At the beginning of each film during this year’s Sedona International Film Festival, a voice-over described the event as “rescheduled and reimagined.”
Despite being rescheduled from its traditional late- February dates and reimagined as to what a festival of its kind could look like during a global pandemic, SIFF Executive Director Patrick Schweiss said he was still very pleased with the outcome.
“Overall, things went great,” he said. “Crowds were down, but we expected that because maximum capacities were down. But it was building all week long because I think word got out that people were comfortable and how great it was to have people back in the theaters again and watching films on the big screen. It was so rewarding seeing people come out and taking part in something live again.”
And it wasn’t important simply for the film-goers.
“It was big, big, big for our filmmakers because most of them had not seen their films on the big screen. They were showing them virtually the past year,” he said. “For many of them, this was the first time they had seen their film in an actual theater with a live audience. That was exciting for our audiences and the filmmakers. It seemed more like a lovefest this year more than ever, and I think that’s because people hadn’t been together in a theater for a year-and-a-half.”
The number of films shown this year actually exceeded last year’s 162 at 180. Films were screened at Mary D. Fisher Theatre and Harkins Theaters Sedona Six, and because school was out, the Sedona Performing Arts Center was able to show four movies each day this time around rather than the usual two.
New this year saw a slate of films shown at Enchantment Resort, with the ballroom transformed into a theater thanks to the crew from the Sundance Film Festival, who put in the temporary audio and visual setup.
Schweiss said SIFF is in talks with Enchantment, which he praised for everything going so smoothly last week, to host a venue in February as well.
Something else new this year that may return is assigned seating in the theaters. Movie-goers selected their own seats in each of the venues because of social distancing and the fact that each venue had limited seating — 50% to 65% capacity. For example, there were five sellouts at SPAC with 375 of the 750 seats filled.
“This went really well, so much so that people are begging us to keep it for next year’s festival, even after things return to normal,” Schweiss said. “We’ve been told by colleagues in our business that ‘once you giveth, you can’t taketh away. When you have that option, you can’t go back to the old way.’ Our box office manager, Lori Reinhart, was a rock star. She had to work with our ticketing system and we had to build all the venues from scratch for the ticketing system.”
Schweiss said there are both positives and negatives to this type of system.
“People could select their seats and didn’t feel like they had to rush or get to the theater early to get a good seat,” he said. “What that eliminates is the gatherings in the lobby [which was done for social distancing] where all the buzz happens in the festival. While in line they talk about movies they loved or one that was a clunker. There are all sorts of pros and cons to this, but I think the positives of keeping it far outweigh the negatives.”
Schweiss said what staff and volunteers heard this year — as they do year in and year out — is how impressed attendees are with the constantly-improving caliber of films shown. But this year the gratitude was even greater.
“More so, this year, the feedback has been, ‘Thank you for doing it. Thank you for bringing a big event back to Sedona and thank you for allowing us to experience these films in person than at home,’” he said. “We have also received a lot of praise from people knowing this was a financial challenge for us with the numbers down yet the expenses remaining the same. It was a risk for us but it was a risk worth taking, especially based upon the feedback we’re getting.”
While Schweiss is the face of the festival, he is quick to point out that in order to pull off a festival each year, it’s a team effort between vendors, sponsors, board members and especially his staff and a host of volunteers.
“The staff and volunteers were absolutely phenomenal,” he said.
“The work they put in — both prior to and during the festival — is staggering. It was an unusual year with the shift to June and the added venues and streaming capabilities, and everyone just pitched in and said ‘what can I do to help?’ and made it so fantastic. We were a team. We were a family. Everyone was committed to the same common goal and that was to create a safe, fun and successful live festival.”
