By this point in my film and film festival public relations career, I have been recruited to launch or re-launch more than a few film festivals. One of my favorite stories is sitting in an organizational meeting for The Feel Good Film Festival which came my way because the girlfriend of one of my fiancee’s ex-boyfriends was starting the film festival, had never attempted such a thing before, and they wanted to hire me to not only do the thing I do PR-wise, but also be one of the experienced hands in the room (think..Film Festival Grandpa), so to speak. So, I show up to the meeting, dressed as I almost always do, in a shirt and tie, and carrying my briefcase. As the meeting proceeds, the guy that was being brought on to be the Operations Manager said to the Executive Director (fiancee’s ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend), “So, we’re actually doing this?” She turned to him and said, “We’ve been planning for 2 or 3 months now, of course we’re doing this. What are you saying?” Operations guy points at me and says, “I know. But look at that guy.”

So, apparently, if I’m brought in, then shit just got real. (And that was a decade ago.)

It happens. A lot.

Well, earlier this year, I got an email from a publicist that I have worked with for more than a few years, the wonderful Emma Griffiths. She’s one of the best, we have a great respect/relationship, and she’s one of those that I have a sense of relief when she’s managing things for a film at my fests because half of their battle is over as far as I’m concerned. Well, obviously it’s a mutual love-fest, because she had a film festival job brought to her that she couldn’t do thanks to timing and bandwidth. Therefore, she referred them to me.

It was the Niagara Falls International Film Festival, founded and run by Bill Cowell, with a heavy duty assist from film director/producer and industry veteran Stanley Isaacs. Bill had founded and been running the Buffalo-Niagara Film Festival for the past 15 years, but wanted to fully embrace the Niagara Falls film fans and community by brining the whole show there.

Well, this one got off to an interesting start after I put out the announcement of the film festival’s lineup, when I received an urgent message from another great publicist friend of mine, Kelly Kitchens, saying that a journalist with the Buffalo News had reached out to her with tales of much dubiousness about the fest and even inquired if I was a real person. Apparently, there was a complicated back history with a competing film festival in Buffalo the past few years and shenanigans had taken place including lots of bad mouthing about Bill and his fest combined with some scrappy production and presentation following some overzealous promotion that didn’t quite jibe with the final product – if you know what I mean.

So, now this writer at the Buffalo News was skeptical to say the least, and reached out to Kelly with her suspicions about my existence – among other things. Well, I got on the phone with her and after assuring her that I was indeed not a hologram or a Nigerian Prince, listened to her description of the history as she saw it, and then told her what the deal was and what the plans were for the fest, as well as assuring her that if I came to play, then theme was indeed on.

I had never been to Niagara Falls or that part of New York state, so after I arrived, as I was riding from the airport to my hotel, my driver described the area – comparing it to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls – and even from afar, you can immediately pick up on the difference. Basically, Canadian Niagara Falls in VEGAS BABY! Lots of neon and bright lights and yes, casinos, casinos, casinos! American Niagara Falls is vacation and families and small town style with some Scorsesean-style flair to it occasionally.

The “big deal” about the fest this year was the appearance and celebration of two Academy Award winners, Mark Bridges (Best Costume Design for both THE ARTIST (2011) and PHANTOM THREAD (2017)) and Craig Barron (Best VFX for THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (2009)). Bridges is a “favorite son” of Niagara Falls and was due to receive the Key to the City from the Mayor, Paul Dyster and Barron was set to be the film festival’s first Legacy Award recipient. Both men were also going to have stars placed on a planned Niagara Falls Walk of Fame that had/has been in the planning stages for the past few years. (In fact, this was one of the things the Buffalo News writer found dubious since there were no “hard plans” that had been communicated, so I had to implore Bill that he needed to shire that up and show some “proof” that things were actually proceeding on that front. Good intentions weren’t going to cut it and he needed to “show his work” even if the groundbreaking was still some time away. He got it, and I communicated that to my new friend at the Buffalo News.

So, all good until the unspeakable happened: Bill’s daughter, Alyssa, died. It was sudden and very unexpected, and Bill had already been dealing with the care of his wife, who was also quite ill. I’ve been doing the film festival thing for more than a decade now, but this was a first (that don’t occur all that often for me any longer). I seriously thought that would be it for the fest as I’ve seen them come to an end or “postpone for a year,” which usually means it has come to an end – over much, much less than that. Especially, since this thing defined the term “scrappy” and was so much of a one-man operation with a handful of helpers like Stanley Isaacs and myself. Very often, the people on the other side of the equation; filmmakers, audience members, journalists, sponsors, vendors, did I mention the audience members? don’t have a thought toward the people that take it upon themselves to put on or produce a film festival. And not that they should, necessarily. But here was a case where this thing existed because of this guy, and now he had been dealt a literal catastrophic loss – his daughter – on top of an incredibly intense caregiving situation. I seriously could barely imagine being in that position and holding it together. So, I was ready to offer any kind of support I could regardless of the decision Bill would be making or any plan that was ahead of us.

But he wanted to press forward. In honor of his daughter, Bill wanted to put on the fest that she had helped him with for all of those years. Pretty remarkable, I thought. More than remarkable. And what I was learning was that heart would be the key to this particular film festival.

So opening night happened….

THE OPENING NIGHT RED CARPET PHOTOS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The evening was a success. Mark Bridges was indeed the toast of the town and it seemed like his entire family – and A LOT of friends and people he grew up with – came out to celebrate the hometown boy who done good. Craig Barron was somewhat nonplussed but delighted at the award he received, as well as the event’s hoopla and fanfare. We did a “Conversation on Film” with both of them, which was a lot of fun as we talked about (among a lot of other things), Barron’s beginnings working with George Lucas (His very first job was on THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.), and Mark’s beginnings on such luminous films as ROBOT WARS and DOLLMAN VS. DEMONIC TOYS.

Following the high of the Opening Night celebration, which did not include a screening by the way, the next couple of days of the film festival were a little uneven, to be honest. The audiences were small and a little befuddled as to how a film festival “worked”. On a couple of occasions I found myself doing “How to Fest” tutorials in the lobby of the theater and literally going down the list of films in people’s programs to describe each film and help put their butts in the right seats.

So, despite pretty decent press coverage (some nice curtain raiser pieces in local newspapers and weekly and three local affiliates coming to the red carpet on Opening Night), there is definitely work to do in Niagara Falls for next year on the basic communication of what a film festival is and why everyone should want to come check out the films and meet the filmmakers. Sometimes that happens, but it’s still tough because you want your filmmakers to have big audiences. Especially, when you have someone like Jim De Koch, who wrote, directed, and produced a somewhat faith-based musical short, titled, I’M TAKING YOU HOME, and drove all the way from Milwaukee with four members of the Trueman family (Tom, Debbie, Eric, and Ryan) who were in the cast just to attend the screening at his very first film festival. You want that guy to have an amazing experience. Fortunately, we got him on TV and on the red carpet, so he and the Truemans had a little bit of the rock star moment in Niagara Falls.

We also had the East Coast premiere of Melora Walters’s drama, WATERLILY JAGUAR, starring Mira Sorvino and James Le Gros. Walters, of course, is best known for her appearances onscreen in Paul Thomas Anderson’s classic films, BOOGIE NIGHTS and MAGNOLIA. She was also in theaters recently, in VENOM. WATERLILY JAGUAR is Walters feature film writing and directing debut, telling the story of a writer whose life spirals out of control as he attempts to reclaim his fame as a novelist by writing something more serious. It is an “art film” through and through and was “grandfathered” somewhat by Anderson. Walters was on hand to talk about the experience, along with some of the producers including Jonathan Piumelli, who also produced another film at NFIFF,  Justin Foia’s thriller DOE, about a man who wakes up not knowing who he is, but with the ability to speak dozens of languages.

The next day, Barron gave what amounted to a master class on VFX, beginning with the history and art of matte painting through the developments of digital technology. I joked a couple of times throughout the fest that he “wrote the book” on the subject because he literally had written the definitive book on the subject. If I can convince him to come to another of my fests, that will surely happen because it was a fantastic journey through film. The day also included a Filmmakers’ Panel “From Concept to Completion” led by Stanley Isaacs with his friend, Alyn Darnay (SHADOW FIGHTER, among other films). these two, define the term “veterans” and were entertaining as well, as they regaled the local aspiring filmmakers with anecdotes and some key info to write down.

Closing night featured Matthew J. Weiss’s heartfelt documentary MAN IN RED BANDANA about Welles Remy Crowther, a man who lost his life saving others during the collapse of the twin towers during 9/11, as well as Annalaura di Luggo’s documentary short, BLIND VISION. di Luggo had actually traveled all the way from Italy to attend the fest with her film. The combination of the films’ subjects, as well as the attendance of Welles’ mom and dad, Alison and Jeff, made for an emotional, evening. Following the screenings at the historic Riviera Theatre the filmmaker awards were announced and a check for $1000 went to charities benefitting Firefighters and First Responders. During the awards ceremony, upon receiving the award for Best Narrative Film, WATERLILY JAGUAR producer Jonathan Piumelli announced that he and art director Shannon Lee got engaged the night before. It was a sweetly uplifting way to end the inaugural NFIFF.

There was one “coda” that reminded me why film festivals are a priority for me – why I am such a devout believer in their purpose and benefit. During the after party, held upstairs in the theater, I happened to come downstairs to check on something and I saw some young filmmakers that I hadn’t met yet taking selfies in front of the step and repeat banner. I asked their names and why they hadn’t been at the fest and participated in the two red carpets we had, including that night. It was Chun Gee Hong, the director of a clever short, PI, with one of his cast members, Emmanuel Shamenda, and Isabelle Bertino, his co-editor. They are all students and weren’t able to leave to make it to the film festival until the very last moment due to classes and work. So, I took some time to take their photos to include in the photo gallery and then talked to them about their filmmaking experience and ambitions, and then did a little coaching on how to approach the rest of their (hopefully, continued) film festival run. It reminded me that even in the most humble and scaled-down film festival experiences, if you are the filmmaker then it still is an amazing feat to get accepted, to get the validation that you made something worth screening for someone other than your relatives, significant other, or friends. And you need to be treated as such. You need to know that you are being celebrated. You need to have someone like myself talk to you in a smart way about your film and why it was “worthy.”

The Niagara Falls International Film Festival has that spirit about it. A guy like Bill Cowell clearly does give a damn about his filmmakers. If you could have seen him literally lifting and moving around the huge granite “stars” for Bridges and Barron with the help of just one other guy as they were setting up the display on Opening Night, knowing everything that guy had weighing on him – to get the presentation of it “just right”… Well, I think his daughter, Alyssa would have been more than proud of him.

 

THE CLOSING NIGHT RED CARPET PHOTOS