Annual Film Festival returns, promising something for everyone
MENDOCINO, CA » On hiatus for the past two years due to COVID, the Mendocino Film Festival returns this June 3-5 to celebrate its 15th year by offering filmgoers a collection of 38 American and foreign outstanding shorts, documentaries, and narrative features. This year the Festival has a new programmer who has spent his career in the film industry. Herb Stratford holds a substantial portfolio. He is a member of Critics’ Choice, film critic for Tucson’s radio and television broadcasters, filmmaker of shorts and a documentary, long-time attendee of noted festivals such as Sundance, and recently, a retired film instructor at the University of Arizona. His unique connections within the industry will provide the festival with greater access to the exceptional cinema.
Stratford comes to the festival with a clear purpose. He refers to himself as a “non-profit person, an arts person.” He first attended this festival in 2019 and was impressed by “the people, the location, just the opportunity to continue to connect audiences with filmmakers. “That’s really what is important to me and my whole career,” he stated. He had seen responsive audiences at the 2019 festival who stayed for Q & A sessions asking interesting questions. He had admired the “programming mix that was definitely great on a lot of levels.” When the opportunity came to come on board as the program director, he happily accepted.
Stratford considers potential festival films with the local audience in mind. He draws possibilities from submissions by filmmakers, but his long-time personal network of filmmakers, film distributors, and others in the industry gives him plenty of choices for local filmgoers. “Mendocino has a great audience that embraces documentaries and narratives,” he noted. “It’s more about what are the best stories that we can share that people have not seen,” he added. He scouts for films that the audience might otherwise never have an opportunity to see. He estimated that in his capacity as a radio and TV film critic, he views about 1,000 films a year.
The film festival experience, as Stratford sees it, is a “unique kind of communal gathering. You have all chosen to be there because you’re interested in this, and you may have come with questions.” The benefit of festivals, he believes, is “getting exposure to things you may not see otherwise and then interacting with the people who made those things.” Stratford’s unique perspective about filmmakers is the added bonus he brings to the selection process. He believes that festivals are an essential venue for filmmakers as part of a film’s distribution process. “If you can create a positive buzz or word of mouth about your film, you can get your film sold, get it seen by more people, and help you get your next movie made,” he said.
Local work is a feature of the festival’s lineup. Stratford finds an important double value in this approach. He explained, “When you get something like “Crabs!”, filmed locally and made by a local, that’s a home run for us to shine a light on it.” The festival includes “Lady Buds,” a documentary about six women in the industry. He also knows that the scheduled Northern California nature shorts will draw their filmmakers as well since the travel time is short. He noted that, overall, it seems easy to get the filmmakers to attend. The Mendocino Film Festival is both a local one and a destination event, and Stratford said that “festivals are the best opportunity for filmmakers who love to network with other filmmakers.” He then asserted that if “the festival takes good care of filmmakers by promotion, Q & A time, and they enjoy themselves, they will want to come back.” This year he is expecting 25 filmmakers to attend and take questions.
Stratford pointed to a few of the films chosen this year that he believes will have great audience appeal. Four of them are California premieres. One of them, the documentary “Mickey, the Story of a Mouse,” will surely be a crowd favorite. A Disney animator will be in attendance as well. Also, a huge draw for the festival will be the “open-to-all” animation workshop given by Bill Plympton, an academy award-nominated animator. He will show a collection of shorts, “Plymptoons: Bill Plympton’s Dog Days,” and will treat audiences to a sneak peek of his unreleased animated film, “Slide.” Stratford noted, “It’s a big deal to have someone of Bill’s caliber here in town.” The animation thread of the festival also includes “Bad Attitude: The Art of Spanish Rodriguez,” a biography of the counter-culture artist.
“The Choir and the Conductor” is a documentary made by a two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker, and Stratford sees this showing as an ideal opportunity for the audience to ask questions. He also notes that “Exposure” and “Blind Ambition” will be memorable. Sometimes, Stratford said, “there are films that slip through the cracks, and people wouldn’t necessarily hear about them. We try to mostly show things that are new, but occasionally there are things that pop up and are really good.” As an example, he named the documentary “Bernstein’s Wall” and the narrative feature “Fire (Both Sides of the Blade)”. Another documentary, “Fire Boys,” a film about California’s use of state prisoners as firefighters, will host a panel of Northern Californian firefighters after the film.
Stratford said that the audience buys film tickets, trusting that they will see the best there is at the time. As the programmer, he wants that audience back next year. In his attention to the audience, he said that filmgoers “should leave wanting to talk about what they just saw. That’s what good art does. It starts conversations.” Those conversations might occur at the Q & A after the film, or perhaps a few people talk afterward over glasses of wine. The gathering after activities is also how local businesses will benefit. Mendocino Film Festival does have a significant roster of notable local business donors who support this non-profit organization.
Although Stratford concedes that streaming services have affected attendance at film festivals, he remains adamant that any lost ground has been due mainly to COVID. “The cinema experience at the festival is crucial,” he stated. He noted that people want to get out now, and audience response during a film is part of a viewer’s experience. Streaming, he said, works well for multiple-part documentary or narrative series. A festival curates the content for you, he added, but streaming services roll out overwhelming, massive lists with no guidance.
He knows filmgoers in June will not be able to see everything the festival has to offer. His advice is to make a wish list and look for those films to appear later when shown to larger audiences. As a final point in favor of the film festival, he chanced a comparison between the visual art offered at theatres and museums. “The beauty of this art form is that you don’t have to go to the Louvre to see it,” he noted. To see the film festival program and to purchase tickets, go online to mendocinofilmfestival.org.