August 21, 1999
I took a train out to the Huntington Film Festival today, just to get a
feel for the event. The festival takes place at the Cinema Arts Centre,
a triplex that's been showing art films for 26 years; I was quite surprised
at how busy the place was, and at the median age of the audiences, which
must be a good twenty years higher than at the Angelika, and ten years
higher than at the Lincoln Plaza. Vic Skolnick and Charlotte Sky,
who run the art theater and the festival, seem to be really nice, down-to-earth
people, and they made a big fuss about how much they liked HONEYMOON.
After a while I started to feel as if I'd entered an alternate universe
where my film was a smash success in the suburbs. I hung around until
evening, saw a few films (some of which I liked, all of which were at least
a little offbeat), and met a few of the other filmmakers, including my
old UCLA film school pal Tom Musca. I don't think there's any industry
presence here; some of the filmmakers seem to be in business mode just
in case, but at this point I can't be bothered.
Click here to read the next diary entry,
here to read the previous entry, and here to
go back to the main menu.