Ask a Programmer: Movieline's Guide to 5 Major Fall Film Festivals

Jacqueline Lyanga

AFI Fest (Nov. 3 - 10)

Title: Festival Director

How many years have you been with the festival?

7 years

How many films are in this year's festival? How many films were submitted?

We had over three thousand submissions. We haven't finished programming this year's festival yet but we're on track to have about 100 films in the festival, including shorts.

Approximately how much time is spent planning your program each year?

As soon as the festival ends, we start planning the next year. It's a year-round process of programming, sponsorship and putting together a team. We start watching films at Sundance and Lane Kneedler, the Associate Director of Programming and I will be at TIFF in a few weeks; they have a great line-up in Toronto this year.

What are you looking forward to most this year?

I am looking forward to celebrating AFI FEST's 25th edition and having Pedro Almodóvar join us at the festival's Guest Artistic Director. We are going to have a special screening of Law of Desire to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film and his production company El Deseo, where he's made so many incredible films.

How would you define your festival's identity, and how does it fit into the festival circuit?

Because of our timing, we're definitely a part of the kick off to awards season and at the same time we consistently have an extremely diverse world cinema program with significant works from masters and emerging filmmakers that we've selected from festivals all over the world. We give the Los Angeles audience an opportunity to see these films as we head into awards season and at the same give the filmmakers an opportunity to be a part of that dialogue. In addition, our alliance with AFM makes us the only festival in North American with a market partnership.

And additionally, we've opened up more slots for emerging directors in our Young Americans, New Auteurs and Breakthrough sections.

How has festival programming changed since you started? (In terms of politics, number of fests, volume of films, etc.)

There are definitely more festivals on the landscape and because of the shifts in technology, there are more independent films. Although, in the last few years, it's been really difficult to get films made, however, it's feels like this year, there is an abundance of great cinema.

Has awards season's ascendancy impacted the fall festival climate for better or worse?

The art house distribution landscape has changed dramatically over the past ten years and that's put fall festivals in a position to bring much needed attention to great performances, independent films, and foreign films that perhaps wouldn't be seen otherwise, so I think that the fall festival season has become even more important for films.

Place us in a selection committee meeting. What are the conversations? What are the disagreements? How are they resolved?

We are really passionate about the films that we select and when we meet with our associate programmers and our screeners, the goal is to find out which films they feel the most strongly about. Filmmaking is an art and we are tasked with the difficult job of curating a program based on a year's worth of festival screenings and submissions. We don't have disagreements really, but we have a lot of debate and it makes the program stronger every year.

What do you most look forward to at each year's festival? What do you least look forward to at each year's festival?

I look forward to meeting all of the filmmakers when they arrive at the festival. And I look forward to the Audience Awards. It's great to find out which films the audiences are really connecting with. And I hate having to say goodbye to filmmakers; I don't look forward to that all. The filmmakers bring the festival to life.

What's your favorite festival memory?

Opening night of the festival last year. It was my first year as the director of the festival and it was amazing to see all of the moving parts come together.

What's your advice for aspiring festival programmers?

Volunteer for a film festival and see every film that you can between your shifts. My first job at a film festival was as a volunteer for the Toronto International Film Festival.

[Top photo: Shutterstock; programmer photos via Telluride Film Festival, Thom Powers, Film Society of Lincoln Center, BFI, and AFI]

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