artdirector@sfreporter.com
Movies
Later, Gator
Following plenty of buzz throughout the local film-o-sphere, the New Mexico Film Office’s 2024 Film & TV Summit scheduled for Sept. 7 has been pushed to 2025. “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to reschedule...to Spring 2025,” a statement from NMFO reads. “Recent staffing changes have impacted our timeline, and we now need a bit more time to ensure the event is truly outstanding.” In broad strokes, the summit was to be a gathering of film and TV pros across panels, networking opportunities, workshops and more—which means that its name is a pretty good one. ‘Twould have been pretty cool for people looking to break into film, but it’ll likely still be cool for that reason in 2025.
Meanwhile, At the Box Office Just Outside town...
SFR has been talking about the Madrid Film Festival like woah in the leadup to the annual event featuring tons of shorts by New Mexico filmmakers, and we can now say that tickets are on sale real soon. Starting Sunday, Sept. 1, the film faithful can hit madridfilmfest.org and purchase tickets for the seventh iteration of the fest. Said iteration runs Friday, Sept. 13-Sunday, Sept. 15—and if previous years that found sellout crowds heading to the adorable and itty-bitty town of Madrid for them flicks are any indication, folks won’t want to sleep on the whole ticket thing.
Also at the State Film Office
Speaking of the New Mexico Film Office, we couldn’t help but notice a job listing on X (formerly Twitter) for a position in management analysis. “What does that mean?” you might have just said out loud? The tweet (what does one call a post on X?) says that the person will “be responsible for ensuring compliance with policies and legislation related to purchasing, contracts and the film tax credit.” If you didn’t know, that last little bit pertains to tax breaks for film productions that come to shoot in our little ol’ state. New Mexico was actually one of the first states to adopt something like that—way back when Bill Richardson (RIP) was the governor and he had this guy Eric Witt (also RIP) makin’ film stuff happen. Anyway, that language from the job listing might sound obtuse to normies, but, like most job listings that have a bunch of $50 words, the people for whom it makes sense will probably find it and apply.
What is This—the Cody Lightning Section?
OK, this actually doesn’t have a whole lot to do with Santa Fe, but given that actor/writer/director Cody Lightning (Cree) has been hanging around town making movies like Mary Margaret Road Grader and screening his mockumentary film Hey, Viktor!, we thought you should know that an SFR staffer ran into Lightning during Indian Market, and Lightning told this staffer that he’s got a new hockey movie in the works. After the balls-to-the-wall hilarity of Hey, Viktor!, we’re expecting something excellent.
Produced by Producers
The Producers Guild of America has quite the piece on New Mexico in the August-Sept. issue of its Produced By magazine. No spoilers, but the story by Lisa Y Garibary and Adrian Gomez is all about how New Mexico is a cool place to make movies and TV. If you’d like to read the piece, you’ll just have to trust us that the easiest way to do that is by typing “Produced By, Producers Guild, New Mexico” into Google. We know this because we tried to find a direct URL and it was a complete nightmare. They’re film people, not internet people, though, so that’s OK.
