WHERE TO NOW FOR FILM FEST?
FFM’s chaos was unprecedented
The 40th Festival des films du monde (FFM) stumbled past the finish line Monday. Actually, scratch that: the FFM managed to affect something resembling a light jog, somehow reaching the end in better shape than when it started. Which isn’t saying much.
Before the festival even began, as those paying attention may recall, it was faced with the resignation of most of its employees and the loss of most of its screens. In any other universe, that would have been the end of the line: festival over; the sickly beast has finally been put out of its misery; so long, Serge, and thanks for all the movies.
But that would be discounting Serge Losique. The FFM founder doesn’t know when to call it quits. So he keeps doing the only thing he knows how: soldiering on.
Lo and behold, after false starts, postponements and rumoured down-to-the-wire negotiations, famed French actress Isabelle Adjani and veteran American actor Willem Dafoe arrived in Montreal over the weekend, as advertised. Which, compared to the dizzying array of stars descending on the Toronto International Film Festival starting Thursday, doesn’t amount to much. But in the face of the cataclysm that was this year’s FFM, it’s nothing short of miraculous.
Sadly, it’s not nearly enough to undo the damage. The FFM is more of a mess than ever. And Montreal’s reputation is suffering. Legions of filmmakers made the trip here only to learn that their films would not be screened. Devastated, some went home. Others stuck around. Some left and came back, after a makeshift solution was found.
The screening schedule was completely rejigged at the Imperial, the festival’s home base. Théâtre Outremont came through in the clutch, adding daily screenings as of last Tuesday. Then Cinéma du Parc jumped on board, holding free morning screenings of the FFM’s student films. Even the Segal Centre got involved, helping out a pair of Israeli filmmakers by holding a screening for what ended up being a packed house. And over the weekend, the Dollar Cinema was added as a venue.
It’s a heartwarming example of our city’s independent film community coming together. And yet, it doesn’t make everything OK. While most films were originally slated to play three times, the directors whose work made the cut had to content themselves with a single screening, at times announced a day or two before.
Ludwig Löckinger acknowledges that he was “luckier than many other filmmakers whose work was not screened and came in vain.” The Austrian’s short film Oxytocin was in competition, and thus guaranteed to be shown. That didn’t stop him from making a scene Friday evening at the Imperial.
The director wore a T-shirt with the words “F--- Losik” (sic), he told the Montreal Gazette in an email.
“I tried to show solidarity with those who were insulted and deceived,” he said.
File that under: “You know your festival’s in trouble when ...”
Not that Losique is one to listen to criticism. Last week, an open letter was sent by 21 “young filmmakers” to Losique, Mayor Denis Coderre, MNA Luc Fortin and Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly, decrying the chaotic state of affairs at the FFM and demanding a formal apology from Losique.
They might be waiting a while for that. Losique is not one to admit a mistake.
“C’est pas de ma faute,” he said when news of Cineplex Entertainment pulling out of the festival hit at the outset.
When most of his staff walked, they were called traitors and opportunists. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that they left because they saw what was coming and didn’t want any part of it.
Yet nothing is Losique’s fault and, to hear him tell it, nothing ’s wrong.
“No more interviews,” he told me when I crossed paths with him in the FFM offices a few days into the event. “Let’s focus on the movies.”
Easier said than done. The biggest shame with this 40th edition is that the movies got lost in the shuffle. The festival received more media coverage than it has in years, but it was almost all about the state of emergency in which it found itself.
The filmmakers were left on their own. The Montreal Gazette received numerous emails from directors, either lamenting their troubles with the FFM or desperately seeking assistance to help spread the word about their justannounced screening times.
The festival had no media relations team this year, leaving filmmakers and journalists on their own to connect with one another. One director I interviewed — Belgium’s Nic Balthazar, whose Everybody Happy screened in competition — I tracked down on Facebook.
The FFM hasn’t received any public funding since 2014, and following this year’s festival you can bet the funding won’t be coming back any time soon. So how exactly is the event’s disastrous financial situation going to improve?
On the bright side, this 40th edition was nothing if not memorable. But what does Losique do for an encore?
In all seriousness, it’s a scary question. Because you know it isn’t over. The FFM will very likely be back next year — in what state, it remains to be seen.
On a solemn note, it was announced Monday that an FFM jury member had died. British producer Donald Ranvaud (Farewell My Concubine, The Constant Gardener), one of three jury members judging the festival’s official competition, was 62.