Universal Cinema Film & TV Journal’s Amir Ganjavie recently interviewed Brian Owens the Artistic Director for the Calgary International Film Festival. What follows are the highlights of that interview.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Can you start by talking about your selection process, how does it work?
Brian Owens (BO): Last year, we broke 4,000 submissions for the first time. Those are divided down first through our volunteer previewing committee, they’re actually in specialized groups. Some specialized in International Cinema, some in Canadian Cinema, some in U.S. cinema, some in short films, and some in Documentary Cinema. As they review the films, they’ll either be eliminated or moved up to our team of programmers for the specific sections.
(UM): Some festival directors need to certify the selections of their programmers, is that the case for you?
(BO): Largely speaking, I trust my programmers. However, I feel like, as Artistic Director, my job is to look at the picture as a whole. So, if I’m looking at my documentaries and all of a sudden I notice, “Hey, we’re completely lacking in South Asian Cinema between all of our features, we need to refocus and fill that gap.” It’s my job to make sure that all the pieces of those puzzles we don’t have come together so we create a holistic picture of Contemporary World Cinema.
(UM): Do you have a definition for a good film, one that you have to have in your festival?
(BO): For me, it’s much easier to find a bad movie that we don’t want at the festival.
And then there are the toughest decisions. Like, I just watched a documentary that if you’re an architecture nerd and into mid-century modernism, which I am, you’d love it. I loved it. But I also recognize that that’s so niche, I’m not going to have an audience for it at my festival. So, it’s about not only being a good, well-made film. But is there an audience for it at this festival?
We actually work closely with the Calgary Underground Festival, which is on the opposite side of the year from us. And sometimes, we’ll have one of those sorts of rough-hewn gems. It’s a first feature that’s rough around the edges, but you can see that there’s talent there that might not be right for us, but we can contact our friends over at CUFF and say, “Hey, a submission came in. It’s not right for us, but we think it’d be good for your festival in the spring. Would you want us to send that over?”
So, there’s still a lot of cooperativeness in that way too. So, if we recognize one’s not necessarily right for our festival but maybe one of our neighboring festivals here in the city, we’ll talk to one another so that the festival can best find the audience for that film.
(UM): You’ve talked about your collaboration with neighbouring Canadian festivals, what makes Calgary Film Festival unique?
(BO): The focus of Canadian Cinema is one of the things that makes us all unique, but we’re also really good at regionalizing. So, Calgary is kind of the king of the Prairies. Calgary International Film Festival is the largest film festival among Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba festivals. So, we prefer World Premiere films that are made within those three provinces.
Our friends at the Vancouver International Film Festival show BC films. Usually, we’ll defer to them those World Premieres and try to schedule it after. The same with our friends in The Maritimes. When it comes to those Canadian films, we all like to have our own sort of specialty within our region. We’ll still share those films across the nation, but we’ll defer to one another so they can have regional premieres.
That even goes with our friends at the Edmonton Film Festival. It runs almost simultaneously with ours. And if there’s a film that was made in Alberta, but made in and around Edmonton more than Calgary, we’ll defer to them the World Premiere.
There’s also a growing reputation for the film industry here. Last year, we did a special celebration of the show High School, about Tegan and Sara, a music duo who were born and raised in Calgary. We premiered their show here before it went on to FreeVee, an Amazon division.
This year, we’re working on another series that was made around here. So, we also celebrate the films and television programs that are made right here in and around Calgary.
Calgary also has a growing reputation in music. A lot of young artists develop from this region, so we’re continually growing and expanding our music documentary programming and finding really good audiences for those films. And I think that’s something you’ll continue to see grow over time. We’re in negotiations, not for this upcoming festival, but for next fall to turn it into the largest cash prize for a music documentary competition in North America.
(UM): Support for Canadian Cinema doesn’t seem to extend outside of Quebec and Quebecois Cinema, is there anything you’re doing to support Canadian Cinema?
(BO): We continuously work to support Canadian Cinema. Since I’ve been here, we’ve raised our cash prizes by over ten thousand dollars. We’ve also brought in post-production prizes and things that can help fund the cost of making the next film for a filmmaker. Long term, we are looking at programs that can start in the workshop, like helping lift talent from the very early stages. But for now, it’s prize money, helping those films find audiences, and trying to them make connections with distributors if they don’t already have one.
It’s interesting because, coming from the States originally, where there’s almost zero government support for filmmakers, I always see Canada as a step up. But I know that it’s relative compared to European Cinema, which has much stronger support than Canada. But it’s kind of funny, I come from a place where filmmakers max out their credit cards, and that’s the only way they can make their first movie. The Canadian kids are at least a step up from the States, but I realized it could always get better and stronger for sure.
(UM): In terms of diversity for your festival do you utilize quotas or is it more organic?
(BO): It’s more organic than quota-based. It’s about keeping your eyes and your ears open. And making sure that you’re hearing those voices. We do track statistics, we have to for several grants we have. But it’s not like I tell my people we have to have 50/50 margins between male and female filmmakers. We keep our eyes open to how things are flowing. Last year, eight of the 12 narrative films in our emerging Canadian artist competition were women directors. If you aim for 50/50, you might be cutting women filmmakers off when they have the stronger films. So, it’s really about tracking and making sure that the indigenous voices, the newcomers, the Black voices, the South Asian voices, etc., are heard.
Calgary sometimes doesn’t have a reputation for being as diverse as it actually is. It is a very diverse region, and we have very diverse audiences. Our audiences, all of the communities that make up Calgary, see themselves represented on the screen.
(UM): The Wire was recently talking about the new Woody Allen film which will premiere at Venice but doesn’t have North American distribution. Roman Polanski also has a new film that may go to festivals. If they submitted their films to your festival, would you consider screening them?
(BO): It’s a really tough question because there’s always that big argument. Separating the art from the artist. I will give you a background story. It was my last year in Nashville before I moved to Calgary. We’d already pre-planned the 50th Anniversary screening of Rosemary’s Baby. And it was after we put all those plans in place that everything exploded, and we needed to move it.
So, we had a really long conversation, “do we go forward with the screening?” And we talked to a couple of our local filmmakers and professors to see what their thoughts were. We also talked to a lot of women in the community (including my co-workers). And we all decided to go forward with it. But we tagged it with a conversation about “Do we separate the art from the artist? How do we do that?” What was interesting is that panel concluded the best way to separate the art from the artist with someone like Polanski, is watch Chinatown, watch Rosemary’s Baby. But do we really want to consider his latest work now that we know what we know?
So, I would probably say, I don’t know if I would show their new work, but when I go back and look at their classic work, that’s because I think that’s where a dividing line can actually occur.
It was a tough conversation, but I think it’s conversations that we need to have, and I’ve learned a lot from it. That’s kind of the conclusion that I came to, I’m going to still enjoy your classics, but I’m wiping my hands of any future work. So, I don’t think they’ll see the light of day over here if I’m being honest.
(UM): Now what about films coming from countries like Russia right now?
(BO): Our policy is if it’s funded by the Russian government money, it is a no. Now, independent filmmakers who did it on their own, we don’t want to punish those people.
(UM): With documentaries, there is a question about authenticity. How do you go about that with diverse communities you’re not a part of or with say science you may be unfamiliar with?
(BO): There are two things I will do. If it’s a science documentary, the first pass, I’ll do as much research as I can to make sure that it’s supported by factual evidence, not hocus pocus. If I’m concerned that it’s hocus pocus, we have a really good relationship with the University of Calgary, and I can consult.
Two years ago, we had a film called Artificial Immortality. It was about the idea we’re now calling, AI ghosts, where you can sort of upload your personality into the AI system. I didn’t think there was any hocus pocus in that documentary, but it raised interesting questions. So, what we did is we had a Roboticist and a Bioethicist from the University of Calgary joining the filmmaker in a conversation surrounding the issues related to the movie.
As far as when it comes to representation, this is something we started a couple of years ago and continue to expand their role. We call them our IDEA guides, aka Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility guides. So, if I do have a question about the authenticity of a film, they do represent communities from South Asia, the African Canadian Community, the Black community here, the Indigenous community, and the differently abled community. So, I could take a movie to them. I, myself, am a member of the LGBTQ community so, I’m going to make sure that I’m not going to do this blindly. I’m going to make sure that the diversity of the programming is representative. I’m not going to try to tell somebody’s stories without their input. I will keep an eye out for any colonialist attitudes in a documentary because that’s something that concerns me. I don’t know if you can see it, the documentary Twice Colonized is about the Greenlandic human rights attorney (Aaju Peter), but the filmmaker is a white Danish woman (Lin Alluna). However, Alluna worked hand-in-hand with Peter, and Peter was confident enough in Alluna. Peter firmly believed that this wasn’t colonial-style filmmaking and that she was comfortable with Alluna telling her story on film. That’s going to lead me to say the film wasn’t done with a colonialist attitude, but an attitude of cooperation and joint storytelling.
(UM): And how about venues? They are often one of the bigger challenges for festivals to secure.
(BO): You asked that question at an interesting time. We’re on our last year in the Six Screen Downtown Multiplex because it’s being torn down. So, we’re literally planning the 2023 festival and the 2024 festival because of that very venue question. So, we’re working with the city and the federal government to get some grants to build out non-traditional spaces for 2024 and create our own cinemas, which has led to long-term conversations about finding a permanent home. That’s probably five or seven years down the road, but it’s on the road map now.
(UM): What is the average age of people that attend the Calgary Film Festival?
(BO): I think the average is not the best measure. But I think our average age is 48. However, in the last two years, post-pandemic, as we were able to start going back to theaters, our fastest-growing population is under 35. We’re still putting more research into why it’s happening. We’ve also added more virtual reality, interactive digital media, and gaming hubs. So, we feel like those might be some of the draws, but I’ll have an answer as to why probably after one more year of research, but the majority are still over 40, but it’s nice to see an uptick in the under-35.
(UM): Can you talk a little bit about how Covid affected you and how you’ve recovered?
(BO): To give you an idea, in 2020, our highest-viewed film at-home, John Ware Reclaimed, had over 1200 streams. All of our movies you could watch at home last year combined didn’t have 1200 streams. The home viewership just plummeted. But our in-person attendance got us back to about 90% of where we were pre-pandemic. So, we’re thinking this is the year that we will cross that line and get back to pre-pandemic levels or exceed that and start to see the real audience growth. Part of that too is post-pandemic, Calgary’s been growing pretty significantly.
(UM): And what is your relationship with streamers?
(BO): It’s been really interesting. Two years ago, our closing night movie was Power of the Dog from Netflix. We were the only other festival outside of TIFF to be able to get it. Part of it is, Westerns play well here. The next year, I couldn’t get anything from Netflix.
Now, let’s flip up this. The year before we had The Power of the Dog, we couldn’t get anything from Amazon. Last year, we got everything I wanted from Amazon except My Policeman. And this year, we’re working on strengthening that relationship.
We’re talking to Apple, there’s nothing confirmed, but we’ll see what happens.
It’s a different form of negotiating. Like Elevation, is pretty easy to work with because if I can’t have a film, they’ll say upfront the movie’s not going to play festivals. Whereas the streamers, it’s a different sort of back-and-forth game. They all keep changing their minds about how far they will go with the festivals.
One thing that’s interesting to me now, is the new Academy rules. I feel like they’re going to want to play the game a little bit more because now that you have to play ten markets to be able to go for best picture, they’re going to have to get it out there more, and festivals are a great way to get word-of-mouth. If they’re going to have to put those movies in cinemas, they want ticket revenue. So, we might see an uptick this year based on those new Academy rules, but we’ll find out.
(UM): Can you talk a little about your industry section?
(BO): We do 12 talks, three a day over the first four days of the festival, the opening weekend. And that’s interspersed with lunches, industry happy hours, and all these other networking opportunities for people in the industry. It’s been growing since we launched this version post-pandemic from 40-50 per gathering the first year to 75-80 last year. This year, we’re hoping for an average of about 100-120 people per talk.
(UM): You said you came from Nashville, what are the biggest differences between festivals there and Calgary?
(BO): Calgary has more governmental support which makes it easier. Nashville has one advantage, getting celebrity guests was really easy. It is a little harder in Calgary, but that’s changing too. Getting Tegan and Sara, even though they weren’t local really helped get the ball rolling.
(UM): Do you have a vision for the Calgary Film Festival in 10 years?
(BO): When I first started at Nashville, everyone was like, “Are you going to make us the next South by Southwest? Are you going to make us next Sundance?” And I literally said, “No.”
What I am going to do is I’m going to make Nashville Film Festival the prominent film festival in the Southeastern United States. You have to conquer your region before you conquer the world. And I would argue that by 2018, I had done that. They took a hard hit in the Pandemic, so the evidence might not show it now, but if you look back to articles from 2017 and 2018 I think I delivered on that promise.
I’ve already said Calgary International Film Festival is Kings of the Prairies. I want this, right now probably the fifth or sixth largest, to be, at worst, the third largest festival in Canada. Because no one’s going to conquer TIFF, they’d have to implode before anybody else could take that position, and I don’t think they’re going to, I don’t see that happening.
I also don’t even think we can really conquer Vancouver. But if we’re recognized for doing the things that we’re doing in Calgary, not for being the next TIFF, or the next Vancouver, but for being a festival that people in Toronto are still interested in because we are doing something so different from TIFF that they would be able to come out here as well. That people in Montana want to cross the border and come up here and enjoy the festival. That’s the type of festival I want. That eventually becomes a destination festival for the people for whom Sundance or TIFF are overwhelming. I want the quality of programming that you’ll see there, but I want it done in a way that’s casual and relaxing.
We had a thing in Nashville called the Nashville tuxedo. That’s where whatever you’re wearing, you just throw a suit jacket over it, and now it’s a tuxedo. Because it’s really about enjoying the cinema, having a good time, and building a community. A community within Calgary, and meeting our audience goers, but even a larger community of filmmakers around the globe who love coming here and want to keep coming back. That’s my festival.
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