FILMS GONE WILD: Pierre Rissient – The filmmaker’s advocate for the ages is gone. Who is picking up that baton?

“It’s not enough to like a film,” he says, “You must like it for the right reasons.” Pierre Rissient

Pierre Rissient

I was beyond fortunate to have met this legend of film and spent some time with him after Rose Kuo made a distinct point of introducing us with an insistence that more or less communicated that a film titan should bestow some attention on a younger film guy because the younger guy “got it.”

And I did “get it.” I have e thought of him often and referred to him often as my career as grown and careened from filmmaker to film festival and film publicist to film journalist and critic to back to the other two pursuits in various combinations.

I describe myself as a “true believer” in film festivals and independent film. Mr. Rissient was the original “true believer.” If he took a liking to your filmmaking, you were “made” like being accepted into a high echelon of the movie mob. His word, his advocacy carried great weight.

Quentin was one of “Pierre’s directors”.

Rose brought him to AFI FEST because she knew having him enter its orbit would help nudge it to another level. And I know that’s what happened with me. I have always personally felt (because my ego is that big) that I was taking the baton, in a way, as another advocate of filmmakers – someone to speak up about their work and their talent, even as I was pursuing my own.

I will finally be getting back behind the camera in a little more than a month, but following my experience at the Bentonville Film Festival and some intense and passionate conversations with film critics like Carlos Aguilar (Screen Anarchy, among many others) and Jen Blair (MovieMaker Magazine), and filmmakers like Kevin Arbouet (BENJI THE DOVE), Michael McAlpin (MISS ARIZONA), and Robin Berghaus (STUMPED) and my do-everything colleague, Lela Meadow-Conner, I feel more than ever like the indie filmmaker’s momma bear – looking out for them. And I say “momma bear” as opposed to “papa bear” because it isn’t simply the instinct to protect, but also to understand and nurture and help navigate through the process of getting their films out there and seen, of putting their best foot and face forward to generate attention for themselves and their film.

Working the phones. (Pierre Rissient)

I always loved the story of how Pierre Rissient and Bertrand Tavernier would place themselves in a narrow hallway at a theater exit so people couldn’t avoid them and thus, had to have post-screening conversations. That refusal to let people get away with not dressing the film, not talking about it, or giving it’s due – that’s a model to follow, It’s a model I have followed as I work on all of my film festivals and the films I have represented. That’s one of the lessons I learned from Mr. Rissient.

I’ll keep carrying that baton.