Transcription of Ben Fowlie for the show Motion Pictures, #106
Lisa: I always enjoy having guests back in the studio who have been in the studio with me before to see not only what has been going on in their lives but also see what interesting things they continue to do for the state of Maine. Ben Fowlie is one of these individuals who was one of our very early guests on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. He is the founder and director of the Camden International Film Festival. He previously was on with his friend, Jonathan Laurence, the photographer, but today he is solo. Thank you for coming in and joining us.
Ben: Thanks for having me, Lisa.
Lisa: Ben, this is a busy time of year for you; September 26th to the 29th is the Camden International Film Festival, lots going on, but it’s all kind of new and interesting. I think you’re taking things to a whole new level. Talk to me about that.
Ben: Yeah. This is the ninth year of the festival. It’s funny. After every year that we have, we always say, okay, that was great, but let’s try to keep it within scale, like keep it in a place that’s manageable for us. That’s easy to say in October, November, by the time we’re programming. At this point, things kind of always expand, this year in some really exciting ways. Still holding strong to our documentary roots. We’re going to be screening about 80 films, about 35 features, and 45 shorts over the course of the weekend. We’ll also be expanding our conference component, which is part of the program that we call Points North which started about five years ago.
Some really exciting stuff happening that we’ve got a brand-new partnership with The New York Times where we will be doing a pitch session, basically allowing filmmakers to pitch short form content directly to The New York Times. The winning project will eventually end up on their Op-Docs program, which is a phenomenal website you’d want to go check out, mostly culturally relevant issues that The Times can create a dialogue around. Then, playing along that theme, we’re always trying to find ways to enhance community, obviously both locally within the state of Maine but also within the independent film community at large, whether that’s national or international. That’s something that truthfully we’ve struggled as a small organization to figure out how we can expand beyond a four-day event. Our board of directors and myself and our entire staff are really committed to use this festival as a catalyst to engage Maine residents throughout the state over the course of the year to lead up to our 10th anniversary next year.
One thing that’s new is we started an engagement summit which is probably the most exciting thing for me as a programmer of the festival. The idea is basically to use nonfiction media documentary film to engage audiences and communities outside of the festival weekend. Each year, we’ll be specifically taking a topic that will change every year, bringing people in, thought leaders, nonprofit leaders, professionals from the specific theme, and engaging them in ways to figure out how we can create a strategic plan to use media, to engage community, and dialogue.
This year, we’re focusing on the issue of aging. Obviously, it’s a hot-button topic right now in Maine. The Portland Press Herald has a wonderful series going on every other Sunday through their Sunday paper. It’s just been a really rewarding experience to be able to team up with a bunch of different businesses and foundations to further enhance a dialogue that they’ve already started. Obviously, we’re new to the healthcare world, but we also understand that there’s a wonderful way to engage audiences through the films that we screen. Aging will play a big part of the thematic aspect of the films this year.
Lisa: How is that films, and specifically documentary films, have something additional to offer when telling a story over just a straightforward newspaper article?
Ben: That’s a good question. I think that’s probably what draws me to documentary in general. I think it’s the intimacy, the emotional connection that you can have when you’re really watching someone’s story unfold over the course of 60 minutes or 90 minutes or 15 minutes. It doesn’t really matter the length. It’s just the connection that film at its purest form is supposed to take you away from everything that you’re experiencing and just let you get inside the story. I think the documentary especially now, that’s what so great about the form that there are a number of different techniques to draw the viewer in.
This year, obviously, we have films with filmmakers documenting the rapid decline of their mother who has Alzheimer’s. That emotional story about a mother told by their son, that’s something that is just hard to just pick up on in a written piece. We have a film from Denmark; three women who were in hospice that follows the last 14 days of their lives individually. That is obviously very intense at moments, but the intimacy that the filmmaker has with the families that surround these patients and the doctors and watching the women come to terms with the fact that they probably won’t be leaving the space is just at one point heartbreaking but at another point really forces you to consider the weight of these questions. Hopefully, that’s what we’ll be able to do with the summit, just increase dialogue and get it to be more of an open conversation as opposed to closed things that families might not want to talk about because it’s challenging.
I think it’s a great time of year, honestly, because if we can start these conversations and then expand them through screenings in Portland, Orono, Ellsworth, the conversations will be happening over the holidays which is a time when obviously families gather and should be having these conversations.
Lisa: I think I read on your website that the Camden International Film Festival is one of the top 25 small film festivals. I don’t know if this is national or international, but that’s quite an honor. Why is it that your film festival, specifically out of Camden, Maine is of such great interest and such high quality?
Ben: Lists are funny things in a lot of ways. We love it when we get on a list. That list was done by a bunch of probably let’s say 50 industry leaders or whatnot, so distributors, funders, broadcasters and filmmakers. It was just basically a way to gauge the impact that Festivals can have on the professional track of filmmakers. I think why we’ve been getting the recognition that we have, which is phenomenal, I mean if you has asked me five years ago, would we be at this place? Would we be at the level we are at given the size of our community? I would probably say it would be challenging. I’m starting to rethink that over the past couple of years, realizing that the intimacy of the community is our strongest suit. The fact that when you’re in communities like Camden and Rockland and Rockport, just as an example because that’s where we take place, it would be the same in Portland; it would be the same in many of the communities in Maine. It’s just a way that takes people out of their daily existence and out of their New York exhausting life or LA or whatnot.
When they’re here, they’re able to interact with not only a real local audience in a meaningful way but also with fellow filmmakers or fellow industry members. The idea is hopefully that it’s a much more relaxed way to grow your professional network and to walk away with hopefully friendships or stronger relationships. You go to a conference or whatever it is, whatever specific conference it may be, you come back with 10 or 15 business cards and you maybe write to one person and maybe get an email exchange, that last two emails, and then that kind of falls off. For me, I prefer events that you actually have a little bit of time maybe to really connect with people.
At Camden, just by default of it being such a small space, if you run into someone at a screening, chances are you’re going to see him at the coffee shop the next day or at one of the amazing restaurants at night. So you’re just kind of forced to interact and engage in ways that if you go to larger festivals, you might see someone once; they might not even be there, you may never see them.
The other thing I think that’s really helped us out is we’ve really made a conscious effort to try and become like a launching pad for filmmakers who are emerging in the field. Obviously, there’s a lot of wonderful film festivals that are top tier; Sundance, Berlin, Toronto. Those outlets are really great for filmmakers who are established and obviously have made quality films in the past. If we can play a small role in really helping finding newer voices in the forum so that they can get this kind of training-wheels mentality to do a festival, understand what it’s like to interact with industry, to screen your work, hopefully several of those people will go on to make more work and premiere in Berlin or Toronto or Telluride.
Lisa: You’ve been doing this now, this is the ninth film festival. Essentially you’re heading into a decade’s worth of your life which for people who can’t see you, they don’t know that you’re a young guy. This is a big chunk of the entire time you’ve been on this planet, and yet something that you remain passionately invested in. How do you maintain that level of interest, and why is it so important to you?
Ben: That’s a good question. I always circle around it like if I had just gone to that master’s degree or something like that. The truth when I look at this experience, it’s like as educational experience for me as well. I started the project when I had been to a few film festivals. My entire life, I hadn’t really … I had interned or whatnot. I think it was an opportunity to buck the trend of going to LA and interning for somebody else or just the typical route. This just came like an atypical route that may end up going somewhere maybe quicker or ending up at a place I would want to be.
Probably at three or four years in when you have all those kind of like, gees, where is this going, how do you make it sustainable, why am I doing this, what’s the point of this whole thing? Especially when I was at that age where I think a lot of people in their late 20s are trying to figure out what a sustainable path looks like professionally and how to pay the bills and all that stuff. I had a meeting with someone that works in distribution in independent documentaries and they said you’re part of the cycle now. You can’t just remove yourself. That was probably a really overly inflated thing to say at that point because I’m sure if we had not continued that the industry wouldn’t crumble, but that I had carved out this niche as a programmer that is really supportive of independent documentary. There are not many people out there that are so focused on a specific theme or genre of film. That was exciting, I think.
I think that there was an embrace from other programmers who are invested in this, in documentary, as invested as I am. It’s a small community, so it just seemed like it was a way to not only grow professionally but also like … the reason why I do it in Camden is not because you want a community; you want a sense of place, you want to be able to feel like the people you work with are friends in some capacity and that everyone cares about each other and wants to make the best work and is not vengeful or is not whatever. The doc community, I can’t speak in film industry in general but I can only speak and say that the documentary film community internationally is the most embracing, caring community of people. That’s what has probably kept me in it.
Then, the excitement of being able to put together a program that has really no strings attached. We don’t really have a certain sponsor we have to adhere to for programming. There are festivals out there that are owned by one company. That’s been the beauty of being able to just kind of screen what we want to screen, build an audience in Maine that appreciates sometimes challenging work, sometimes experimental work, sometimes straightforward work, just building an audience that really cares about the event and also about this art form.
Lisa: I have the sense that you aren’t intimated by things that you don’t know or that might seem unreachable to other people. When you look at the sponsor list, every year it is more impressive. You have this affiliation with New York Times. You’re talking about really an international community. I don’t have the sense that you have a small town Maine mentality, but you grew up in the small town of Maine.
Ben: I think that’s the amazing thing about … I had to have had … somewhere in the back of my mind, I must have realized that doing something within the community, especially a community that knows me so well. My dad owns a community store in Camden. He’s owned it for 32 years. Before that, he was involved in state politics, so I grew up with Senator George Mitchell; kind of my idol. I think he was at my seventh birthday. On my mother’s side, her father owned the original Five & Dime in Camden. Both families kind of had businesses in town. Just working at my father’s store, I got to meet a lot of people putting the Sunday papers together and whatnot. It just became one of those things that you realize there’s a wonderful community of people that, like myself, love to live in Camden and Maine in general but also want to feel connected to everything else that’s going on.
I think that line is just getting blurrier and blurrier as time goes on. I think that maybe 10 years ago, it might have felt a little more isolated. Now I feel like everyone I know is traveling and maybe working in New York half the time or whatnot. I think the audience was there really for me to try and expand into what a real international festival could look like. Obviously, the success of Camden Conference and PopTech locally proves that. It just seemed like one of the things that when after the festival got a little bit more stable, after the fifth year maybe, four or five years ago, it was like, well, how big can we make this then? The sky is the limit at this point. People love coming here. The local audiences are really enjoying it. We’ve got great partnerships with the educational systems, with Unity, University of Maine. There’s an impact we’re making here with students and also with local communities. How can we just get Camden on the radar of everyone working in independent documentary film?
That’s just taken a little bit of time, but we’ve managed to just, I think, honestly, just grow just enough organically, never pushing too much so that we’d run into trouble in the sense of keeping the program sustainable or keeping it at a level that is unmanageable. Probably, some of the best advice I could ever give anyone if they’re working in anything really is just not overwhelming yourself too much. It’s really letting your business or your event or whatever it may be kind of form itself over time. Probably the reason why we’re around here is because of that mentality.
We’re not shy in saying I think that we do want to be recognized as one of the top doc fests in North America and internationally for sure. It’s definitely a major call of ours.
Lisa: People know that Camden-Rockport, Rockland are an interesting sort of nidus of energy for artists in general. We have the CMCA. We have the Farnsworth Art Museum. This is documentary filmmaking. We’ve had artists and writers in Maine for generations, but filmmaking is relatively new to the game. How have your fellow artists in the community, including the Maine Media Workshops, which is only really 40 years old, how have they accepted and integrated the work you’re doing with documentary films?
Ben: We’ve had a really good relationship with Farnsworth and Maine Media Workshops since the start. I think we realized early on that the cultural institutions that have been around there for 40 years, 65 this year, Bay Chamber. We’re aligning ourselves in any way we can. Obviously, our partnering into some kind of way is beneficial to our long-term growth. Obviously, there’s an obvious tie-in with Maine Media Workshops. I think it’s been nice because we’ve been able to collaborate in the sense of some of the interactive, the new ways of storytelling that we’re bringing in. It’s attractive to them in what they’re trying to develop throughout their film program as we speak. It’s really engaging a brand-new audience of filmmakers to come to the festival to what they’re doing at the workshops.
The funny thing is we have probably four, five filmmakers that are coming to the festival this year that conceived of their project actually at the workshops three, four, five years ago. We’re trying to highlight that as well because I think that it’s important to note that probably the workshop was involved with a lot of the projects for the people that we’re screening now before they made it, before they hit the big time and whatever it is. I don’t know if I really answered your question. Sorry, I got a little sidetracked.
I think that obviously, this kind of partnership mentality has worked well for us, and, thankfully, there’s just so much great programming going on, especially with Bay Chamber and Manuel, the new artistic director there, that has allowed us to find ways that seem to just work for us thematically. We’re not really … there’s never any kind of like, well, we got to twist this to make it work for this and whatnot. I think the Mid coast area has always wanted a college. I’m sure you’ve heard about that. I think what they do have is this wonderful collection of cultural organizations and institutions to hold these events and stuff. Throughout the year, there’s always something going on that engages you in really, really exciting ways.
Lisa: If I’m not in the community and I’m not necessarily someone who knows that much about documentary filmmaking but I’m kind of interested in coming to the Camden International Film Festival, what are some things that might entice me to make the drive up there?
Ben: That’s a good question. What we always try and say is that it’s still a festival. Documentary films may not be what gets you excited when you get out of bed, but I guarantee you, the greatest thing about I think our organization that I’ve seen over the past few years is that it’s so inclusive. For $10, you can go see a movie. If that’s how you want to go in and be a part of the festival, that’s great. We have pass structures, whatever, that allow you to get in to the films and the parties or whatnot. We really always made an effort to keep it an event that is going to, this goes in with programming as well, it’s going to incorporate as many different aspects of the community as we can. That’s just something that we’re committed to and will continue to be committed to. We’re holding venues in three different communities this year; Camden, Rockport this year is new, and Rockland. So really just trying to expand our blueprint.
Getting back to the question, I think that come see a film, come see two films, but it’s a beautiful weekend on the coast. There’s a number of wonderful restaurants, several of which just opened up like Ann Marie’s new Salt Water Farm at Union Hall. We’re trying to program our schedule so that as a visitor, you can just dip in to the festival as much or as little as you want but also get the experience of whether it’s outdoor activities or the food scene up there which is incredible. Documentary is just one way to pull you in hopefully.
For people that like to have a good time, we have some really unique venues for party spots, which I think are exciting because we totally transform these spaces that no one ever goes to. Half the venues we use are just abandoned throughout the year. There’s always this excitement I think of what’s going to happen. Most of the people that come actually you see in the lines over and over and over again, or you’ll see at three screenings and a party. I always judge the quality of the festival with how many people afterwards that said “oh, they had such a good time. I just was so rundown on Monday, I had to take the day off from work” or whatever it is. To me, that’s a good line. It is this consuming thing because I think that you’re constantly connecting with community and meeting with people in a different way.
Lisa: What’s the website for the Camden International Film Festival?
Ben: It’s www.camdenfilmfest.org. You can find information there about passes, which we’re actually running an early bird special through the end of this … actually, this won’t be broadcast by then. Our program should be up there as well. Any other information should be able to be found there. Our Facebook page, you can get from there as well which is probably the most up to date information on the event.
Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Ben Fowlie. Again, thank you for coming back in again for a second time to sit with us. Ben is the founder and director of the Camden International Film Festival, now on its ninth year. Congratulations and I know that you’re going to have many more.
Ben: Thank you so much, Lisa. It’s always fun to be here.