Notes from the IFS desk, by Pablo Kjolseth (2004)

No Summer series.
Summer in Boulder is when the Boulder Film Alliance traditionally kicks into high gear, as both Chautauqua and the Boulder Outdoor Cinema put out new calendars and all the other local exhibitors get a chance to collaborate on thematic presentations. Last summer one of our themes tapped into "rivers" and it allowed me to program many of my favorite films for the big screen. It was no small feat. To bring some of these films to Muenzinger required extra effort due to their rarity, or archived status, or both. To show Warner Bros only touring archive print of DELIVERANCE, for example, required me to get help from friends at Turner Classic Movies, sign special insurances, spend weeks on the phone, and so on. And this doesn't even touch on our special summer events (like bringing out director Trent Harris) or the run of all newly restored 35mm prints of Kurosawa titles that ran from June through August. I honestly felt it was one of the strongest summer calendars I'd ever put together and pulled a mental hamstring to bring it all to the screen. Which is why it was crushing to receive a phone call from one irate customer who complained that, in her estimation, and having just looked at the summer calendar, it was a huge disappointment for her. She'd seen most of the titles before, and she then went on to accuse me of blowing off my job.

A few months later as I sat in Muenzinger and watched DELIVERANCE, a film I'd seen five or six times before, but always on tv or on a beat up classroom 16mm print, I was transfixed by the film as if it was my first time seeing it. The reason? It was a mint-condition, 35mm Panavision, wide-screen, archive print. It was as if though I'd stepped into a time machine that allowed me to go back to a theater in 1972 to watch the film as it was projected during its opening weekend, fresh from the lab. The colors were so vivid that my eyes soaked up the beautiful Georgian rivers in all their detail. The grain of the celluloid was impeccable, not a single scratch anywhere - and there I was, in the front row. I was so impressed that I sat through the second show that same night to see it again...

The main reason for the story above is that the woman who called me to complain about how the IFS was blowing off summer is clearly representing a larger, and I think commonly held view; if you've seen the film once before there is no need to see it again. I disagree with this position. It matters if you've seen a film cropped on a small television while friends are distracting you. It matters if you haven't seen an important film in a long time, because while the film may be "the same" - you certainly are not.

I also hope the story above illustrates how I will personally miss not having a summer film series at the IFS in 2004. Unfortunately, we always lose money in the summer because the student body shrinks from over 25,000 bodies to around 5,000, and because the amount of activities competing for people's time and attention tend to elbow in on our audience. And this summer we need to save as much as possible so that we might better adapt to the coming years ahead.

Even without a summer series, I will not be "blowing it off." Quite the contrary, I will be using the time to lick wounds, develop new strategies, and try to bounce back from the economic malaise affecting so many. In tough times, one needs to be strong and adapt. I will do my best on both fronts.