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Business & The Arts-Part 3
A special BNH community forum examines areas of convergence and conflict between New Haven's cultural and corporate communities
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Business New Haven
6/9/2003
By: BNH
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Robin Andreoli, executive director, Film Fest New Haven: Had this event taken place a year ago we probably wouldn't have been here to represent ourselves, because it was at that point that Film Fest New Haven [FFNH] really reached a critical point in its history. We are now in our eighth year, but at year seven there was a time when there probably would not have been a Film Fest New Haven.
As many people don't realize, the film festival is a real, true grass-roots effort. It was put together by two friends who found a sincere lack of creative and unusual film in the state. They decided to put on the very first [FFNH] in 1996. From that time until last May, it was an entirely volunteer-run effort and it accomplished many fabulous things through its volunteers.
In May 2002, two of our most established community leaders, Cheever Tyler and Louise Endel, brought together a group of people from the arts and business community to form a board for [FFNH]. In December 2002 they hired me as the first paid full-time executive director for the festival.
Our entire working budget is less than $150,000. We are very frugal - we have to be for many reasons - but it also means that we have nowhere to go but up. We intend to grow, but what we do accomplish with that money in this stage of the game is a three-day international independent film festival. We moved from April to September in 2002 and we partnered with area colleges and universities to really bring the students who are interested in film to this festival. We are also continuing to move into public schools to talk about film as an art form.
The three-day festival is just one component of what we do. It [screens] approximately 80 films from various parts of the world. We truly are independent: We have had filmmakers send their work from Iran and Belgium, Canada and all over the U.S. They are amazing pieces of work that would not have a place to be seen were it not for festivals such as [FFNH].
We are not Sundance. [FFNH] is not a market; people do not come to New Haven to try to sell their film. They come to New Haven because they realize the very many other resources and because it is a wonderfully filmmaker friendly environment. This is a chance for filmmakers to screen their work, to talk to their peers and colleagues and to get true audience feedback from the people who attend the festival.
In addition to the three-day festival we started to expand in a very short period of time. In the last five months we created a Connecticut mini-fest, which each winter focuses on Connecticut filmmakers, and there are very many of them.
We also have a community partnership series, which has been in existence for some time but never has been organized or promoted [the way] it could be. Film is very accessible, it is something that people are used to seeing. Kids grow up watching movies and so it is fortunate for us that we are able to take this art form to places where people are used to it and bring films of very topical discussion to places like colleges and universities, assisted-living facilities and places of worship.
There has been corporate support for [FFNH] in the past. Local companies [such as] United Illuminating, New Haven Savings Bank and national companies like Verizon Wireless and Kodak have supported us. They have seen the value in what we do.
We are the only independent film festival in the state. We do not invite films to be screened at the festival. Of the 400 or 500 entries that we get each year we narrow them down to less than 90 and give those filmmakers a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
In addition to corporate support, we have had amazing support from individuals who want to see the film festival continue to grow. We are just at the stage now of being able to formally apply for grants through the state, with the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, and we're finding an enormous receptiveness with people encouraging us to do this.
We are trying to position ourselves so we do not become reliant on donated contributions, and we are small enough so I think we can maintain that. We are trying to increase our ticket sales as a way to help increase the revenue to support our budget.
There will always be a need for corporate, individual and foundation support and partnership. We want to make sure it is a true investment for the donor and that it is more of a balanced partnership.
Business New Haven: One area we have not yet touched on is popular music. I'd like to ask Randy Borowsky, station manager of ConnecticutUltraRadio.com, what is the music scene like now in New Haven, and what is your role in it?
Borowski: I run Connecticut Ultra Radio on College Street in downtown New Haven. We are very closely associated with the local music scene. We support Connecticut bands with 30 original bands we play on a regular basis. We do a weekly showcase called Hard Drive with free admission and three original Connecticut music bands every Wednesday at Alchemy in New Haven. We also Web cast these bands around the world.
Support has been great. At the beginning, people were really curious and skeptical, and wondered what our commercial angle on this was. We do it because it's getting the word out for us, it's bringing us new listeners and is sponsored by corporate sponsors who pay us to do it.
At the same time, it's helping create a scene that is free and the local bands love it.
Some of the other things Ultra Radio is doing include being an official festival producer sponsor. Last year we [helped] on the Hot Sounds and city concerts and First Night. We presented and helped coordinate a three-day festival as part of the Arts & Ideas festival. We display art locally in our studios and promote art openings around the city and greater New Haven. We were on location at the Artspace opening of [Citywide] Open Studios last year.
We have done all of this with basically no budget, no corporate contribution budget. The music scene is alive and vibrant and excited to get the exposure.
BNH: How do some of the other communities in greater New Haven think about the arts, and how does the major corporate leadership think about it as well?
Robert Santy, director, Regional Growth Partnership: New Haven might be the cultural capital of Connecticut because there is a fabric in New Haven that doesn't exist in other areas of the state. Everything that we do has a cultural and arts component to it.
Traditionally, the arts community is a not-for-profit community and it is a base. So you hear a lot of how it supports economic development and how it helps attract and maintain businesses.
We are becoming a creative economy. Richard Florida is an economist who studies what is happening in regions around the country and which regions and metro areas are succeeding. The ones that are succeeding are diverse and tolerant of their racial and ethnic make-up. The reason for this is because young people with the skills needed by industries that can succeed here are looking for a vibrant community.
It's not just that arts are the base. Arts, culture and creative industry more broadly defined, including for-profit companies where there is a high creative component to what's being done, are going to look for communities like ours to succeed.
The arts community should think more broadly of what it is part of. It is part of a creative industry that includes not-for-profit and for-profits and is a driver rather than a base in the economy.
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