The Trainwreck Continues...

This week (or rather, the last week and a half) has not been particularly productive. I've contacted every venue that is remotely practical to host the festival, but still have yet to hear back from nearly all of them. I had emailed the Mission Theater (host of NW Documentary's own Homegrown DocFest) about two weeks ago and still not heard back, but when calling directly I am told that email is the only avenue toward booking. Very frustrating. A similar story for the Hollywood Theater (which seems to be at the top of the list right now, as they are both a non-profit and purportedly eager to help students), where I was redirected through a couple of phone numbers before being told I need to contact Richard Beer at Film Action, the parent organization of the Hollywood Theater. I am still awaiting a response from him as well. As for the Bagdad Theather, there is someone to talk to but they're never in the office, so I'm waiting for them to return my voicemail.

Finally, the Clinton St. Theater was the only venue that I was actually able to get a hold of, where I was told that booking a weeknight would be $300, a Saturday $600, and a Sunday $700. Needless to say, that's far beyond my current budget of $0. This is particularly frustrating as I am hoping to keep the festival free (in theory I could pay for a weeknight at the Clinton St. through door fees, but even then, I literally don't have the available cash to book the venue upfront, so that's essentially out of the question). The only other option I've encountered is a family connection to the owner of the St. John's Cinema, but the location essentially rules that one out, as it would cut the attendance in half (at the least). I think it's integral that I find a way to host this downtown (or close in on the East Side), in a relatively accessible area.

Given the quickly dwindling time frame, at this point I think if I haven't heard back from a venue and locked down a date by early next week, I'll need to look at other, emergency options. One of those is to greatly scale down the event and essentially hold a screening exclusively for students in each of the institutions, which would essentially combine the recently completed final projects of each class. This could be held after graduation (or possibly on a weeknight before) at the Smith Ballroom, but last I checked they were booked solid until then. Right now I'm starting to design flyers in an attempt to get something completed, but even that is greatly reliant on the final venue, date and time. Basically, I'm crossing my fingers at this point.

Trainwreck

So this week has been a relative organizational meltdown. The Portland State Film Committee finally responded to my email after over a week, only to tell me that because the annual Visuals film festival is being held this May, they won't allow me to use the 5th Avenue Cinema space for the next four months. Interesting, as I was under the impression that 5th Avenue was a student resource and thus, ideally, available to students. Given this relatively large wrench in my plans, I spoke to someone about booking the Smith Ballroom, only to find that it is booked solid through the weekend of Spring graduation, June 13th. Shit. At this point my only options seemed to be either holding the festival much later than anticipated (potentially an entire term later), or scrapping the project entirely. I had also looked into a few independent theaters, but because this project lacks any form of budget, it doesn't sound like I'll be able to afford a proper outside venue.

Luckily after speaking with Jennifer it sounds like I'll be able to hold the festival during Spring term afterall, so long as I'm able to nail down all the details within the span of this class. So, I emailed the Film Committee back to say that the end of Spring term would work for me and to try to schedule a meeting to discuss the project further. Two days later (ironically while sitting in my PSU Documentary Production class, where we had just discussed how bizarre it was that they would want to restrict students from using the cinema...) I received a reply stating that, on second thought, even a month after their festival had ended would still somehow have a negative impact on it, so maybe I should wait until Summer term. Seriously. I immediately relayed this to Steve, my documentary professor, who chalked it up to another example of the horrible bureaucratic nightmare that arises wherever the PSU film program is involved.

So this essentially puts me back to square one. The Portland State University "Film Committee" is actively keeping Portland State students from using their own "student-run" cinema so that the student body is unable to share the work being produced within the school and city in general. This is irreconcilably insane. If it were up to me, there would be a film festival every single day if there were students motivated to run them. This whole debacle is particularly ridiculous given that the primary objective of the festival is to work around the insularity of Portland filmmakers and foster a sense of community and collaboration, as well as showcase the work being done by students at both Portland State and NW Documentary. Yet now the festival has essentially been blackballed by Portland State itself, and so I will need to find a way to finance renting an outside, third-party venue just to keep the project alive.

I wish I had something more concrete and hopeful to say this week, but at this point I think I'll be lucky to even find a venue. Here's hoping next week is a bit more fruitful...