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Mill Valley’s Back: Programmer Zoe Elton Interview by Mara Math
Mill Valley Film Fest's director of programming Zoe Elton with Hong Kong and crossover Hollywood phenom—some say god—John Woo. photo: courtesy MVFFr
Featuring a plethora of provocative films from 22 countries, The Mill Valley Film Festival 34 runs October 6th to 16th in Mill Valley and San Rafae CineSource sat down with Zoe Elton, MVFF’s the festival’s Director of Programming, to talk about her history with MVFF and what we can look forward to in this year’s festival.
CineSource:You’re a graduate of the New College of Speech and Drama in London, and were a successful theater director. How did you end up as a programmer?
Zoe Elton: It’s a great question, because I think that when I’d gone into the working world, if you’d told me that such a thing existed, I would have known nothing about it. I went to drama school in London and I did some work there as a writer and director, and here. And shortly after I came to the United States, the Mill Valley Film Festival was being founded and they needed somebody just to do schlep work. And that was me.
And you were their first employee.
I was their first employee, And in the second year, I sort of picked up on the video programming. I think Mill Valley was the first film festival to have video as part of their programming. And I kind of ran with that. So for a long time I had a kind of parallel career, where I was writing and directing and getting residencies at places like Intersection [for the Arts], and doing the video programming. In the ‘80s that really worked, because there was a sort of symbiotic connection between film and what was happening in theater here, which was very visual.
Being so immersed in film, ave you ever been seized with the desire to make a film yourself?
No, I make plays. I write… I do think about it, there was a thing that I wanted to do as a play that I actually wrote as a screenplay, and then I decided, “You know what, this is not my form.” I love doing it as a programmer, but as a writer I actually prefer thinking in theater, thinking in spoken and written language.
You’ve been at the Mill Valley Festival ever since you were hired that first year, which means you’ve been there 34 years. What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry or in the film scene in general, besides digital?
Digital is the biggest thing, because it allows for the potential of the democratization of filmmaking. But as the wonderful Edith Crane once said to me, 'Everyone can make a film, but not everyone is a filmmaker,' and that’s the bane of my life, really.
Elton with actress Anita Benning and festival director Mark Fishkin. photo: courtesy MVFF
You founded the festival’s Active Cinema Program, which is described in the program guide more or less as "connecting the dots between issue-rooted films, interested audiences and the individuals and organizations working for the causes represented onscreen.” What inspired you to found Active Cinema?
As you probably know, we have a very engaged and smart audience in Mill Valley and people frequently, when they were seeing films that inspired them, especially. about issues that inspired them, would say, what can we do? So I really wanted to have some kind of involvement in the festival that would answer that question, and I really wanted to help filmmakers identify what that might be. In the four or five years we’ve been doing it, I’m seeing filmmakers be much more savvy about connecting those dots.
One of the things we did last year with the Active Cinema program was to ask filmmakers to give us three brief dots [bullet points] on what people actually can do. It’s very interesting to try to get filmmakers to think in short sentences, in PITHY short sentences [laughs] . We also ask them for their website or the sites of organizations that they are working with. We sometimes partner with organizations that are addressing the issues in the film. So during the Q&A , a slide goes up on screen behind the filmmaker, saying “This is what you can do and where you can do it.”
Do you ever feel overwhelmed with the vast number of issues that need to be addressed?
Certainly! The key to that is making choices. If you can give one good example of how you an do something, you can apply that example to anything.
This year we’re working with Natalie Boulton and Josh Biggs‘s film Voices from the Shadows, which is about ME [Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, the British term for fibromyalgia] and CFS [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome]. I basically have taken that on as the issue I wanted to work on this year. The good news is that there is a doctor at Stanford who has been having a lot of successes here. His name is Jose Montoya, he’s at Stanford Medical School. There have been other researchers in the United States, I think it’s called the Whitmore Cilnic in Reno, in Nevada.
Mark Fishkin was quoted as saying you and the other programmers have conversations with the filmmakers about their goals and what they see happening as the result of their participation in Mill Valley. Can you talk about that?
Really the mission of the festival is to celebrate films, but frequently—not with every single one, but frequently—we’ll want to figure out with filmmakers what they want to get out of the screening, what their strategies are for their film. If there’s a way in which we can broker a connection for them, we will.
Have you ever been taken aback on hearing someone’s goals?
No, well, the only thing that would take me aback sometimes—I’m kind of amazed by well-seasoned filmmakers whose strategy is, “just do everything.” You really have to choose where you show your film first. So if you show your film first at some little startup festival somewhere, it means that was your premiere and you’re kind of done.
You’re talking about kind of a splattercast strategy?
Yes, exactly. I’ve been amazed by people who’ve been around the block a number of times who have not necessarily learnt that you don’t do a ton of little festivals, that what you want is one bigger one to start you off. Or they haven’t learned when to plug in publicity. [publicist] Karen Larsen [of Larsen Associates] is great with that stuff, she’s really amazing. She, like us, really wants to help filmmakers figure out what to do.
What are some of the films that you are proudest to have championed?
Forever, or this year?
Let’s start with 'forever'—not every single film that you’re proud of, but some that stand out for you.
There were a couple in the early 90s. Hyenas by Djibril Diop Mambéty, the African filmmaker. And a film around the same time, called Vacas (Cows), by Julio Medem, the Spanish director . The Mambéty, film I just fell in love with, it’s become one of my all-time favorite films. I was so thrilled because one the films that I’m happy to be championing this year is The Odyssey of Cinema, and the director is talking about the 70s and one of the filmmakers that he mentions is Mambéty. Somehow he references Hyenas, although it wasn’t made in the 70s….
Has there ever been a film over which the programmers had profound differences?
Oh, yeah! And I love those disagreements!
What is a little gem that might get overlooked in this year’s Mill Valley Film Fest?
I’m going to be interested to see what people think of the two Moroccan films, 'Pegasus' and 'The Mosque'. And on a completely different tack, there is a film from England called 'The Lotus Eaters', which is a first feature by a young woman filmmaker. At Mill Valley, even when I haven’t liked something, I can always see why it was programmed.
That kind of attitude is what we hope to encourage in our audiences, and I do find them to be very generous in that way. And if they don’t like it, they should be fearless in discussing it.
The trailer for this year’s festival is wild! How did that come about?
It’s made by a video artist, John Sanbourn.
It’s more like a short than a trailer. Did Mill Valley give him any guidelines to work around ?
Well, he started [by] working with John Casados, who did the poster for this year, who’s created posters for us since the ‘80s. So he worked off the image that Casado had created for the poster, and we just kind of let him go with it. (When people are working pro bono, it’s one of the things you do.) When I first was doing the Video Quest programming, John Sanbourn was one of the most highly-regarded video artists anywhere.
What inspired the Magritte image [a man in a bowler hat with ball obscuring face] in Casado’s poster?
It really came out of Casado’s creative mind, thinking about the relationship between the audience and the film. The weirdest thing is that it started me thinking about films that have that image, like 'Clockwork Orange', and Lars von Triers’ latest film, 'Melancholia', and 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. All the sudden, these images started coming into play, and we’re doing the 30th anniversary of Raiders this year, so it was kind of cool, that there were all these odd connections.
Do you have a graphics background yourself? I ask because those little cartoons you do throughout the souvenir program are delightful.
I aways did drawing stuff. When I was doing the video programming at Mill Valley and working as a poverty-stricken theater artist, a couple days a week I was a jewelry designer, so that gave me an opportunity to hone my design skills.
Since you’re a redhead and the cartoon heroine is named Ruby, is she kind of an alter ego for you?
I used to subscribe to the Dr. Strange comics, so my first computer hard drive I called 'Dr. Strange', then when I got a ruby iMac, I called it Ruby Strange., so that was the genesis of that.
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Watch This Space!
Coming Monday, October 3rd, capsule reviews for Mill Valley films.
Note: 'Chill on the Hill' and 'Guitar Man' have been cancelled. They will be replaced (check for times) by the satirical 'Butter', starring Jennifer Garner, and Diana Vreeland: 'The Eye Has to Travel', a documentary celebrating the famed fashion director. Also added is a live event, Play Like A Lion LIVE: A Concert Honoring Ali Akbar Khan, Saturday, October 15. For more information about the Festival or to purchase tickets, visit MVFF or call 415.383.5256.