The Independents: Why the Orlando Film Festival is the Real Deal

By Ryan Fitzgerald
Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009

Optional Forward
[A Note About the Optional Forward: This Optional Forward, with slight alterations that make it applicable to our topic, independent film festivals, is borrowed from an introduction used by Robert Pinksy, which he used to introduce the highly literary and sometimes difficult to understand William Carlos Williams, in the collection William Carlos Williams: Selected Poems published by the Library of America.]

* To Whom It May Concern! This article is about independent films. You, gentle reader, will probably not like them [the films], because they will be brutally powerful and scornfully crude. Fortunately, neither the filmmakers nor the Festival, where said films will be shown, care whether you like it or not. The filmmakers have done their work, and if you do watch their films, you will agree that they don't give a damn about your opinion... And they, the Festival, don't much care whether you buy tickets or not. In fact, they are giving the tickets away--so that they can't make much profit out of it. But they will have the satisfaction of offering that which will outweigh, in spite of its independentness [italics mine], any lot of summer studio productions. They have the profound satisfaction of putting on a film festival in which, they venture to predict, the filmmakers of the future will dig for material as the filmmakers of today dig in the canon of Welles, Spielberg, Kubrick, etc., etc.

* This Optional Forward is meant with a wink-wink and a please, please, do-not-take-this-the-wrong-way, kind of tone that may or may not merit the descriptor: satirical, but that ethically (and probably legally) merits me, the author, to say, this optional forward reflects the attitude of yours truly, rather than, say, the filmmakers, whose films will appear at the festival--yes, there will be a festival (more on that in the following text), or the director of the Festival (more on him, too) and that the only actually fact to be plucked from this now lengthy textual warm-up is that the Festival will be free of charge, which, if you're any good at finding parking, savvy enough to pull off sneaking in your own candy, and assuming you buy popcorn/beverage on site at $5 per, then the total cost of attending the Festival is in the you-can't-afford-NOT-to-attend range.

Preface: What if I were to tell you that Nov. 4-9, Orlando was going to host a budding film fest extravaganza that will feature the best of the best of over three hundred 300 submissions and plans to show them to you for free? Would that be something you'd be interested in? If you read the optional forward, you'd know that independent film festivals are where some of the most cutting edge, more badass film stuff happens, and not just happens--but happens first--and that the filmmakers of the future are there, and they're sharing and learning and shaping what the movies will look like next year and in five years and in another five years, etc., etc.

And before I go any further into the festival at hand, I'd like to simply look at why, in some camps, the term "independent film" is a pejorative one--and why indie films are deemed, "not for everyone." Simply and most accurately defined, an independent film is a film that was paid for, produced by, acted in, written for, and directed by independents. "Independents" meaning not attached to a major studio. That's it. That's the definition of an indie film. It is not, necessarily, an artsy film; it is not always a character study or a film with subtitles or a B film or something that seems vaguely French. This idea that an indie film is by definition a plotless art house abstraction that--unless you are an art major or work at a Blockbuster with your own "picks" shelf--will leave you saying, "I just didn't get it."

"Indie film" is as broad a category as is, say, its big bro, "studio film," and deserves the appreciation of more than just the film buffs and film nerds, etc., etc. And not for their sake ('their' being the indie guys), but for your sake: because you want good films, you like good films, you deserve good films--and too many indie films are really good films and it would be a shame if you had to go on living any longer without these films in your life. And lucky for you, a bunch of good ones will be playing here, some for the first time anywhere--and you can go for free. And the 2009 Orlando Film Festival, which is executively directed by Daniel Springen, is bringing it all to you.

I meet Springen at the Plaza Cinema Cafe for an interview. Springen is a bigger guy; he almost looks like an ex-college football player. His hair is golden and slicked back. He is in jeans--and here, I should note that the interview is taking place mid-day/mid-work week, which puts Springen in the I'm-my-own-boss category. He is a high-energy guy who walks at a pace consistent with a person who is perpetually trying to catch an elevator. Not in an eccentric way, but in a I've-got-a-shitload of-stuff-to-do way.

We meet at the mezzanine of the theater, which is brand new and beautiful and occupies primo downtown real estate. We introduce, shake hands, and he offers to take me on a tour of the theater, which was super-nice. I'm glad he offered because 1) the cinema will also serve as the venue and for storytelling purposes it's nice to get a sense of the setting and 2) the theater is a bit different than a regular movie theater. Namely, they serve food and alcohol. And not just movie theater food, but real food, e.g., pizzas, sandwiches, hummus, etc., etc. And not just at the concession stand, but also at a separate stand-alone bar. This combination of eating and drinking and movie watching turns the theater going experience on its head.

This theater is now a dating one-stop shop. Which is a hell of an idea. A really fabulous idea, so much so that it begs the question: what took so long? And also, why didn't I think of that? The only flaw being, they didn't seem to add any extra restrooms which, with all the drinking and sitting real still, makes people have to "go" at a rate of about double.

The other thing worth noting about the venue that is pertinent to the festival Festival is just how damn comfy--cozy, really--the theater seats are. They are leather and not that imitation stuff, best I can tell, but real dead cow leather. And it's plush too: you sort of sink into your seat.

It's almost too comfortable.

It's like they are trying to recreate how I fall asleep most nights: with alcohol, in a comfy piece of furniture, watching television with the lights out. And this all seems doubly problematic when you think that during a festival you watch not one film, but several films.

More Festival Facts, per the Springen: The Festival is in its fourth year, it will be bigger than last year, it will be free, this is the first time it's centrally located (which Springen hails as a positive) and the venue is state of the art, e.g., it's digital, which now makes the word "film" seem dated and makes me feel old and fearful of the day when I have to field the question, "Daddy, what's a film?"

When you think film festival, you think Sundance, Cannes, Toronto, Tribeca, Berlin--not Orlando. But when you broaden that out to just movies, you first think L.A. and New York, but now Orlando should be on that list because we do have Disney and Universal, and we all probably know somebody in film school at Full Sail or Valencia Community College (Springen studied film at the latter). Springen noted that the year he attended, the Steven Spielberg hailed VCC the "best below-the-line film school in the country."

Just to clarify, this is Springen's first year as director of the Orlando Film Festival. Springen is a film producer by trade. He has been producing films locally for the past ten years. His film Contract Killers won last year's Orlando Film Festival. He was simply a participant and he entered his film and it won and he got hooked up with the guys who were previously running the festival and six months later they offered him the job of executive director.

"As an independent film producer, I make my own schedule--so I'm not beholden to a company," says Springen. So it was a good fit.

The powers that be told Springen that he could continue to "have the freedom to do projects while running the festival." Springen says, "I'm glad I said yes, because I think that more festivals should have filmmakers on their board, in positions to help influence."

Springen says he knows what it's like to go through a festival. "You don't have any money and you have just enough energy left to push [your] film and if the festival wasn't receptive...then you really felt that you were on your last leg."

"This festival," Springen says, "will be a festival about filmmakers."

A bit of back story on Springen: his mother was a theater director. "My playgrounds were kind of back stages of theater houses." Springen started out acting, booked a few commercials, and this is the point when Springen says, "I first saw a film camera." Springen asked the first AC (stands for: first assistant camera) if he could look through the lens and after that "it was all over," he says.

Springen, who has done some photography as well, says, "To see that you could do 25 frames per second as opposed to one it became a no-brainer."

Springen continued to act and then eventually enrolled at VCC where he was involved in three feature film productions. "I shot two of my own short films," says Springen. "Really, from the day I left school until today, I've been an independent filmmaker. And that's my job."

This year's awards will be broken down into the following categories: short documentary, feature length documentary, short film, student short, feature film, and animated short, plus awards for best actor, best director, etc., etc. Springen would like to extend the awards for next year to include best screenplay, best writer. "We aren't trying to be the Oscars," says Springen, "but I understand that every time an award goes on [a] resume, it helps people to believe that you are what you say you are."

"We are hoping to give a cinematic icon award," says Springen. "Depending on who we can get to the festival."

The category that offers, in my opinion, some real opportunities to see something avant-garde is the short film category. "I think when people create short films for festivals they try and do things that are going to spur the imagination a little bit more than just an A-Z standard story," says Springen. "The narrative fiction pieces that are short films that have just a bland story just don't make it. They have to have something. Some kind of edge...for it to be a good festival piece." Springen thinks the biggest difference between a short and a feature is that "a good short film for a festival is ten minutes or less...as soon as it hits that 20 minute mark," Springen says, it's really difficult to work that into the festival. "With a ten minute film, you really have to get your point across and you have to jar the audience."

"In a feature film, it's usually within that first five minutes that you hook them," Springen says. "You got to start out with a bang, there's got to be some kind of major plot twist; a major catalyst. That's when you find out that somebody died or that the money was stolen, in a feature you have that, but in a short film, the first five minutes is half the story." Springen goes on to say that in a short film "you know something wild is going to happen at the end."

Springen says he's gotten a few emails saying, "look, I'm broke, I just finished [making a film], I have zero money left, will you waive the [submission] fee?" Springen responded, "send me the film, I'll take a look at it." That's Springen's attitude: he understands the filmmakers' plight.

"I want the best [films]," says Springen. "We will find a way to screen the film if it is great."

But does the world really need another film festival? And if so, what will make Orlando's better/different? What follows will hopefully wrap up this document and summarize Springen's thoughtful response.

Most film fests are political--and not in a Democratic/Republican way, but in a who-do-you-know kind of way--and that is bad because a festival should be in business to find the best films not the films made by people with the best connections. The Orlando Film Festival just wants quality and they don't much care if the film is controversial so long as it is a well-crafted film. The Festival is very aware that getting "political" is always a temptation, with the stakes being so high, and the Festival has already witnessed attempts, heretofore, as in people putting in calls and lobbying inappropriately. Not at Orlando, sorry. Other film fests have films injected into the festival per a distributor who has "pulled the trigger" (Springen's words) on peoples' careers. Orlando will have none of that; they will learn from the missteps of other festivals and will always be focusing on the films and never sell out, because, again, this is a festival about the films and about the filmmakers and they aren't even really trying to make much profit because they are giving the tickets away, and that's how Orlando will grow and become, in the director's mind, a distinguished festival, an international festival. The end.