BRUNO CHATELIN - FILMFESTIVALS.COM

PALEOCHORA LOST WORLD SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

FESTIVAL JUDGE 2019

Bruno Chatelin

Interview by Eleni Oulani

Having created the online platform filmfestivals.com, aiming at promoting film festivals worldwide, you have seen the birth of many festivals around the world. Can you tell us a little bit about this experience?

I started developing a strong interest for festivals in 1987 when I was distributing films in France for Sony Pictures, later moving to 20th Century Fox which I eventually merged with the French major UGC.

Being engaged in that position made me realise how important festivals could be to the success of my films, I learned how to exploit their differences and how to build a specific experience. Let me explain this with two specific success stories.

‘Independence Day’ had one single festival screening at the Deauville film fest. I remember having a bit of a fight to secure it with the Fox studio executives. The rationale was very simple, the press would probably not like the film, and yet we still needed to show it, so we chose to share the film as late as possible, close to release and in the most positive environment possible: a huge screen, eventful, and a house filled with people who like that type of American film...the audience of the American film festival of Deauville proved to be perfect, they totally loved the effects and the thrill.

The other example is a long story. "Boyz'n the Hood" was world premiered in Cannes at Un Certain Regard, and it MADE the career of young rookie filmmaker John Singleton, who went on to be nominated for an Oscar for that film.  We worked for 4 months concentrating on word of mouth, building the right audience, an audience that included kids from suburbs as well as festival attendees, live poster Art involving graffiti artists on the Croisette, and a rap concert party with Ice Cube. In the end, after a very successful presentation the Head of the Studio was able to put a figure on that success: he said he was going to change the domestic Box Office Estimate from $30 to $50M  (it actually did $54 in the US and Canada). He also commented that the Festival contribution to International was somewhere between 40 and 50M$. I enjoyed the handshake and started becoming a TRUE BELIEVER of the power of festivals and the fairy tales that they can create.

My partner founded Film Festivals.com in 1995 as a directory of festivals (before Google). I joined later in 2000 and developed the site into a portal, with b2b professional content about the festival circuit. In 2006 we added a social network component and developed the site into what it is now, a dedicated online resource for the fest circuit with three components: 1. A social network a blog platform where all filmmakers and festivals are free to create a profile and self promote at will and for free. 2. An editorially curated news portal which gives news from the circuit and promotes some of the user generated content from our members, films or festivals. 3. A newsletter and blast service which delivers the weekly festival beat, and some targeted communications (which are important financial resources for our company).

We are proud of the quality of our database and also think having 196,000 subscribers is a huge opportunity (one of the biggest databases in that field) which comes with several obligations, in terms of what we share, exhaust and focus upon.

We are currently working on a new version which will bring a huge qualitative boost to the web experience. I have attended all major festivals with my studio films, had openings, closings, showcased films at festivals with the talent, doing junkets interview sessions, parties...you name it hundreds of festivals, several hundred,  including  smaller ones and festival launches. As you can imagine I have had to wear multiple hats, partner, filmmaker, distributor, journalist, guest, jury, president, festival producer, photographer. Festivals are all different from one another, just like brothers and sisters can be different. Many first launch festivals have capitalised on that experience, asking myself and filmfestivals.com for services to increase awareness, legitimacy, boost submissions, find good films etc.

I can list them all, but I am always happy to see them grow afterwards.

What was the thing that attracted you most to attend the first Paleochora film festival?

Festivals in my view are a living thing, with a variety of angles, which will attract people for different reasons. It can be the attraction of the destination, the need for discovery, the curiosity for good film, the appetite for human discoveries... for me, on top of all of the above it was the human factor which prevailed:  I met Linda, the festival founder, a few times and enjoyed her true passion for film, this is really exciting, "refreshing" when you discover authenticity, so many festival directors become "blasé". I am also impressed by the fact she did not shy away from building a festival in a country which is not her own, it says something about her personality.

Apart from attending the film festival as a special guest and a speaker, you are also the festival agent of Susan’s Kucera documentary Living in the Future’s Past, which will be screened during our festival. How did this collaboration start?

I invented this position, the "festival agent's" role with filmmakers almost by accident, by recognising a need and filling an existing gap. I like helping filmmakers and sharing my marketing experience, and have done so for years in many different ways. I started focusing on International festival strategy consulting only a few years ago. One of my first client / partners was Lise Romanoff, founder of Vision Films, (who also sits on the board of the IFTA association which runs AFM) who brings a huge experience and understanding of the overall picture. She also realises that handling the film festival circuit for her client involves a lot of work and is hugely challenging, some films need a specific treatment to achieve more sales, some don't; she has introduced me to her clients who can benefit from festival exposure and I work with her and her filmmakers, in marketing harmony and coordination. Everyone seems happy, Lise stays focused on sales, sparing the thousands of emails involved and gets better results (100 selections for Living in the Future's Past) and Susan is very happy.

What would be the first advice you would give to someone who is starting a new film festival?

I could not just stop at one piece of advice, it’s such a big task to launch a film festival from scratch...!!!? Maybe i could start by saying this: The most important thing to do is to make everyone happy with the festival experience. Filmmakers attending, audience, locals, partners and sponsors.... but MOSTLY have Linda McGuire happy she did it, and this implies that she must identify all alleys to find ways of recouping the costs and time investment she has put into this first edition. Making sure that the festival project has an equation that allows for covering the costs. And I know how hard it is.

The Festival Director must build the confidence that the various possibilities of funding are realistic, explore them, be persuasive and successful: find city, region, nation support and financial commitments (in kind or cash), identify potential local sponsors who can contribute. Find local accommodation partners: ground transportation, cars...hotels, host families... who can offer a minimum of rooms. Find an airline partner who can help with some VIP  treatment if any are requested. It's a combination of small things and big things and all are important.

One piece of Advice? all right: one!

"If you build it Linda, they will come"

I released "Field of Dreams" and am still thrilled by this line in the film.

Bruno Chatelin - Guest Speaker at Paleochora Lost World Short Film Festival. Venue: Pearl Cavo, 16:15 Sunday 2nd June, 2019

in the old days ...with Dracula (Coppola's...)