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As New Mexico steels itself for a 100% reopening date of July 1, the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival announced today that it will return to in-person events for its upcoming 13th year from Oct. 13-17.
“We’re excited to get back to the movies, parties and discussions with filmmakers,” festival Artistic Director Jacques Paisner tells SFR. “We’ll be screening at The Lensic, Jean Cocteau, Violet Crown, the [Center for Contemporary Arts]—we’re back in theaters and that’s what is important to us.”
Like everything else in 2020, the Independent Film Festival phased to an online model. In Santa Fe, however, last year’s opening of the Motorama drive-in did allow for some in-person screenings, such as director Alex Winter’s Frank Zappa documentary, but Paisner says there’s no comparison to seeing a movie in a theater with an audience.
“I think we had an interesting year last year,” he says, “but this year we plan to come back full, and the festival’s essence is that it’s an in-person celebration.”
During the pandemic, Paisner, festival Executive Director/co-founder Liesette Paisner Bailey and beloved New Mexico actor Gary Farmer (Smoke Signals, Blood Quantum; Cayuga Six Nations) also started hosting the Film Talk Weekly radio show and podcast through Hutton Broadcasting’s santafe.com. The show airs each Saturday at 1 pm on stations Talk 1260 and 103.7 KTRC, as well as santafe.com itself, and Paisner says there will certainly be opportunities for the festival and the program to intertwine.
In the meantime, the submission window for filmmakers is still open through July 16, and Paisner says he and Paisner Bailey are starting to make their way through the many films they’ve already received.
“We’re back to similar numbers to 2019,” he notes, “and we may get even more—we’ll know in a few weeks.”
The Santa Fe Independent Film Festival was founded in 2008 and has since grown into one of the premier festivals in the Southwest. Annually, the festival and its nonprofit arm, the Santa Fe Film Institute, have overseen hundreds of screenings, gatherings, panels, etc., and handed out the associated cash prizes. Paisner says that last year’s festival maintained almost all the same offerings as in any year, save for the lifetime achievement award, which was last bestowed on actor Tantoo Cardinal (Cree/Dene/Nakota/Métis). No word on who’ll pick that up in 2021, but we can reportedly expect that announcement sometime soon.
For updates, tickets and more, visit the festival’s website.
