Q & A -- Putting Newport Beach in the spotlight

Last year, the Newport Beach Film Festival almost didn’t happen. When

the organizer of the festival, Jeffrey Conner, declared bankruptcy in the

fall of 1999, it seemed as if the screenings would cease.

Then Gregg Schwenk stepped in and, with a group of others in the

community, helped make the 2000 festival a reality. This year, the

festival is back strong with a new support guild and Schwenk as executive

director. It opens Thursday with a gala screening of “The Sting,” and

will run through April 5 with screenings of almost 200 films and a

two-day seminar series.

Schwenk sat down with Daily Pilot Features Editor Jennifer K Mahal

last week to talk about the future of the festival, how the films are

chosen and why the festival belongs in Newport Beach.

What kind of challenges does the Newport Beach Film Festival face

this year in terms of logistics?

When you’re dealing with nearly 200 films from over 20 countries, you

run into not only cultural and critical issues, but you also have ways of

doing business that are dramatically different than how we do things here

-- from how they’re shipping their films to us, to how their governments

may interplay with the films that will be shipped to us.

Case in point, we’ve got one film that’s coming in via the Austrian

government, and that has been extremely challenging to make sure we can

take care of all of the necessary protocols to get the film from Austria

over here.

On a purely pragmatic level, we’ve got probably about 100 filmmakers

coming out for the festival -- that’s not including different celebrities

and VIPs for tribute screenings -- and we have to work out the housing,

some of the transportation issues.

We’re also very excited that this year we’re going to be offering

“host a filmmaker.” That’s going to be a project where individuals from

the community will be partnered with celebrities and filmmakers and

taking the time to show off the city and its different amenities. We’ve

got people that are going to be taking some filmmakers out to lunch . . .

all the way to around the gulf to a harbor cruise later on in the

evening. The filmmakers are very excited about it because they get to see

firsthand what the city and the community are all about. And the

community members are excited about it because they get to participate

one on one with these filmmakers, the creative force behind many of the

films we have at the festival.

Then there’s the bottom line of trying to get the festival finished.

We’ve got 200 films, a two-day seminar series, three major tribute films.

With all of that, it’s logistically a huge challenge.

How do you choose the films that get into the festival?

There’s two different, distinct paths. One is a passive and one is an

active [path]. On the passive side, we receive nearly 400 to 450

different submissions for the festival. On the active side, we attend

different festivals, are called in to view different screenings, and

those are then selected on the basis of merit without having to go

through the formal process of application. We have a mix of different

films come in through those two means.

Of the films in the festival, which ones do you personally enjoy?

Never ask an executive director his favorite one.

Well, obviously I’m pretty partial to the tribute films because those

are the ones we’ve worked the longest on, the ones that I personally

enjoy and feel reflect some of the best filmmaking ever.

What’s also enjoyable is that we get to celebrate with some of the

people who were able to create and craft those films. Case in point would

be opening night. We’re very excited about a brand new print [of “The

Sting”] that has been struck off of the vault master from Universal.

And it’s just not that, it’s being able to sit down with many of the

cast and crew members that evening and see a film and be able to interact

with them and ask them questions and learn firsthand what it was like to

work on that particular movie.

What is your goal for the festival? What would you like it to

achieve this year, next year, the year after?

Our goal for this year, we’ve often stated, is evolution not

revolution. We had a very successful 2000, our very first festival, and

we’re excited about the response from that.

We are looking at the 2001 festival as a year for growth, but very

moderate and controlled growth. We’re adding another screen at the

[Edwards] Island [7 Cinemas], fewer but better quality tributes. We are

really working on promoting the festival both here and outside of Orange

County. So we’re really just focusing on the very controlled growth of

the festival.

We’d like to see maybe a 10 to 15% increase in attendance over the

15,000 to 17,000 we had last year. We are excited to see the response for

our seminar series. And we also want to work on expanding the coverage of

the festival. We’re very excited and we’re very pleased as to how things

are going, but we want to make sure that others know that this is out

there and it happens every year.

Five years from now, where do you see the festival going? Do you

see it like a Sundance or a Palm Beach International Film Festival?

Our long term vision for the festival includes utilizing other

locations throughout the city. It also includes bringing in different

organizations from throughout the county.

Examples of that for this year: for the 20th anniversary of “Zoot

Suit,” we’re working in conjunction with the Orange County Hispanic

Chamber of Commerce; the Chinese evening, we’re working with the Orange

County Chinese American Chamber of Commerce; and for the British evening,

we worked with the British American Business Council of Orange County.

These organizations have a built in network of individuals who are

interested in these particular types of films, but it also gets them

integrated more closely with the entertainment side of their business and

brings them to a wonderful location.

What is it about this film festival that makes it so suited to

Newport Beach? In other words, why here?

I think Newport is a very charming and sophisticated location. We have

one of the largest moviegoing populations in the United States, and we

also have some of the most outstanding facilities for viewing film.

Edwards is really the premiere theater chain in the United States. And it

is only logical that we’re able to screen at one of the most beautiful

locations anywhere.

What makes this festival unique?

First and foremost is location. I don’t think you could find a better

community to host this film festival than Newport Beach. It’s proximity

to Hollywood is an added bonus.

Another distinction we have is that we really try to cater to the

filmmaker. We want them to feel at home. That’s why for us the “host a

filmmaker” project is very important. We want the screening and their

stay in Newport Beach to be an extremely positive one. And we’ve tried

very hard to coordinate with the Newport Beach Marriott, which has been

an outstanding partner in all this.

I think another unique aspect of the Newport Beach Film Festival is

the varied events that we have. If you look at the events that are

planned by the Sundance Film Festival or by the Palm Springs

[International] Film Festival, they’re usually fewer in number. I know

Palm Springs this year had two major events -- their opening night and a

special tribute gala. Whereas, we really have an opening night and then

we have special events for the majority of the evenings during the

festival. We just find this to be a great way to show off the city and

its businesses, the unique diversity of our restaurants.

What about the educational components to the film festival?

That’s a facet of the festival that is very near and dear to me. I’ve

always been a strong proponent of the seminar program. We’re extremely

pleased with this year’s lineup.

Film viewing tends to be a very passive experience, and one of the

critical goals of the festival is to make that passive experience become

active. For me, the natural evolution of that concept is the seminar

program. It allows you firsthand to talk one on one with people who have

won an Academy Award for their cinematography or have crafted an

award-winning screenplay or have been on the leading edge of digital or

special effects.

And that’s really what we try and do with the seminars is bring those

people to Newport Beach. We’re extremely excited that we’ve partnered

with the library and the cultural arts commission for the city of Newport

Beach. And we’ve put together one of the best seminar series of any

festival in the state, if not the nation.

What does a film festival like this do for a filmmaker and a film

that’s in it?

I think your average filmmaker is going to get exposed to a market

that is not overexposed. If you look at festivals in Los Angeles or even

New York, you see a film-going audience that might be considered by some

to be jaded. Newport, while it is a fairly sophisticated and movie-going

audience, it’s an audience that welcomes different films, a different

film experience.

Several filmmakers have commented to me that when they do a screening

in L.A. the audience often has the attitude of, “Oh yeah, another

screening.” They’re not excited about it, where here, people are really

excited about something that maybe they’ll never have a chance to see

again.

Also, last year we had a few films that were picked up for

distribution at the Newport Beach Film Festival, most notably was “Starry

Night.” And Paul Davids has attributed his screening here at Newport

Beach as the final catalyst for being picked up by Universal. We were

very happy to play that role and we’re hoping to repeat that this year,

and in years to come.