Britta Erickson made it through 2019 in one piece, and she’s hoping the same for 2020.
“I didn’t expect to be in the interim executive director role at Denver Film for a year, and definitely didn’t expect to be in it during a pandemic,” said Erickson, who’s also director of the Denver Film Festival. “It’s not that I don’t have it in me to advocate for this organization I’ve been with for so long and love so much. I just needed help and had to call uncle.”
It’s hard to blame her. Denver Film, the nonprofit organization that produces the annual Denver Film Festival and runs the Sie FilmCenter, was rocked to its core last year.
On March 31, 2019, artistic director Brit Withey was killed in a tragic car accident on U.S. 285. Less than three weeks later, the organization’s executive director, Andrew Rodgers, resigned.
Despite that, Denver Film soldiered on with its popular programming — mini-festivals centered around women, Latinx and LGBTQ voices; the Film on the Rocks series at Red Rocks Amphitheatre; and the 42nd Denver Film Festival, which opened with a red carpet event on Halloween at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.
Having big names such as former Denverite Rian Johnson — who directed opening night feature, “Knives Out” (as well as “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”) — and nearly 300 other features and shorts at the fest translated into another banner event, Erickson said, building on consecutive years of sales and audience growth. (Disclosure: I hosted an opening-night Q&A with Johnson at the festival last year).
It was a sweet cap to a sour stretch, and one that found Denver Film busily interviewing replacement directors right up until the coronavirus pandemic shut them down.
“The last people I ever saw in the Denver Film office were (job) candidates, because I was on the search committee for that,” Erickson said. “But when saw what was coming down the pike, we shut our offices in mid-March.”
That’s also when Nicholas Rotello, a Denver Film board member with more than more than two decades of business experience and strong financial acumen, took over for Erickson as interim executive director, freeing up her up to focus on, well, everything that has happened since then.
While the director search is on hold, Denver Film has dealt with the loss of all public programming and ticketing revenue at the Sie FilmCenter and elsewhere (no Film on the Rocks, no mini-festivals, etc.). By early spring, Denver Film had begun offering online streaming of its titles for members and the public, as well as “dinner and a movie” deals with DoorDash and, recently, a Snacks to Go program.
But what of their signature fundraising event this fall?
“Denver Film Fest is on, although it may look a little different,” said Erickson, who’s been screening potential titles for weeks. “I hope that, as soon as possible, we can also reopen the FilmCenter with social distancing and all sorts of protocols. We’ll be careful about it, but we still believe in the experience of getting people together to watch movies.”
So far, Denver Film has seen some success with its continually evolving digital offerings, which were recently gathered under Denver Film’s own virtual platform. That means Denver Film doesn’t have to share ticket revenues with distributors, providing an important financial boost.
Kevin Smith, director of marketing and sponsorships, led efforts to choose that platform and get it up and running, while Matt Campbell (artistic director) and Keith Garcia (artistic director at the Sie FilmCenter) joined the tech team to shake out the bugs. All have also worked hard to stay engaged with members and audiences through social media, programming and discussions about topics such as Black Lives Matter, Erickson said.
Through it all, Denver Film is keeping in close touch with Colorado film programmers and fest directors from Aspen, Breckenridge and Telluride to share experiments and results that further hone their approach in a time of uneasy quarantine.
Unlike drive-in theaters, which have seen a resurgence in recent weeks, Denver Film’s programming is geared toward either intimate experiences (its three, cozy art-house theaters on East Colfax Avenue) or huge parties (see Red Rocks’ 9,450 capacity for Film on the Rocks). The pandemic has robbed them of both.
As much as Denver Film has benefited from partnerships with streaming companies like Netflix — they showed Netflix’s Oscar-winning, black-and-white film “Roma” on the big screen at the Ellie — they’re not trying to carve out a permanent, at-home market, Erickson said. The nonprofit’s mission is to unite people, in person, around films.
It’s not just high-mindedness. Few things can replace the earned revenue of movie tickets and, just as important, snacks and in-theater booze. That’s part of why major exhibitor chains have been reluctant to embrace mask requirements (it’s hard to eat popcorn with a face covering, of course), despite the obvious health necessity of doing so. No movie chain has figured it out yet.
Since March, Denver Film has laid off 20 of its hourly staff members, putting them in the same boat with dozens of other metro-area cultural nonprofits that rely on tax dollars from the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District to shore up finances.
RELATED: Denver’s thriving arts scene was headed for its best year yet. And then the pandemic hit.
“It was critical for us to come up with our own platform,” Erickson said, noting that they’re using Eventive software shared by Crested Butte’s film event and a half-dozen other festivals outside Colorado. “I have to throw out the biggest thank you in the world to the Cleveland International Film Festival. Like South by Southwest, they were caught in that moment where they already had the programs printed when the pandemic hit. The pivoted very quickly and provided (a model).”
Denver Film has also pored over survey data shared by other festivals that could help them with their own event, including SeriesFest — the “Sundance of TV” that went all-virtual this year after past installments at the Sie FilmCenter.
It all amounts to a test-run for the Denver Film Festival in the fall.
The current plan sees a hybrid event that includes safe, socially distanced, in-person screenings as well as festival passes and individual tickets for virtual screenings. Shorts will be available online throughout the festival, Erickson said, following lessons learned from Aspen Shortsfest. Features will be available for shorter periods to mimic in-house screenings.
“We may extend the festival by a week or start earlier this year,” Erickson said of the event, which typically draws tens of thousands of attendees. “We’re working with distributors on certain titles, though, because they still want those screened in-person — regardless of how many people are there.”
In fact, Telluride Film Festival is still planning an in-person event in September (as of this writing), and on Wednesday released a co-signed letter with major film festivals in New York, Venice and Toronto. “The art form we love is in crisis,” it read, noting that the festivals will drop their competitive ways and collaborate to survive 2020.
Erickson is also coordinating with other festivals about not poaching business (for example, by avoiding showing the same, new Wes Anderson movie to the Colorado online market) as others experiment with in-person film screenings. This week, Vail’s Gerald R. Ford Amphitheatre said it will reopen July 11 with Movie Night at The Amp — including limited capacity and new venue protocols, according to The Vail Daily.
Similarly, tickets for potential, in-person Denver Film Fest events will likely include waivers about temperature checks, mask requirements and other safety measures.
“If you feel comfortable, I want you to come to opening night at the FilmCenter or Ellie,” Erickson said. “But it won’t be 2,200 people in a screening, like we typically have. It might be 400 people spread across three screens.”
But will people come back? A recent survey found about 50% of people would prefer for Denver Film to wait for one to three months before reopening, even if given the green light. Another 25% said they won’t return until there’s a vaccine.
“There are going to be adjustments and mistakes along the way to the ‘new normal,’ ” Erickson said. “But I know we’re going to figure this out.”
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July 08, 2020 at 07:00PM
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The 2020 Denver Film Fest is still happening, despite coronavirus - The Know
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