Maui festival WAILEA, MAUI >> Maui Film Festival 1, Nantucket Film Festival 0.
on course
The 2-year-old fest's got
Hollywood talking and the
buzz is getting louderBy Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comWorld film premieres are a major deal even at established festivals like Cannes and Sundance but when an upstart event -- especially one just 2 years old -- lands a first-ever showing, well, in Hollywood terms that's boffo!
The just-concluded Maui Film Festival got an unexpected coup with its opening night film on Wednesday "An American Rhapsody" starring Natasha Kinski and Tony Goldwyn which had never been screened. The Paramount Classics film directed by Eva Gardos, who attended the screening at the festival's outdoor "Celestial Theatre," was slated for its world debut at the Nantucket Film Festival this summer, but someone's miscue was the Maui Fest's good fortune.
Some 400 people attended the premiere at the outdoor "Celestial Cinema," sitting on blankets or beach chairs to watch the film projected on a 50-by-20-foot screen, held taut between telephone poles set into the Wailea golf course driving range.
"This is the most beautiful venue to see a film that I have ever been to," director Gardos said following the screening. "I am so pleased to be here, to have this film shown here. Filmmakers will all want their films shown at the Maui Film Festival once they see this venue."The premiere is just another notch in the festival's expanding belt. Tickets sold for the festival's 38 films rose 28 percent to 8,335 from last year's total. This year's event added a fourth venue and a fifth day. A "secret" Saturday-night screening of "The Man Who Cried," starring Christina Ricci, Cate Blanchett and Johnny Depp attracted 1,400 people, the most ever to see a film at the festival.
Invited guests this year included more entertainment industry insiders -- marketers and corporate executives -- than news media than last year's event, though the New Yorks Times Syndicate, and Filmmaker and Indy Wire magazines were represented. That was a conscious decision by Festival executive director Barry Rivers and co director wife Stella who are seeking advice and assistance from major show biz world players to spread the word about the annual event and "partner up" promotionally with the festival.
"We wanted some movers and shakers to attend with no strings attached," said festival director Barry Rivers, who with his co-director wife Stella, wants show biz players to help spread the word about the annual event."I wanted them to see for themselves that this festival stands on its own merit and see if they want to be part of it," he said.
Michael Larkin, VH1's vice president for motion pictures and television, said the company next year will screen a film at the Maui festival, citing the "perfect fit" of Maui's location, the festival's philosophy and the type of people the event attracts.
"I expect word of mouth about anything shown at the Maui Film Festival to spread through the industry," Larkin said. "This whole business is about word of mouth."
With the festival's expanded screenings came increased cost, going from $300,000 last year to $1 million. The high costs of running any film festival must be "picked up by an angel," said Larry Winokur, partner in the entertainment public relations company Baker, Winokur, Ryder, of Los Angeles and New York.
"Ticket buyers do not want to share in that expense so you need corporate sponsorships," said Winokur, whose company represents Ben Affleck, Chris Rock, Jared Leto, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio.The Maui Film Festival has several major sponsors, including the Wailea Resort, Hawaiian Airlines, Pleasant Holidays, and Budget car rental. But even bigger players need to step up, the executive said.
Universal Studios this year did promote the festival on its Web site with a link to the Maui Film Festival page offering free trips and attracting 40,000 hits. And throughout West Coast cities, alternative weeklies publicized the event by giving away trips to the festival, including airfare and accommodations.
Winokur, attending his first Maui Film Festival, said he was "very charmed" by the event, calling it "unique and reflective of Maui."
"The simplicity of the presentation and the relaxed atmosphere is something you really don't get at other film festivals," Winokur said. The Maui event at this point is not a place where filmmakers and studio executives come to "do business" but simply to enjoy films and the environment, he said.
"This is much more about the Hawaii-Maui culture and as such there should be a wedding between the festival and tourism which I think means state government should take a larger role," Winokur said. (The Hawaii Tourism Authority gives the festival about $50,000.)
Winokur also sees studios with the current trend of producing "big event" pictures to want to screen it at Maui on the beach or at the Celestial Cinema. But success for any film festival takes time, at least five years, agreed Winokur and Jay Roewe, vice president of production for HBO Films.
"The early seeds are well planted, but all things take time to grow," said Roewe, who also sees "the indigenous qualities" of Hawaii as a prime way to market the festival, something Rivers already is doing by including Hawaiian blessings before screenings, and Hawaiian entertainment.
HBO has screened films at several major film festivals including Berlin and Sundance. The HBO production "The Stranger Inside Us" was screened at more than 10 festivals prior to its mainstream premiere this month.
Roewe said HBO always considers the quality and aesthetic of a film festival before it allows its productions to be screened. "I can tell you that I am very impressed by this event and its honesty. I believe HBO would like to be involved with the Maui Film Festival."For film festivals like Maui where show business deals are not the main order of the day, the event needs a hook, both men agreed. Something "cause related" would help to attract prominent entertainment people, including celebrities, Winokur said.
"The Maui festival may want to partner with a specific cause, like literacy or environmental, that will benefit from the event's notoriety," he said. "In turn, certain major corporate sponsors will want to be part of the festival."
Peter Rainier, New York magazine's film critic, who attends about four festivals a year, says it's "a good thing" that deal making isn't part of the event. "It's nice not having an agent sitting behind you in a theater on a cell phone making a deal like at Sundance."
The Maui festival serves a major purpose showing non-mainstream films since, Rainier said, Hollywood films, are at "a low ebb."
"Studios are going for "he quick fix, targeting audiences demographically, even showing films to audiences before the picture is completed in case it needs to be reshot," Rainier said. "Maui is creating a distinct personality by the films it's showing."The prestigious American Film Institute this year assisted the Maui festival in selecting films. There were about 400 films -- shorts and features -- submitted this year, double last year's. Nancy Collet, a film programmer with AFI, compared the Maui event's simplicity and relaxed atmosphere to the popular Telluride festival.
"Sundance is so hectic and so much about the business and Cannes is so much about being rude," Collet said. "The Maui Film Festival is small and beautiful."
Rivers' film choices are made on the basis of their "life affirming quality and compassionate vision." "What's good enough for the Buddha is good enough for me," Rivers said.
Rainier said he was "a bit disoriented" at his first screening at the "Celestial Cinema" last year. It began with Hawaiian entertainment and an astronomer discussing the night sky.
"It doesn't take long to slip into the Maui mood, to feel totally relaxed watching a film," he said. The night sky is so dark here that it makes me think how bad those drive-ins were when I was growing up.
"Maui is a whole new level of entertainment, which, of course, is part of why we all go to movies."
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