Cucalorus Response

This weekend I attended the Cucalorus Film Festival. I had bought the lowest-level pass back in September and while at the time I could not afford to get a larger pass, I regret that I didn't. I had such a great time at the festival that I wish it was over a longer period of time. There were so many great films that screened but unfortunately due to time conflicts I couldn't attend them all. One thing I will say is that I probably only had time to see 5 films this weekend. If it was a less hectic weekend I would have gladly purchased a higher-level pass. The 5 films that I saw were The Bounceback, The Sacrament, Bound By Sea, The Act of Killing, and Short Term 12. All of these films were phenomenal!

While I was at the festival I took notes on how the festival seemed to be running. This was Cucalorus' 19th year running and from what I saw, the event went very smoothly. I obviously was not there 24/7 so there could very well have been some issues with tech or some other variable that I did not experience. One thing that I didn't think worked or annoyed me was that I never actually received my pass. There was not clear instruction on where to pick it up and I believe there was only one place to pick them up and at a specific time of the day that did not work with my schedule. If I was volunteering, I would love to work in the filmmaker's lounge. I would pick their brains about stylistic choices they made and how they funded their film. If I had a larger role in the festival I would want to probably have a job doing something similar to what I am doing with Visions. The more experience I have with contacting sponsors, the more comfortable I am with raising support. I am glad that I do not have the job of Operations because of the numerous locations and venues that needed to be booked and scheduled. This would be very extensive and seems like a big headache!

If I were running this festival, I would run it very similarly to Cucalorus. It is a non-competitve film festival which I think is great because the festival should be about the art and the medium of film, it shouldn't be competitive especially when submissions vary in experience, age of the filmmaker, and access to professional equipment. This is the first larger scale film festival I have been to besides Visions and I really enjoyed the experience. I think that something that I would do differently is having reserved parking for attendees. It was hard at times to park in downtown Wilmington and often had to walk a few blocks to get to the venue. For people not accustomed to downtown Wilmington, Cucalorus should've thought about having signs directing attendees to the venue from various different street corners.

At Visions, I think I would like to implement ways to accommodate "walk-ins" who want to come to a particular shorts-block or a conference block that did not purchase a pass. I went with several people this weekend who had not purchased a pass and were paying $10 per screening. I am not saying that we charge $10 per block but maybe brainstorm ideas on ways to accommodate these students or community members. Something that Cucalorus does that would not work for the scale of our festival and conference is having multiple venues not on the campus of UNCW. It would be hard to reserve spaces that are close enough to campus that have enough space to attract audiences or attendees.