During the Toronto Film Festival, Universal Film & Television Journal’s editor Amir Ganjavie interviewed Rebecca Fons, the director of programming at the Gene Siskel Film Center. What follows is the summary of the interview.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Can you please introduce yourself and describe your role within your organization?
Rebecca Fons (RF): Sure. My name is Rebecca Fons, and I’m the director of programming at the Gene Siskel Film Center, which is located in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. As the director of programming, basically anything that is on our screen I have been involved in, in some capacity, in some way. So, we have new released films that I program and I see them here at Tiff, or Cannes, or Berlin, and then I work with the distributors or the filmmakers to program their films for our screens. I also do classics programs, repertory programs, either based on a theme or a region or era or a movement, a film movement or perhaps a filmmaker. If there’s a centennial or an anniversary or if there’s a filmmaker we’re really excited about, we’ll show a lot of films from that filmmaker. Then we have lots of partner programs and festivals. So, if we have a festival that we present, I do the majority of the programming, or I work with our collaborators, either our younger programmers, like for our Black Harvest Film Festival, which is a film festival that presents films from Black filmmakers, or outside partners, like the Chicago Palestine Film Festival. I support them and help them, but they do the majority of the programming. So, if it’s on our screens, I have sent an email about it, or I have written something about it, or I’ve seen it, or I’ve supported making sure that it arrives on the screen in front of you as you’re sitting with your popcorn, I’ve had something to do with it. Yeah.
(UM): Could you discuss the legacy of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel for your organization?
(RF): Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel were two very well-known Chicago film critics, and they really made a new world of film criticism in the US because in the US, unless you were a real cinephile, or an art house programmer or an artist, you wouldn’t read Cahiers du Cinéma, you wouldn’t read Film Comment, you wouldn’t read Sight and Sound. Exactly. So Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel really brought the idea of thinking about film critically to middle America. I watched it in Iowa, on the farm, on the television when I was 10. It was on the main channels, and it was two people talking about a film, thinking about it critically, debating, being civil for the most part, and even sometimes they were very rude to one another. So, it really introduced me and influenced me because it made me think about film in a new way. It made me consider filmmakers and script and cinematography and all that. So, it did that for a lot of audiences. I think audiences in America really understood film criticism in a new way. They weren’t intimidated by it. They took the intimidation away. In terms of the Film Center, we’ve been around for 50 years, and for the last 20 plus years, we’ve been named the Gene Siskel Film Center. Gene Siskel passed away in the 90s, and quite young, and we were renamed for him. Then Roger Ebert passed away many years later. He had cancer, and he passed away. His wife and Gene Siskel’s wife are still very much involved in the Film Center, and we are very honored to be named the Gene Siskel Film Center. We have a photo; you may remember there’s a photo of the thumbs up of the two of them there. So, it’s important. So funny, younger people don’t have any idea. Often, I have to educate them because they just don’t. As we all get older, our legacies shift, and younger people are often learning who they are and finding their criticism and their reviews and their conversations are still so relevant and so refreshing. For films that are older that they go back and see, and then they see what they wrote about it, and it brings them a new perspective on the film.
(UM): I understand this question might seem somewhat challenging, but could you provide your definition of what makes a good movie? What qualities do you look for when considering a film for your program?
(RF): Oh, wow. Yeah. I was just talking about this with my husband, not too long ago about what makes a movie good, and I think it’s so hard because I have even programmed films that I don’t really love, but I recognize the value of the film. Either that the performances are great or the script is strong, or it looks beautiful, but maybe it doesn’t have every ingredient to be a perfect film. So, I think a good movie is the one that impacts you in some way. Either you like it or you hate it, or you see yourself on screen, or you love a performance, or you have a moment of connection. I think a good movie can even be a movie that is not critically recognized as good, but it could be good for you because you responded to a character, or you responded to a moment, or an idea in the film. So, the cliché is like, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and a good movie is in the eye of the watcher and the programmer, I suppose. So, even complicated films or films that are not necessarily perfect can still be very good.
(UM): You mentioned your programming selection process briefly, but could you elaborate further? Do you collaborate with other programmers, or is the decision-making primarily your responsibility? How does the selection process work?
(RF): Yeah. So, I am the director of programming, and then I’m a department of one, so I’m one person, but I’m very collaborative and transparent with my processes. I have regular meetings with my team to talk about films I’m seeing every night at Tiff. I email them and tell them about everything I’m watching here, because I really think, especially in film exhibition and in cinemas, it’s a team effort. Sometimes the programmers are there like they’re the king or the queen, but I really like to get feedback from everyone and hear what they’re interested in and take suggestions. Also, I am very lucky to mentor two young programmers for our Black Harvest Film Festival. So, they do the majority of that programming, and I just support them in making sure that we stay on our deadlines, and we consider the festival on a whole level. Because I am just one person, I really try to collaborate with partners a lot. So, if we do a specialty film festival or stuff, I try to make sure that we reach out to organizations or similar groups to say, “does this program look good to you? What do you think? Can you add to it? Can we have a conversation afterwards?” So, it’s a collaborative process, but ultimately, I’m the one who makes the final decisions, which means I have a lot of deadlines.
(UM): I recently visited Chicago, and I was struck by the city’s unique architecture. Could you discuss any special programs or initiatives your festival has in partnership with the city?
(RF): Yeah. So, in terms of our location, first, we’re right downtown. We’re on State Street right across from a famous theater called the Chicago Theater. It’s a live performance theatre. So, we’re very centrally located, and then we are a public program of the School of the Art Institute. So, the Art Institute is in Chicago, and they have an education program. We are a public program, so we are a movie theater, but we are connected to that larger institution. Then, we partner with the Chicago International Film Festival. We’ve done programs where we show films about interiors and exteriors of buildings and then have conversations about them. Last year was our 50th anniversary. So, we’ve been a real critical piece of the cultural fabric of Chicago for a long time, just over 50 years. So, we’re really important, and I also recognize that Chicago is the third largest city in the country, and it isn’t like New York and that there’s hundreds of art house cinemas and lots and lots of movie theaters. Like Scotiabank, we have big multiplexes that play Top Gun and Barbie and things like that, but there are very few true art house cinemas that are playing four-hour Chinese documentaries and three-and-half hour Turkish films. So, we have a real opportunity, but also there’s a real need for us to be there and to present films that otherwise might not be seen in Chicago at all.
(UM): Given your organization’s focus on film criticism, could you elaborate on the importance of film education within your center?
(RF): We do. Yeah. Every year, in the spring and in the fall, we have a lecture series. So, we present films with a professor of film or art history, and they present works on a theme or a filmmaker. We did a Hitchcock series way back. Then, just this last fall, we did a series of films that were all about the horrors of capitalism. It was everything from Jordan Peele’s Us to Todd Haynes’ Safe. It was these two very different films, but they were speaking to consumerism and the wheel of capitalism. Those are always accompanied by a lecture. So, they’re introduced by the professor, and then there’s a lecture afterwards. Then on the other side of the business, we’re also working on creating mentorships and apprenticeships for projectionists and for young programmers because I think even though there aren’t endless amounts of jobs in this industry, we are also seeing there are fewer and fewer people doing the work, especially projection. 35-millimeter projection is a dying art in some places, in some cases. So, we’re really trying to encourage young projectionists to learn how to project 35, to learn how to inspect a print and protect it to understand 16mm and the differences between the celluloid and an old print and a new print. So, there’s that, and then also with our Black Harvest Film Festival, our two programmers are pretty young in their career. So, I’m working with them to understand: this is how you work with filmmakers, this is how you work with distributors, this is how you put together a program and consider what movie goes at what time and what theater. So, I think we are really trying to do our best to make sure that the industry of film exhibition industry continues to be strong and with lots of young people. I’m not that old, but I’m not that young either. So, making sure we’re educating as much as we’re entertaining and presenting films.
(UM): You mentioned that Alexander Pine’s work wasn’t a good fit for your program. Can you clarify what criteria a movie must meet to be considered for your program?
(RF): Yeah. I certainly always am going for the films that maybe have entered public consciousness, like Anatomy of a Fall. It won the Palme d’Or, so I’m very interested in it, and I also really enjoyed it. But because of the distributor and because it won the Palme d’Or, they’re probably going to go to the more mainstream cinemas, like the Scotiabank, the Multiplexes. So sometimes it’s not a decision that I make, it’s the distributor who decides, like the new Scorsese film, Killers of Flower Moon. I’m very interested in showing it, but Paramount is going to put it on, probably, 15 or 16 screens in Chicago. So for me, I have to decide, does that align with my mission? We try to show things that are only ours, exclusive to us, and that you can’t see anywhere else. So, if it’s showing everywhere you turn, if it’s everywhere like a Starbucks, then what films are we not showing? If we’re showing something like The Holdovers, which you can see at five or six different screens. What films are we saying no to, to make room for those more mainstream titles? They’re saturated in the market. There’s lots of them. So then, I try to go a little bit deeper in the film program for the season and find the films that, like I said, might not otherwise come to Chicago, might not otherwise find a theater; and sometimes that means films, like the Wang Bing film, YOUTH. Yeah. It’s four hours long. If they’re not going to show it at the big multiplex, we’ll have it happily, but that means that we won’t have room for something like The Holdovers. But that’s okay, because you can still see it in Chicago. It’s not our job to show it, because you’re able to see it in Chicago anyway.
(UM): Do you primarily select films that have already premiered at major film festivals?
(RF): Not only, but certainly. I attend Berlin and Cannes and Tiff, so I certainly look to those festivals to watch films. By the time I leave here, I will see about 30 films at each festival, so I see 4 to 5 films a day. I’m looking for films that have received a claim in premieres at those large festivals, but alongside those, we present films that are much “smaller”, and haven’t won awards. They haven’t premiered at big film festivals. Maybe they did in a sidebar program at Berlin and they didn’t get distribution, or they got a much smaller distributor, but I loved it, or it fits in with another program. We have a very strong Polish community in Chicago, so it makes sense for a Polish film to be on our screens. We also show a lot of local films by Midwest and Chicago filmmakers. So, we try to find a balance of something that you can read about in IndieWire or Variety, and you’re familiar with it, like a film that has won a big prize, and then the films that you’ve never heard of or that you might want to discover on your own that hasn’t already been written about and won awards.
(UM): The issue of diversity is prominent in the industry, with some festivals aiming to cater to a wide range of tastes. How does your festival navigate this balance between diversity and maintaining a unique artistic perspective?
(RF): Yeah. It is tricky, and I see that at festivals too, where there are sidebars and there’s focus programs and spotlight programs. I like it. For me, I grew up in a very small town in the state of Iowa, which is west of Illinois. I didn’t see films by female filmmakers until I was in my teens. I certainly didn’t see any queer films until I was in college. I don’t think I saw any films made by non-white filmmakers for quite some time, and I came from a very artistic family, but they just weren’t accessible to me. So, I have found great joy and abundance in expanding my scope as a viewer. So, I’m really happy to program very diverse slates of films, but I do recognize that. Sometimes, it’s hard for audiences to find their map. They see everything. It is like a buffet; you get overwhelmed and you can’t really figure out what the film is for you. So, it’s a little bit like, at some point, the buffet is too big, but you still want the variety. So, how do you pace yourself and find that balance? I think it’s tricky, and I think festivals are really considering all of that right now. It’s like how do they make sure that they have the representation of all the different lived experiences and lives of filmmakers without alienating their audience and having the audience feel like it’s too big or it’s too much, or it’s so varied that they don’t know what to grab onto. So, it’s tricky. You’re always finding the balance in the balance.
(UM): I recently read an article about films like Polanski and Woody Allen’s struggling to find distribution in the US but screening at European festivals. Have you considered showcasing such films at your program?
(RF): Yeah. Gosh, that’s also a very tricky question. I think for me, it’s different for every programmer. I was listening to, maybe it was the IndieWire podcast, they were talking about the new Woody Allen film right before Venice, and they were like, of course, it won’t play in the United States. Then one of the hosts said, but if it’s amazing, will all of us look at it the other way and program it? Will we decide that we like Woody Allen again? The art can sometimes transcend the artist, and I decided many years ago that for me, there are so many filmmakers making good work, that I don’t need to program a film from a filmmaker who maybe has harmed someone. So, for me, I have made that decision that in a single year, there are hundreds and hundreds and thousands of films that are wonderful or worthy of being seen. So, to say no to a film because I want to make room for a filmmaker who maybe has caused real harm to someone, I just feel like I would rather choose a different film. I’d rather look at the sea of films and find something else. So that’s not to say I would never program a Polansky film or I would never program a Woody Allen film, but right now, that’s my perspective. There are so many films out there that to program a film that may harm an audience member or may make an audience member feel unsafe in our cinema, does not make sense. I’m just like, there are more, there are more films out there. There are more fish in the sea, as they say.
(UM): What is your current perspective on filmmakers from Russia or Iran?
(RF): Yeah. We have a festival of films from Iran that we present every year. I’m a big fan of Iranian cinema and have been for a long time, and there’s always so much amazing work coming out of that country. And then Russia. Right now, I’m not seeing many films from Russia. I think that is one thing. I remember that Tchaikovsky’s wife was screened in Cannes. And it was controversial that he was even there, and then it didn’t get distribution and it didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t show it. It was like, I think there’s a time right now where filmmakers from Russia are going to potentially be struggling to find international audiences. Right now, I’m just not being approached by any. And right now, at Tiff, I don’t know if there are any Russian films. I don’t think there are. So, it’s just like our audiences come to the buffet, Tiff is a buffet for us. So, I’m looking for films, and I think if there was a film from Russia or there was a film, certainly a film from Iran, obviously, I would be very interested in considering to program it, but I’d have to see it. I guess my point is I’m not going to blame a filmmaker for anything that may be happening in their home country.
(UM): When it comes to film selection, do you prioritize films based on societal values and norms or are you more oriented towards the aesthetics’ originality?
(RF): Well, I’d have to see the film first. I would always have to consider the film. Yeah, I think we just have to consider the film. No matter what a film’s message is, it has to be seen, and then the context has to be considered. So, if we were to show a film that was controversial for whatever reason, we’d want to be able to answer why we were showing it, responsibly, and then to be able to provide context around it. Maybe because the filmmaker is there, we want to have a conversation, or maybe because it sparks a debate or a dialogue that we think is important. We just finished a series called Contraband, which was a selection of 10 films that had been banned or regulated in some way. So that included Last Temptation of Christ, which was banned by the Catholic church in the 70s, and included a film called Last Creatures, which is a film by Jack Smith, which was banned in New York and the filmmakers were arrested for presenting it. Also, films that received X ratings when they were first released were very controversial. So, it’s possible that in the 70s, if I had been doing my job, I might’ve said, we’re not showing this. It’s too controversial, but now, years later, we’re presenting that film within a context and celebrating it, or at least presenting it and providing lots of information about why we’re presenting it. So, I think everything has to be seen and considered and contextualized, and sight unseen, I would never say no to a film. I certainly have my perspectives and my opinions, but I would always want to consider the film.
(UM): So, you primarily consider societal values and norms when selecting films, rather than imposing your personal viewpoints?
(RF): Oh, no, certainly not. Yeah. I try not to. If anything, I find that programming is more interesting when I don’t do that. Like I was saying, there are films that I’ve seen here that I did not enjoy, I didn’t love, or I found very brutal or very hard, but I’m not programming for myself. If it was just my cinema and I was the only person who went, I would be able to sit and watch all the movies that I love over and over, but my job, if I’m doing it correctly, is to present films that are creating conversation and creating a dialogue that is for everyone to consider, not just me. It’s whoever comes to the cinema, whether it’s someone who’s more left-leaning or right-leaning, someone who is, older, younger, Black, white, gay, straight, it’s very important to me to make sure that we present a program that is balanced, that has a little bit of something for everyone.
(UM): In terms of funding, given that government support for cultural organizations is limited in the US, how does your organization secure funding? Is it primarily through private sources?
(RF): Yeah. it’s true in the United States, we get far less funding than European festivals and cinemas. We are funded in a number of ways. We do get some government support from the National Endowment for the Arts. There is government support, federal government support, local government support, the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. We apply for grants and receive that funding. We also do have a good number of individual donors and generous individuals who donate their money. Then we also have a membership program. So, if you want to support the Film Center and also get less expensive tickets, you can become a member. So, those are our three main sources. and then ticket sales, of course, which is the least amount of money that we get. So, it’s a mixture of individual support, government support foundations, private foundations and individuals, but it’s hard. We are not like a cinema in France or Germany that might get a huge subsidy from the government. It’s very different in the United States.
(UM): Job stability can be an issue for programmers who often move between organizations due to the absence of year-round contracts. How does your organization handle this aspect?
(RF): Yeah. There’re so many people, especially in the United States who work at film festivals. They do this circuit. So, they’ll work at Sundance, and then they’ll go to Tribeca, and then they’ll work at South by Southwest, and then they’ll go to Palm Springs, and that is really hard. I know a lot of people that have done that and still do that. Similarly, obviously, with the pandemic, so many people were laid off, and so many cinemas downsized or cut staff. It is tricky, I think. When I was a little kid, I knew I wanted to work in film, and my mother supported me, but was very worried. She thought, maybe you want to get a business degree. Maybe you want to be a teacher. Maybe you want to have a job with a little bit more stability. So, I found stability in my role, but we are in a really volatile industry with the Covid and closures, and then now SAG and WGA. It’s like a good weekend at the cinema now and was a bad weekend in 2019. So, it’s like the amount of tickets we sold, now it’s like, oh, what a great weekend, and then you look back and you’re like, oh, this would’ve been terrible six years ago, five years ago. So, I have stability, but also in a very unstable industry, so I always feel very fortunate, and I always think you take the opportunities when you have them, and you do the best by your audience and hope that they continue to come and they continue to support you.
I also think it’s good for programmers to move and change and go to new cinemas and go to new festivals because we get new perspectives. We bring new perspectives. So, if a programmer is somewhere for a very long time, the energy becomes a singular energy. Whereas if a new programmer comes in, it shifts the dynamic and shifts the perspective. So, I actually think that’s a good thing, but I recognize there are limited opportunities and jobs for film critics, and film programmers. That means it is a hard industry to find stability in.
(UM): How do you engage with and attract the younger generation, considering that many organizations struggle to do so, with their audiences primarily being in their 40s and older?
(RF): Yeah. We are actually not experiencing that issue. It was true for years, Art House Cinemas really struggled to get that younger audience, but I think the pandemic really shifted things, and we’re seeing young people. Certainly, we still have lots of like 40 up audiences, but that like 22 to 40-year-old is really coming out, and they’re really coming out for older films and films on 35 millimeter, and programs that are themed or that provide a little bit of extra context, like I was saying. So, we did a program called Bad Romance, and it was all love stories where they kill each other, the relationship ends terribly, is tragic – and audiences came out and it was a varied program. It was everything from Wild at Heart to Leave Her to Heaven. So, it was a really mixed program, and lots of young people were there, and they’re buying beer and wine, and they’re considering art house cinema in a new way. It’s not just long films of subtitles, which sometimes it is, but it’s also classic films, repertory films, canonical films that they want to discover and they want to get to know because they’re recognizing how important they are.
(UM): It seems that people are increasingly seeking event-like experiences from cinema, akin to the Barbie example. Are you implementing new advertising strategies to attract audiences to cinemas?
(RF): Yeah. For the banned film series, I was just speaking of, we partnered with a brewery and we had free beer, so it’s like, that’s something that gets people excited; something free or we’ll do like dress up. We did a Wes Anderson film, and it was like a Wes Anderson costume contest. Then also the conversations afterwards. It’s not just the film, but there’s also a discussion with the filmmakers here, or we have a conversation after the film, or there’s a reception, or it’s part of a larger program. So, I agree. I think the new release films, Barbie and Oppenheimer not included, but a new release art house film, if you have just three show times a day for two weeks in a row, you’re not going to get the same crowd that you used to be. It’s less reliable now. So, we do find that we have to really push, and we also have to do a lot of outreach. Reaching out to organizations that maybe have an interest in the subject matter. So, if we have a documentary about the environment, or we have a documentary about a particular era of history, we’ll maybe look in Chicago to see if there’s a Czech film. We’ll say, well, let’s reach out to the Czech Consulate and have them promote it. Let’s reach out to the French Alliance and have them promote it. So, it is more work. I feel like we’re working harder than we ever have to get audiences, but when we do, those audiences are really invested and the partners are invested too. So, it pays off, but it is a challenge. You’re working harder for every film unless you’re showing Barbie, and then people just come. Just have a pink drink that they can buy, and that’s it. Yeah.
(UM): As we conclude our conversation, is there any topic or aspect you believe is important for our audience to know that we haven’t covered yet?
(RF): No, I don’t think so. These are good questions, and I think as a programmer, it’s my job to ask the questions you’ve asked me. I have to ask myself these questions all the time. What films wouldn’t I show? What films would I show? Why wouldn’t I show something? Why would I show something? And my goal is, if you stop by the Film Center any day, any week, any month, that there is a selection of films that excite you and that make you curious and that make you want to learn more, maybe there’s something that you knew you wanted to see and you’re like, oh, this is great. I definitely wanted to see this film, and then you turn the page in our calendar, and there’s something that you’ve never heard of, and you take that chance. But it is a challenge, and I think recognizing who your audience is and who you want your audience to be, maybe who isn’t coming yet. So, you’re both trying to nurture your current audience, but also entice a new audience. And that’s a big job, and so I’m very proud to work with a lot of very talented, very dedicated people to do that every day. We don’t show 10 days of films and then collapse after the festival. It’s 365 days of the year, and it’s a marathon. We’re always running.
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