WILLiFEST 2010

2010-06-29T23:49:00.005-04:00

The KFB Meeting

I arrived at the Knitting Factory's unrenovated Brooklyn location on a frigid winter day in January 2009, thinking I'd be walking out of there with a commitment from the management to premiere WILLiFEST at their new Brooklyn location in September 2009. With only nine months to produce the festival, I worried how I'd pull it all together so quickly, but my anxiety quickly turned to excitement when my meeting with the Knitting Factory's talent booker was interrupted by the VP of Knitting Factory Brooklyn. He liked what he'd seen on the WILLiFEST website I had created and wanted to know more. I spent the next hour or so describing my vision for WILLiFEST at the Knitting Factory and in Williamsburg, and they said they loved it. They told me that WILLiFEST was exactly the type of event that the Knitting Factory should be hosting when it opened it's new Brooklyn location. I again wondered how I'd throw this all together by the time the Knitting Factory opened its doors in Williamsburg, but before I could ask them what dates in September worked for them, they told me they'd think about it and that I should contact them in mid September 2009 when the Brooklyn location was slated to open.

In a matter of seconds, they went from loving the concept to having to think about it. The hope of opening the festival in 2009 was officially dead, but the creation of WILLiFEST had only just begun.

2010-04-29T19:38:00.008-04:00

The Knit - Pt. 2

I woke up early the next morning and debated whether to call The Knitting Factory or to just jump on the train and head down to the club’s Tribeca location. Since getting on the subway meant putting on pants, I decided to make my pitch on the phone. I googled “Knitting Factory,” and was speaking to the club’s manager within minutes. He loved the idea of the Williamsburg International Film Festival being held at the club, but was non-committal when I suggested we meet face to face. The Knitting Factory’s move to Brooklyn was still a year away, and the manager told me that as much as he wanted in, it wasn’t realistic to discuss anything so far in advance of the relocation. He said we should stay in contact, but I hung up the phone pants-less and disappointed.

I had gotten so attached to the idea of having my festival hosted by the famed Knitting Factory that I didn’t even want to consider another venue. The fit was too perfect. We would both be newcomers to Williamsburg, eager to tap the neighborhood’s vast creative resources. For my festival to premier at the Knitting Factory the same year the club would open its doors in Brooklyn would have been ideal. But I couldn’t start producing a festival without somewhere to hold it, so I started to slowly convince myself that maybe it wasn’t meant to be. I’d almost completely given up on the idea of WILLiFEST when one day, months after my initial conversation with The Knitting factory, they called. It was now January 2009, and the Tribeca club would close in July. The new club in Williamsburg would open in September. Now that the opening date for the Brooklyn location was set, the club was even more excited to be involved with WILLiFEST. The Knit was thrilled by the notion that hosting WILLiFEST could be a great way to promote the club’s arrival in Williamsburg, and we scheduled a meeting for the following week.

The Knitting Factory was eventually going to be totally onboard and my dream of creating the world’s largest block party was one step closer to coming true. Only days earlier I was about to abandon the idea entirely and now I was headed to Brooklyn to meet with The Knitting Factory’s manager and talent buyer. But the road ahead was still a rocky one and filled with potholes that can only be found in a city like New York.

The Knit

2010-04-07T16:47:00.000-04:00

The decision to create a film festival was a lot easier than the decision about where to have it. I wanted to create something truly unique, and in order to do so, I felt like the festival needed to be held somewhere that personified the spirit of creativity and individuality. It had to be in a place that though bursting with potential, had yet to host anything remotely as ambitious as what I’d fantasized about on so many occasions. And since my bedroom is way too small to hold a festival in, I hit the streets of New York in search of a great venue – a place that would be able to host the world’s biggest block party.

But Manhattan seemed too corporate. Too tightly wound. There was no real sense of community in any of the neighborhoods I visited. Even the chick in the Raggedy Ann outfit in the East Village looked like she was wearing a Prada bag. I’d leave Manhattan to the likes of the Tribeca Film Festival and American Express.

My search unknowingly took me to the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn one unseasonably sweltering day in October. I was visiting a client in the area and I couldn’t resist the urge to explore the neighborhood before heading back home to the Upper East Side. The modern day artist colony, teeming with painters on skateboards and musicians wearing the types of glasses my Aunt Selma used to wear in the eighties, seemed like the perfect place for me to hold a festival dedicated to film, music and art. But I wondered where specifically in this uncommon neighborhood where hipster meets Hasid could such an event be held? I soon found myself standing on Metropolitan Avenue in front of a space that was undergoing major renovations. I asked a construction worker what they were working on, and when he told me that the famed Knitting Factory was setting up shop in Brooklyn at that location, I knew right then that I had to do the same. The only question that lingered in my mind was: could I actually get the Knitting Factory to agree to host my festival? Before the seed of doubt grew any larger, I overheard an Hasidic man talking on his cell phone. “Why not?” he asked in a sing-songy tone, and I took that as sign.

My festival – the world’s biggest block party – was going to be in Williamsburg with the Knitting Factory. Now all I had to do was convince the Knitting Factory.

An Idea

2010-03-30T20:39:00.000-04:00

Late in the summer of 2007, my partner, Robin, and I sat in a dirty little diner in downtown L.A., wondering why we’d wasted close to two grand of our company’s money to attend the L.A. Shorts Festival. A few months earlier, we were elated that our short film, “The Apartment,” had been accepted into a festival that we thought would have us rubbing elbows with Hollywood’s movers and shakers. But the only thing moving and shaking that cloudy day in September was my stomach from the greasy burger and fries I ate at the diner. Movie night at my sleep away camp was better organized and had more attendees than the festival we had trekked three-thousand miles to get to. And as I sat in a nearly empty theater, watching the film I’d slaved for two years to produce premiere in front of a homeless guy and some dude in a trench coat, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d have been better off premiering “The Apartment” at Camp Nachas.

On my flight back to New York, I vowed that from then on I would only submit films to festivals that would provide me with something more than jetlag, indigestion and a four-figure Amex bill. But short of the major festivals like Sundance, Cannes, and Tribeca, I knew of almost none that offered filmmakers a serious opportunity to showcase their wares in front of an audience that mattered. And since you need to either be a celebrity or have one in your film to get into one of the big festivals, I thought I, and every other filmmaker like me, was doomed to submitting films to festivals that would have me longing for those warm summer nights in upstate New York, watching Jane Fonda in “Cat Ballou” projected onto the side of a sports equipment shack.

The more filmmakers I spoke with, the more I realized there was a need for a professional, fun-filled festival that spotlighted independent artists from around the world without catering strictly to celebrities. That’s when the idea for WILLiFEST was born. I wasn’t entirely sure where and when to begin, but I knew I was about to embark on an exciting journey that I hoped would end in creating my very own film and music festival right here in New York City.

I’ll be posting regularly about my experiences trying to get this festival off the ground so check back often. In the meantime, visit http://www.willifest.com for more details about WILLiFEST and the exciting events we’re hosting throughout NYC to prepare for the debut on September 23, 2010 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.