In this episode of KSUT Spotlight, Carol Fleischer, the executive director of the Durango Independent Film Festival, discusses the festival's upcoming 20th anniversary.
We discuss free movie night, preview some of the films, and look at the festival's collaboration with Native Lens.
DIFF runs March 5 through 9.
KSUT Spotlight is a short interview segment with a musician or artist who will soon appear in the Four Corners region. It airs Tuesday afternoons at 2:30. Explore past episodes here.
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Interview transcript
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Chris Aaland, KSUT: Let's talk a little bit about this year's festival, which starts tomorrow with Free Movie Night.
Carol Fleischer, Durango Independent Film Festival Executive Director: Very exciting, and it's a gift from the Durango Herald and from Durango Independent Film Festival to the community. We do it every year, and it's free movie night at 6:30 and 7. At both the theater venues, we have the Gaslight, both one and two, and the Durango Arts Center. And one of the things that we haven't done before, because this is our 20th anniversary, we're going to do the best of 20 fests, a shorts program that will be tomorrow night at The Gaslight. We asked the staff, some of whom have been with DIFF, as it's known, Durango Independent Film Festival for 20 years. They racked their brains and their old lists and called up a bunch of filmmakers who had won, or at least had very successful screenings here in Durango. And they agreed to let us screen them again for old times sake.
Aaland: Now, you're probably not allowed to have any favorites in the festival, but could you tell our listeners a little bit of what to expect, how many films, what type of genres, et cetera?
Fleischer: Yeah, I'm not allowed to have favorites, although of course I do harbor some. We have 92 films showing this year. We had more submissions than ever in our 20 year history and from over 40 countries. So the screening committees, which are divided by genre, adventure shorts, animated shorts, features, documentaries, documentary shorts, native cinema, it's a very eclectic show. The only thing that they have in common is really that they're independent.
Aaland: And one that I'm really looking forward to seeing is Road To Everywhere starring Whip Hubley and Robert Mirabal, who of course is a native American flute player and flute maker, actor and activist from Taos Pueblo. (It's) just one of the films that touches on native actors or native issues. But I'm excited that there are several films in the festival, some with local production as part of our native lens collaboration.
Fleischer: Yeah, and that is A KSUT Tribal Media Center and Rocky Mountain PBS collaboration. And it's been going for, I'm going to say five years now, I think. Is that possible since, yeah, I think it is the beginning of the pandemic, and the idea was that people were asking Rocky Mountain PBS to cover what was happening on the Navajo Nation, but it was really difficult for the pretty white staff just to parachute in and try and cover a story that was so deeply affecting the community there. We came up with the idea of letting people tell their own stories with their phones and giving them some instruction. And that became Native Lens, and it's on (the) Rocky Mountain PBS website or NativeLens.org. And then it's also, the segments are also played on KSUT Tribal Radio.
We're going to have on Sunday afternoon at the Durango Art Center at 2:30, sort of a highlight of the last, I think they're mostly from the last year, and some of the filmmakers we hope will be attending. We've also expanded Native Lens, which I'm still involved with via DIFF and via Native Lens. There aren't that many filmmakers here, so I'm happy to be still of some use there as well. But two 30 at the DAC on Sunday, the ninth is the screening. It's going to be highlights of, well, it'll be actual segments, but it'll be a collection of really good pieces. And also a program from the Colorado Film Office that is training rural high school students to tell stories with video. And we'll have a couple of films from them as well and some Q&A.
Aaland: Let's talk about another film that I'm particularly excited about, and that's Giants Rising, narrated by one of our favorite musicians, Michael Franti. It explores the secrets in sagas of one of America's most iconic trees, the coastal redwood.
Fleischer: Yeah, it's gorgeous. Lisa Land is the director...I know her from Jackson Wild, another film festival up in Jackson, Wyoming where I used to live. And she's extremely accomplished. And National Geographic and the American Museum of Natural History, PBS Smithsonian, all those kinds of outlets that she produces for, but she's got a keen eye. It's just a beautiful film to watch.
Aaland: You may be new to some of our listeners or Film Fest attendees. This is now your second year as executive director. How are you liking the job so far?
Fleischer: It's challenging. I will say that the learning curve is huge, and a wonderful woman named Joni Leonard ran the festival for the first 18 years. And I came in just a few months before last year's festival thrown right into the fire or drinking from a fire hose, whichever metaphor you want, but it was overwhelming. And I'm happy to say I know a little more than I did last year. So that's going in the right direction. But there are so many moving pieces. It really is like making a film in a lot of ways.
Aaland: You have an experience of course in PBS, (with) Rocky Mountain, PBS. How is working in the television industry and news, et cetera, different from running a festival?
Fleischer: I think mainly I get to execute my vision when I'm making a film. Generally speaking, somebody's always paying for it, so you have to be respectful of that. And unfortunately, I'm not a trust funder and can't fund my own films, but I've made films for PBS, Nova, national Geographic, all of the usual suspects. And I did work for Rocky Mountain PBS for a few years and out of Durango, the filmmaking capital of the world of course. So that was great. And teaching up at the fort, it is different though. Making a film is a lot more creative in many ways, but it's no more collaborative. Certainly we've got 30 volunteers who work year round to make this festival happen for five days in March every year.