Peter Sills
After years of the pandemic shuffle, the original Santa Fe Film Festival returns this year from Feb. 17-26 (various times and locations, santafefilmfestival.com) with so many movies, panels, parties, talkbacks, etc. And since we like when there are plenty of movies to see, we caught up with Aaron Leventman, the fest’s head of programming, to see if he might shed some light on how it’s going. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
OK—the fest is back. How do you feel it stacks up to the before times?
It’s a little hard to say because the festival hasn’t happened yet, and I think it’s a little bit of a test to see what kind of audiences we have when people aren’t going to the movies as much as they used to. Their viewing habits, the whole world, has changed; our attitudes have changed.
In the last week I’ve noticed there’s been an uptick in enthusiasm—people are wanting to go back to different cultural experiences they were missing. The thing about festivals…I know one year they did a purely virtual fest...and it’s a different kind of experience, not better or worse, but...the in-person experience, sitting in a theater with people, hearing the reaction, participating with a live talkback and the things you can’t do virtually, it’s just not the same level. I do think nothing’s the same, and I don’t think we can say it’ll be just like it was. I think festivals need to redefine themselves, they need to progress and move forward and find new ways to present the programs anyway, so it’s an opportunity.
Can you tell us about your criteria in the curation process? Are there any films you consider don’t-miss?
The challenge in doing programming is knowing the audience and community you’re programming for. When I’m looking at submissions or recommendations, I’m thinking about whether this is the kind of thing I can see people buying a ticket for and going to see in person. A lot of that takes having lived here for 18 years, so I have a sense of what kinds of films work here. That isn’t to say I don’t take risks...but I think people want good stories, whether it’s a doc, a short, a narrative feature, they want to be involved in the characters and have an emotional attachment.
You can tell right away when you start a movie if there’s some problem with how the film is directed or the acting is off or the writing is stilted. But sometimes they take a while to get going, and there’s a transformation through the film that will surprise you. When I watch a film, a lot of it is about how much it stays with me—even if it’s imperfect.
And there are a lot I consider don’t-miss. There’s a film we’re showing at CCA on Saturday night called Loren & Rose with Jacqueline Bisset—and she’s coming to the screening with her co-star, Kelly Blatz. It’s a movie about a famous actress of a certain age who is trying to find an opportunity for her one last great part, and she meets this young filmmaker who is potentially going to offer that to her. It’s from Russell Brown, whose films we’ve shown before, and the writing, the acting and the directing are so delicious, you’re hanging on to every word. It’s such a beautiful, raw character study with some of the best acting you’ll see. Another we’re showing that Jacqueline Bisset requested we show of hers, The Sleepy Time Gal, has not been shown anywhere in 20 years. It had a limited release in theaters, and Bisset plays a writer and radio host whose birth daughter is trying to track her down; she’s dealing with a health crisis so it’s an impending situation. You can’t find it anywhere. There’s also a documentary called Sam Now that’s a true life story about two brothers whose mother left the family and disappeared when they were very young, and now they’re young men and it’s about their attempts to track her down. It’s a beautiful story about generational trauma, and we’ll have two experts on generational trauma doing a talkback with the director and producer of the film, who is also one of the subjects.
This brings Santa Fe up to two large and enduring film festivals—which sounds like a lot for a tiny town. Do you think the city can and/or will support both?
They have both existed for a long time, so I don’t see why that wouldn’t continue. There’s such a huge history of movie production in New Mexico...two isn’t really a lot when you think about the community, which has always been enthusiastic...It’s people who love the movies, it’s an experience you can’t get at home.
