Universal Cinema Film & TV Journal’s Amir Ganjavie recently interviewed James Faust the Artistic Director for the Dallas International Film Festival. Below is part of that interview.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Can tell me more about your role in your organization?
James Faust (JF): Sure. As Artistic Director, I am in charge of the programming. I’m the lead programmer for our film festival and also our year-round programming. We do one-off screenings of films that are either played at our festival or things that are coming to town. But during the festival, I’m in charge of international films, narrative features, and documentaries, and I oversee a team that also helps with international films and documentaries, and I oversee the Schwartz Programmer and her team from year to year.
(UM): What’s the selection process like for your festival?
(JF): I will make the final decision because in our organization I’m the Director of Programming and Artistic Director, so I’m watching most of the features. I’ll make the decision, the final one on everything. But short films, and our Latino section, and any sort of [special section], like we’ve done a German section before, I’ll bring in someone else to help me program a German section. Or we’ve done a South Korean section before, so I’ll bring in someone to help with that and I’ll trust their opinion on that. I’m watching and I go, oh, that sounds like a great idea. Let’s do that. But the final decision on our competition films comes down to me.
We have a screening committee and that is about twenty/twenty-five people that we send out. They watch the films, and then they rate the films, and as the ratings go up, we follow through and we go, oh, this is good. We’re also watching films, the head programmers, we’re always watching and saying, okay, that looks good. Then we meet via Zoom. Most of the time we’re meeting via Zoom, because it’s easier to be at home watching something and go, hey, wait, I got this thing going on. Okay, well let’s just all meet on a Zoom call. Then we all discuss and it just comes down to about three of us, and we sit there and discuss all the ratings and everything, and we come up with the program.
(UM): How do you get yourself familiar with the new titles? Are you going to the festival, is it through the festival or distributors? How do you know about new films and the films that you think are good for your festival?
(JF): All the usual ways. we have submissions through FilmFreeway. I’m monitoring film festivals all over the world, constantly. I feel I’m on a thousand different email lists. And working with companies and then attending other festivals. It’s been difficult the last few years post Covid, but I’ve had a chance SXSW in person and there was a chance to swing down there and also do that virtually. And being able to do Zoom calls with certain studios and find out what they’ve got going on. We’ve been around for fifteen/sixteen years and we’ve made some inroads with filmmakers and just following up and following what they’re doing and just seeing [if they’ve] got [anything] new coming out.
But I’d say the bulk of what we do from a feature standpoint would stem from just research and following what’s going on and keeping up with filmmakers and filmmaker trends like, oh man, so-and-so’s got a new movie. I just read about it, or, I literally, one funny way is, we’re Facebook friends and Instagram friends with almost every one of our filmmakers still, and sometimes they’re just posting about what they’re doing. Bob just said they just finished shooting something and he is really excited about it. Woo. I’m going to go check him out and see what they’re doing. It’s really fun keeping up with all the people because once you come to a film festival, it feels the filmmakers feel like family in a way. Like you’re alumni.
Honestly, there was a film filmmaker, Hannah Pearl Utt. She had a film at our festival back in 2019 (Before You Know It). We kind of became fast friends. I just saw that she just finished something the other day, and I literally saw that on Facebook. I just happened to be looking at somebody’s birthday. I’m like, oh shoot, Hannah just finished a film and I’m talking to her about it. It’s really funny how things work from this tradition in your film. We’re looking at. Before this call, I was watching a documentary, and I said, what, it’s only an hour and five minutes. I got plenty of time. And I was watching that. Then after this call, I’m going to email some filmmakers and just keep up with the trends and just follow what’s happening.
Berlin’s coming up soon, and I’ve been getting all these emails from people wanting to have meetings in Berlin. I’m not going to be able to make it to attend Berlin this year, but dang it, I’m going to do some Zoom meetings. More so than any other market in my entire life, I’ve never seen this many films offered or available for sale to distributors and filmmakers bringing their works. I don’t think there’s anything bigger than Berlin in my life. I’m overwhelmed, to be frank.
(UM): Are there any festivals you pay more attention to?
(JF): I’d say the two biggest for me because of our time of year is usually Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and Sundance, just because of the time of the year when we are. it’s been hard to get Berlin films because usually, we’re in the spring, and Berlin is right there. But for me, TIFF, I always tell my board of directors and people that ask me, I wanted Dallas International Film Festival to be TIFF at one point. Just sort of this grand thing that has these large films and has these great indies, celebrates filmmakers, maybe at one point helps fund filmmakers having great panels to talk about the LA filmmaking. I just love everything about that. There are some comparable things to the two cities. There’s fresh, they’re international. Although I can’t get any good poutine down here. But up there, it’s always a delicacy.
(UM):When a film is recommended to you by a Festival Distributor or Distributor, do you take that film more seriously than when a new filmmaker submits it through FilmFreeway?
(JF): If Sony Picture Classics is calling and they’ll say, hey, we’ve got this. I go, oh, that’s cool. Thanks for thinking of us. Whenever we get a distributor to call us as opposed to us calling them, it feels like we’ve done something like, oh people know what we’re doing. People know that we’re a good place to be, that we have good audiences, and that filmmakers are going to be treated well. But for the most part, I’m going to treat films as films, as long as it’s good and it fits what we’re trying to do. A real specific example, I just watched something recently submitted by a filmmaker who’s a producer who’s had films as a producer in her fest, but she directed something and I was watching it thinking, this is really good, but I don’t know if it’s good for us right now, what we’re trying to do. Even if that film had a distributor behind it, I would still have the same notion of going, I don’t know if this film is right for us right now. It’s not a bad film at all, and that’s something people don’t realize sometimes about film festivals. It can be a really good film, it just might not be a good fit.
We had this discussion last week with a programming team, what if so and so distributed it? I went, I still don’t know if I’m going to do it because I don’t think we have a place for it. So, to answer your question… it all comes down to how good the film is. I’ve argued, and now I won’t use a particular large distributor’s name, but I’ve had screaming matches on the phone saying, no, I’m not going to do your film. No, I just don’t, it’s not going to work for me. And that actually was a bad film.
(UM): I understand. Then you are saying that sometimes the movie might not fit but you want to screen it. For example, do you have a certain place or quota for a specific region? And other movies have to be sacrificed to fill them?
(JF): Yeah. You don’t have an official quota, but you have a number of like your documentary competition, your narrative competition that you say, I got this many films to put in that competition. If you get to a point and you go, oh wow, I’ve got two really good films about LGBTQ murder mystery, and you’re going to shoot, I can’t play both.
(UM): I understand.
(JF):Then you start going down the list. Okay, both of them are pretty good. This is the category that they’d had to be in. Then you have to start working through the films and going through the numbers and working through with the programming staff. Like, man, they’re both a fit. If you start getting the same themes in a category, you want to spread the category out. You don’t want it to be one giant theme in the same category. Even though they’re great films, you got to spread that out and tell more stories, and you got to be diverse in your storytelling within the categories. That is actually probably the biggest gut problem that I have. Where I feel gut-wrenched. Like I have to choose a child to throw out the boat. It’s so terrible. But there are no quotas.
The great thing we’ve lucked out on is the diversity in filmmakers, having filmmakers of color and different gender. That’s been an easy thing. Frankly, when I started this twenty years ago, it wasn’t that easy. We used to have a hard time like, man, it’s all straight white guys that are making movies. And we’re like, there are more people making movies out there. We need to be able to celebrate this. Now everybody’s making films. Everybody’s great. I think filmmaking’s become a little easier to do, and we’re reaping the benefits.
(UM): You are talking a little bit about diversity. Diversity right now is very important for all organizations. I have this discussion with different festival programmers about diversity versus quality because some festival directors told me that they would not sacrifice quality, they will always prioritize quality and others told me, no, diversity is more important for them. I’m curious, how do you think and how is your festival in relationship to this question of diversity versus quality?
(JF): I would say that we’ve been lucky enough not to have a problem choosing. But if I were to choose, I’m going to choose quality. I think diversity happens. Without us looking now, but I’m always looking to share things. Now, I’m also looking to share new stories from people that don’t have a voice. For instance, we’re actually planning a native program, kick it off with a couple of films [during our festival], but to actually do a series throughout the year working with a sponsor that we were talking to about it in their program. That’s a voice where I will look at that.
But in general, good films will show up and good filmmakers come in all shapes, colors, and sizes.
(UM): Suppose that I’m a filmmaker and I’m introduced or given to you a very controversial movie, for example, on a very controversial topic. For example, I’m making very good movies but I’m against abortion. Will you, for example, show those kinds of movies that touch on a very heated debate and could cause controversy?
(JF): Again, if you have an argument and the subject matter is controversial, but you present the subject matter in a coherent manner and not something that’s just propaganda, then yeah. There was an anti-abortion movie that was submitted and I knew I would probably get some hate mail because it had a pretty decent cast of people too. I was like, oh my God, this was pretty crazy. This few years ago, but the movie wasn’t a good film. It was propaganda. And I’m thinking, but I don’t want to show propaganda for either side. I want to show factual fair films if you’re going to do it. If it’s a documentary or if it’s a narrative.
Even if it’s loosely based on the story, don’t make up stuff. Every movie’s trying to make a point. But don’t try to make your point with pointed facts. The facts that aren’t real facts, that are just hearsay. Lay the facts out. So controversial things, I’m not going to do anything that’s going to be harmful to someone. But if you have a point, we’re going to listen. We have a faith-based section.
One year, we did a Christian narrative and a Muslim documentary. And then one year I actually got yelled at. We work with community partners and one of our community partners was a Jewish group, and we had this one film about the Gaza Strip and it wasn’t completely pro-Israel and they were mad at me for showing it. But it’s not negative Israel. It literally is a camera placed out in front when something happened and then I showed something else. You can’t please everybody all the time, but if you have a good film that’s saying something, let it say it. Letting people hear different sides is necessary. I remember I was told by one particular Jewish group that I was setting back history with lies. I’m like, okay. It’s just a movie, man. Actually, there are not really any lies in this thing. It was about parkour or people that would cross the were over the wall. They’re just jumping, and getting shot at by both sides, mind you. Anyway.
(UM): How important is it to have a crowd-pleaser in your festival? How important are ticket sales for you?
(JF): Being a very crowd-pleaser is very important to me. I think, and this might be a bad analogy, but I don’t care. I always feel it always reminds me of a drug dealer in a movie where they always say the first one is free. You want to get people into your theater, you want to get people to come to your world. And it’s like, hey, why don’t you show the big flashy movie that’s still good but is a crowd-pleaser? Everything doesn’t have to be dark. Throw some light in there. Sundance did that this year as well.
And they’ve done that in the past, and those are the films that usually win their audience awards. So yeah, I love a good “everybody movie.” A good “everybody indie” that works out a comedy or some sort of family drama that makes people go, oh wow, that’s the thing, or that documentary about somebody, that documentary about a musician that it’s finding Sugar Man (Searching for Sugar Man). That thing that always blows my mind like, that’s just a crowd-pleaser. It’s very important. I think it should be important to every film festival to want to showcase something that is something for everybody, even within your niche.
I was talking to my horror programmer just today and I’m like, if you’re doing a horror film festival, there’s indie horror, there’s elevated horror, and then there’s just straight-up Halloween. And I went, let’s do a Halloween, let’s do one of those. Let’s do something crazy. Let’s do The Nun 3, I don’t know, Megan 4. Let’s have some fun. So yeah, it’s important because it’s entertainment. It’s escapism. You want to get out there and feel like you want to go somewhere else and sometimes you want to go somewhere else and smile.
(UM): Given that your festival is in Dallas, do you give special attention to the movies shot in the region?
(JF): We have a Texas category and the Texas category is one of our favorites. It actually has a really big prize which might go up this year, but we give away a $30,000 camera package to the winner from Panavision every year. So, it’s one of our most popular categories because if you win it, you get a camera rental for your next production for a little bit. It’s pretty cool. But the Texas category is something we strive on. We also have a high school program for local high schools that we do a high school shorts block. It’s gotten so big. In 2020, it was too big. Then our festival went then Covid hit up and so we didn’t have a chance to do it. It was sad. Wad to refund all the schools and kids and everything. We didn’t want to do it online because we really wanted the kids to have an experience and come out and meet other filmmakers and such. But I love our Texas category. I love working with local filmmakers. In the city of Dallas alone, just Dallas, not including the DFW area, there are something like, I think seven film festivals just in the city of Dallas, and in the DFW area, there’s like nineteen.
(UM): Oh, nineteen festivals?
(JF): Yeah.
(UM): That’s huge.
(JF): I’d say in a 45-mile area, there are nineteen film festivals. So, it gets crowded and then you go down to Austin and you get another ten, which is just three hours down the road. So, it’s a lot.
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