September 26, 1998
The Blue Sky International Film Festival isn't even living up to my worst-case
scenario. My first screening, today at 12:30 p.m., was 24 miles away
from Blue Sky headquarters, and festival director Jeff had told me that
he or one of his assistants would give me a ride out to the theater.
But Jeff was nowhere to be found all morning; when I finally located him
45 minutes before showtime, there was no one available to transport me,
thanks to a late party last night that had incapacitated the staff.
Then we learned just before showtime that no one had showed up to see HONEYMOON
at the remote theater; I asked Jeff not to project the film if no audience
materialized, but I was never able to find out whether the screening happened
or not. As far as I can tell, almost none of the festival publicity
mentioned the show times for my film, so it would have been hard to people
to attend even if they wanted to. Jeff and his helpers are pretty
young, and it looks as if they embraced the festival concept without having
the personnel, the connections, or the experience to pull it off properly.
The home base of the festival is a 13-plex in the back of a casino; the
festival occupies two of the 13 screens and a booth in a corner of the
lobby, and life goes on as usual on the other 11 screens. I spent
much of the day sneaking around the semideserted multiplex, catching up
on new releases.
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