The September Issue: Part One
Or: Film Festivals and How I Came To Love Them
Dear Reader,
It’s almost September, and we’re diving into film festivals—where we screened, what we imagined, what really happened, who we met, what we watched, what we learned. The issue is longer than usual, an homage to the Vogue September issue, (and the great RJ Cutler doc) and broken into weekly installments.
Part One: Filmmakers: The wise Ted Hope recently wrote in his own Substack, Hope For Film:
If you are making non-dependent work and perhaps bringing it to market via one of those “festivals” that masquerade as anything than the delivery mechanism for the mirage of the hope of being a selling and funding flashpoint, you’ve made a very bad mistake. Or at least if selling or funding is what you are hoping to do at such a “festival”. You and your film require far more care and handling than can ever be delivered in such an interaction. You won’t -- or can’t -- be scooped up and whisked to the runway for some readymade launch. And why would you want to be in the first place? You are living a fantasy and we want you to come back to the real world. Please.
But these fantasies are really hard to divest oneself of. Who doesn’t harbor the fantasy of being discovered, or as Hope calls it “scooped up and whisked to the runway?”
In the early 00’s I was a fact-checker at Paper Magazine (RIP print media) and vividly remember fact-checking the February issue’s gossip column from some Sundance party where some Hilton sister was misbehaving. Everything that happened “on the mountain” (cool person code for Sundance) looked magical. We Gen Xers imagined film festivals—Sundance certainly and Tribeca, in our lower Manhattan backyard—as the “room where it happens.” And sometimes they were! (Although Joey Lauren Adams reminded us in Sav Rogers’s incredible doc Chasing Chasing Amy that while incredible things were happening to — mostly male — filmmakers, many actresses were in direct danger from sexual predators. More on that in another issue).
When my film premiered, at the height of the WGA writers strike, a colleague warned me that as a Guild member, I was prohibited from promoting or selling my film until the strike resolved—because, buying into that 90’s/00’s fantasy, she said film festivals were “where the deals get made.” But that’s not true anymore. At least not at the midlevel and smaller regional festivals that I attended. Instead of deals, I found people and their beautiful films. I explored local museums, parks, bookstores and thrift shops. I met artists I hope to keep in touch with over the length of our careers.
Ramona At Midlife played at (in chronological order): Geena Davis’s incredible Bentonville Film Festival (world premiere), Woodstock Film Festival (a real homecoming for this New Yorker plus we were nominated for ), Heartland International Film Festival, Mystic Film Festival, NYC Indie Theater Film Festival, Omaha Film Festival, Pasadena International Film Festival, Florida Film Festival and Ridgefield Independent Film Festival and will screen at the Rome Independent Cinema Festival in October, 2024.
For a deep dive into festival strategy I highly recommend this Film Fatales webinar:
In no particular order, here are just a few of the great people we met on the circuit. Each of these filmmakers (or filmmaking teams) is also making work while raising a child (for McKenzie Chinn and Meghan Ross motherhood is new; Lee Eddy and filmmaking duo Hudson Phillips and Jordan Noel have been doing it awhile) which is partly why I wanted to feature them and their work here.
When people bemoan the state of the industry right now, they should take a closer look at artists like these who are making their own work and taking responsibility for shepherding that work into the world.
BB: So tell me tell my readers a little bit about you. You were an actor first, right?
McKC: I have been an actor for a long time. I moved to Chicago in 2008 (for De Paul Theatre School) and came up in Chicago theater. There's always been a bit of a scene here, and it grows more and more every year…. But I felt limited by the roles available, as a Black person, as a woman… And in 2014, I was at a day job and found myself writing.
It made sense. The first thing I ever thought i was going to be was a writer.
So I was at this job and I had a story kicking around in my head, all this time to realize it. Community has always been a big part of how I function as an artist, so… I reached out to mine and asked for feedback, and I also happened to get my very first grant that year, an amazing fellowship [The SFFilm Rainin Grant].
I wrote my first film in 2014, shot it in 2015…
BB: A feature?
McC: It never occurred to me to scale my entrance. I thought, we’ll make a movie! How hard can it be? [Olympia, written by McKenzie, directed by Gregory Dixon.] Even if we never go to festivals, I’ll be able to say I made a movie. And in doing it, I realized that filmmaking needs to be a core part of how I operate as an artist.
BB: Your short, A Real One, was one of my favorite films at Bentonville, not just in the shorts category but across the board. You did such a beautiful job… and you’re developing the feature, right?
MC: …(talk about The Real one) Yes! The feature is in devleopment. I took it (check this Lexi!) through Sundance Screenwriters Lab and Directors Lab. (more on A Real One below!)
BB: Tell me about motherhood. How has being a mom changed you, if at all, and how has motherhood impacted your identity as an artist?
MC: We’re only four months in. I’m new in this journey.. I'm sure oh yeah a lot of my creative impulses are tempered right now. There’s not time. [to make art] You need time for the engine of your brain! And I don't have that. But this is a season, and it will change very very quickly. .This is my artistry right now. How can I parent with intention?
My partner is also an artist — writer hip-hop artist actor — and right now at least, our lives can be the arti. It’s how we live our lives… it’s in our day to day.
BB: Tell me what you're working on next. Apart from parenting a four-month-old!
MC: Financing for A Real One. We’ve had great development, we’re ready to go, and things are percolating. ARO has to be my main focus; it feels like the door to the rest of my career as a filmmaker. My stamp as an artist. So I don't want to split my focus too much but I also like I'd like to write and hopefully can my goal would be to get a little bit of commission.
BB: Thank you for your time, McKenzie, I really appreciate it.
A Real One has screened at: Athens International Film + Video Festival, Bentonville Film Festival, Black Harvest Film Festival, Bushwick Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival (WINNER Gold Hugo for Live Action Short Film), Dances With Films, Florida Film Festival, Julian Dubuque International Film Festival, Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, 2023 (Nominated MVAAFF Best Short Film), Micheaux Film Festival, Nevada City Film Festival, Pan African Film Festival, 2023 | Nominated Best Short Film, Provincetown International Film Festival, San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, Sidewalk Film Festival, 2023
Stay tuned! Next up: Lee Eddy and then filmmaking duo Hudson Phillips and Jordan Noel, Austin-based filmmaker Meghan Ross and in Part Three, a special look at programmers including Greenpoint Film Festival’s Anthony Argento.
As always, be well…! And the words of Ramona’s lawyer, played by the great Rosemarie Dewitt: “You’re not done.”
Love, Brooke
I've been following your film and enjoy these updates! I love how you highlight other people, especially creative women. Keep up the great work!