St. Cloud Times — Maybe some part of your job deals with delivering bad news, which can be extremely tough.
Take John Scott. As executive director of the St. Cloud Film Fest, Scott, who himself makes a film every year or so, had to electronically send 450 rejection notices for this year’s event.
Ouch.
“The hard thing is switching it from ‘in consideration’ to ‘not accepted,’ then hitting that ‘send to filmmaker’ button,” he said. “It’s just like, ughh. Because I’ve been on the other side of that … . You understand it and stuff, but to have to do it to 450 people is just a bummer.”
Now in its fifth year, the St. Cloud Film Fest is becoming a sought-after event for filmmakers here and nationwide. It runs Nov. 7-13 and will include movies from around the globe — 45 countries, to be precise.
And besides smaller movies, the festival will include some feature-length films getting awards consideration, including Kent Jones’ documentary “Hitchcock/Truffaut” and a likely Oscar contender for foreign language film, “Mustang.”
The movies will be shown at Pioneer Place on Fifth, Marcus Parkwood Cinema and St. Cloud State University.
Last year, festival highlights included the buzzy “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter,” a fictional story about a woman searching for the (also fictional) money from the movie “Fargo,” and “Tim’s Vermeer,” which Scott counts as one of his all-time favorites from St. Cloud’s festival.
The next month will be a busy one for Scott and members of the St. Cloud Film Festival committee, as they put the last few details into place for next month. But organizing the event is a yearlong process for Scott and his team.
A significant portion of the funds to pay for St. Cloud Film Festival come from a Central Minnesota Arts Board grant. The rest is made up through ways such as submission fees and sponsorships. It’s a volunteer gig for Scott, who has done it for every year but one of the film festival’s existence.
“It can be a lot of work, but I think it’s worth it,” he said. “If it keeps building, maybe it can become an actual paying job … but at this point, it’s a good place to be right now.”
It helps that Scott loves watching movies, because he and his wife, Jody Barth, screen about 90 percent of them; the rest are done by committee members. But that’s not the highlight for Scott.
“The best part is just showing everybody else’s work and giving everyone else a platform to get their stuff out there,” he said.
Many, many contenders
Filmmakers submitted 500 entries this year, a high point for the organization, which last year received about 275 contenders. And the film fest will play 50 movies, also a record. Still, that means many submissions can’t make the cut, even though the film festival has increased its number of showings during the week (and plays each movie only once).
The movies that make the bill clearly stand out from the pack. And yes, there are some submissions that should probably never make it to a screen. Scott likens it to how garage bands used to be — “everybody’s a filmmaker now.”
But there are many filmmakers who are trying, learning and getting better.
“We try to be a platform for that, especially locally,” Scott said.
Filmmakers can better ensure their odds of making the cut if they follow this advice from Scott: “Shorten it up. Always shorten it up. If you can, the shorter the better for any film festival.”
That’s because many of us have shorter attention spans, but shorter films also make programming easier. Scott says if he has to choose between two great seven-minute films and one great 15-minute film, he’s often inclined to pick the two films for more variety.
Coming together
Before the film festival gets to that stage, though, Scott has to write the grant, make sure everyone from the previous year got paid, then start planning (and watching movies). Jody Barth screens many of them because she’s a second-grade teacher so she has time during the summer to critique.
“I’ve always loved and watched movies and gone to movies,” Barth said, adding that she’s an insomniac, too, so that helps give her viewing time.
The two got engaged on a trip out to the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado.
The film festival is important to Scott, Barth and committee members because it’s so key to cultivate local talent. Even on his own productions, Scott was having trouble finding enough people to work, and they’re out there — the community just needs to come together, Barth said. The film festival has been one way of helping do that. (Next year, for example, St. Cloud State University film students’ work will be part of the festival on separate nights.)
Besides the platform it gives the filmmakers, St. Cloud Film Fest exists to try to change some people’s minds about cinema, or at least broaden their horizons.
“We all love going to Parkwood,” but it’s nice to have more options, Scott said.
“Now we can bring other things they might get at the Lagoon or the Uptown or Twin Cities or New York or L.A. that most of middle America won’t see,” he said.
Although Scott is quick to spread the credit around, Jody Barth says he’s key to the event.
“It wouldn’t happen if he didn’t do what he did,” she said.
