For the Love of Film

Images courtesy of TFF

Clear sits down with David Kwok, Director of Programming for Tribeca Film Festival

2010 Tribeca Film Festival is already underway and no one is more excited about the films being presented than David Kwok. As the Director of Programming for the festival, Kwok’s role is a dream job with a very big responsibility and energy! Clear sat down and talked about this year’s program, his role and the future of Tribeca Film Festival.

What is your day-to-day like as Director of Programming? How many films do you screen per day?

Well, it depends on what time of the year it is. We are kind of on a school schedule. We start in the fall (September) and then we have to finish the program end of February and the festival happens end of April. Then we have the summer to work on other projects we are doing and then we start up again in September. So the early times in the fall is mainly tracking down films, talking to people and seeing what’s coming up. The heavy time usually comes around January and February, we’re pretty much in the screening room or in front of our monitors, watching like 10 films a day.

So it’s pretty much crazy around winter?

Yeah, I mean I’m lucky compare to my peers at other festivals. Toronto’s heavy time is in the summer; Sundance is around January so they kind of lose their holiday. But yeah, our heaviest time for viewing is January and especially February. There are moments where I’m just like “I cannot watch another film!”

And sometimes you may not be in the mood but you still have to do it.

Yeah, but the fun part is you may be fatigued and all that from watching much but when that one film hits and surprises you, then it makes up for the 24 hour days worth it.

In the end, it’s about the experience then?

Exactly, the whole goal for us in terms of the programming process is you always want to find that “gem” that comes out of nowhere. And when that happens, that’s what makes the job in that process.

How many films were submitted this year?

Over 5,000 films (quadrupled over 8 years) we cut the films down that we actually show.

Are there any challenges when choosing the films for the festival? I think there are a lot of challenges because we’re laying down thousands of films for an 85-film program. And for my short films program colleagues, it’s even more (challenging) for them because those shorts have to play with each other. On the features side, the challenges are one, working with my colleagues on the programming team and talking it out, figuring out which films we’re kind of “eyeing” to go into the program. A lot of the job is about relationships, whether it’s relationships with my programming colleagues, producers, filmmakers, sales agents and distributors; and it’s the balance you have to keep. You have your own personal (thoughts) you would like to keep, what the other voices in the team are saying and also what other people are saying they want to have in the festival. So to balance all that is a challenge.

On the flip side, it’s great to call a film and say, “we’re inviting you to the festival, we love your film.” On the other side, you have the other group of people where you have to say, “sorry, we’re not showing your film.” And when you have a long relationship with these people, especially directors and producers, it’s really hard because there are more films out there that we want to show but the program is this (size). And when you have to tell somebody that it’s not getting in, that’s the worst part. But many of the people are pretty gracious about it.

Where do you see the festival 10, 20 years down the road as far as programming, film submissions, etc…?

Well, I think it’s hard to say. Who’s to know what’s going to happen in 3-5 years with the exhibition of film and the role of festivals? Look back to 2002, when Tribeca started, as well as other film festivals that have emerged since then. Also, the number of films coming out and how people are watching them.

With technology playing role, I would say.

Yeah, I mean 2002 was kind of the start of digital revolution. It’s when the Mini DV came out and people were able to make films on that. It wasn’t the best pictures but people were making their films. Also, technology got better and then it started to change the way people started watching. You have people watching on their iPod, iPhone, then you have people watching online and VOD.

And if you were to ask me this question two years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you what’s actually happening right now, which is we are now into the world of digital distribution and digital exhibitions.

Which brings me to my next question, can you give me a brief insight into what the first ever TFF Virtual is?

It’s something that no one has actually done. A lot of festivals have streamed films online during the festival. But what we’re really trying is trying to give is to give that “festival” experience online. If you can’t be at the festival or you might be a person who prefers to watch online, it’s a great option. We are going to have 8 feature films and 15 shorts that are in a gated area of our website for the virtual platform, which means it’s only for the people that buy the passes. It’s only for the United States and a limit of 5,000 people who are able to get those passes.

If you are in that gated area, you will not only see the films but you will also have live red carpet coverage, Q & A’s with the filmmakers and panel discussions streaming, as well. And on top of that, you can also vote for your favorite film. It’s almost as if everything you want to physically do at the festival, can now be done online.

Is this something you would like to keep doing after this year?

Well, we hope that it’s successful. We look at it as an extension of the festival and part of the mission for us is to get the broadest audience possible for the films. And obviously with the physical exhibition of being in a cinema, you can’t really replicate the buzz of the film or the festival. So, with this happening simultaneously, it’s still out there.

How involved are the founders, Robert DeNiro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff?

They have a lot of involvement. It’s their vision. Every initiative that we do, from the festival to all the programs in the Tribeca Film Institute, to the fact that we’re doing the Virtual Festival and we’re doing Tribeca Film, which is our distribution side. That all comes down from there, they have a lot of input in terms of the shape of how everything is going to happen.

If you had to pick your top 3 films being presented at the festival, what would they be?

I wouldn’t say that I have a top three. I have a few that I’m really interested to see what the response is going to be like. I was actually just on your website and looking at the announcement of our lineup (Competition Heats Up) and saw a couple photos of The Arbor.

Oh yes, we actually chose that as one of our favorites.

It is truly a unique film. It’s one of those films as Festival Programmer I get really excited about because it’s something that I don’t know what people are going to react to.

It’s (The Arbor) a documentary directed by Clio Bernard. This is her first feature film. She is an artist, she has done short films but in her work she’s always played with reality and non-reality, fiction/non-fiction. And she did this documentary on Andrea Dunbar, who is a playwright; she got people from Andrea’s life, her children, family members and neighbors to record their voices and then had actors lip-synch to their recording. So, you’re hearing the real life voices of these people but you’re seeing this added emotional layer, visually. And it’s done in such a perfect way that you just get engrossed in the whole thing. You get the sense of Andrea, the send of her daughter, Lorraine who is a huge part of the film; she does staged performances of the actual play “The Arbor” in the actual place (Arbor) where she grew up. The photo on your website is actually from the performances and if you look in the background, those are actual people that live in that neighborhood watching these performances go on.

It’s all these multi-layers to the film and you just get wrapped up in the whole thing. It’s kind of a mind bender because you’re hearing the real people who are talking from the heart, yet it’s actors that we’re looking at.

Wow! It’s definitely a unique experience and probably draws more thought from the audience.

It is more thought. And you get wrapped up, forgetting that you’re watching actors. She’s (Bernard) playing a lot with form. She’s playing with the questions of the truth in documentary. It’s highly debatable about what she’s doing and putting it into the box categorization on “what is a documentary?”

I’m just really excited to see what people are going to think.

We were looking at the line up and noticed many foreign films, has the number of foreign submissions increased over the years?

Yes, it has grown and there are two reasons for that. We’ve always been an international film festival, never just an American (film festival). And we always wanted to keep that intact.

The reasons of why we have more non-American films we end up showing is: One, our reputation internationally has grown over the years so more filmmakers are looking to us to show their films. And two, when we started, a lot of countries were not making as many film as they are now. Many countries didn’t have the infrastructure, community and industry of filmmaking as strong as they do today; a country like Romania, which is obviously coming out very strong with a lot of different films. South Korea is back very strong, as well.

It has been really great! I think with globalization and the way people watch films the line of American and non-American films has been blurred.

Exactly. At the end of the day, it’s all about the story that is being told.

It’s about the story, the style and these new filmmakers. We definitely have a lot of new filmmakers this year. It’s interesting to see what their influences are.

Upcoming projects other than Tribeca New York and Doha?

We’re looking at how we can do things internationally. In New York, we have our cinemas and we’re going to do more programming there; we have a doc series that we launched, as well as a kids series that was launched earlier this year. So we’re going to be working on those, seeing what other new initiatives we can do, as well as continuing the ones we started.

Share this Post