during the year in recent years outside the main festival event in November and found great success given Alexandria’s available audiences, venues, and partners. Promoting and managing such events, whether at the the historical Lyceum or its Old Town Patagonia store, enables focused effort.

These are experiences I can now look back on with some fondness despite the hard work and occasional friction. If you love films as I do—I’ve been a movie fan since I was a kid and my dad managed a neighborhood movie theater in Columbus Ohio on weekends—maybe you will understand.

Copyright (c) 2024 by Dennis D. McDonald

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