I expected more insider perspective from the Phoenix article on the Boston Film Festival, but the lede pretty much says it all:
The Boston Film Festival made it to adulthood — barely. Taking over from Mark Diamond and Susan Fraine, who had kept it alive and occasionally kicking since 1993, is Robin Dawson, head of the privately operated Massachusetts Film Bureau, which used to be the state-financed Massachusetts Film Office and is now the rival of the state-run Massachusetts Sports and Entertainment Commission.
So much bureaucracy, so few films. Dawson has described this year in the festival’s history as one of "transition." One can’t help wondering whether the transition is into non-existence, as the number of feature films has declined from last year’s 37 to just 14 (all screening at the Loews Boston Common) and the festival’s length has been halved from 10 days to five.
It’s hard not to sense that something has gone horribly wrong with the once excellent festival. It’s not just that their publicity efforts are lackluster. Or that the potential of a better venue at Loews Boston Common was offset last year by the lowkey, even perfunctory, attitude the cinema had toward the screenings, as if they were embarrassed to be showing something off the new release menu.
Or that the number of films have been cut back severely this year. I mean, look at the schedule. It’s not just that we have fewer films, it’s that the wealth of offerings in international cinema - the sort of films that rarely get a first run playing here in Boston - are conspicuously missing. In previous years, I was able to catch unusual but excellent fare - such as China’s Missing Gun or Hungary’s Kontroll. This year all of the features and documentaries seem to be domestic. That’s what makes me worry that this changeover in festival management represents a greater loss. Robin Dawson has done a great job with the Mass Film Bureau, but her role as resident booster for a homegrown film industry will likely be a driving force in shifting the focus of the festival from international voices toward a narrower and more aesthetically limited American Independent cinema.
Let’s hope that the festival survives, but also that it doesn’t devolve into an outpost of the Sundance Channel in the process.
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