Guest blogging with me today is
Francesca Miller, Festival Manager of the
Vampire Film Series & Festival. The festival's mission statement is "to showcase the artistry of filmmakers who work in this supernatural genre, to further the mythology and lore of vampires and share it with the mortal world."
In October 2009, this international film festival, now in its third year, will be moving from its previous Los Angeles location to its rightful and very appropriate host city: New Orleans, Louisiana.
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CK: Thanks so much for joining me, Francesca. First of all, how excited are all of you to be taking the festival to New Orleans? Had you been planning to host it in the city all along?
FM: I’m thrilled at the idea of bringing the festival to New Orleans. My ethnic roots are Louisiana Creole and my mother lived in New Orleans for years. I loved visiting the city before Katrina devastated it. New Orleans was magical, a 24-hour town with the friendliest people on earth. I remember strolling through the Quarter one morning. A gentleman in a Panama hat and an ice-cream suit was sipping a mint julep on his porch in the Vieux Carre. He stood up, lifted his glass, and saluted me as I walked by. I remember hearing magical music from musicians who plied their trade on the street and once watched as a bartender threw out a drunk from Bonaparte’s, a place built for Napoleon Bonaparte’s exile before he went to Elba. There was history there and a spirit of bon vivant throughout the entire city, including the 9th Ward. Before Katrina, you could walk through it and see people barbecuing in their front yards. They’d always invite you to eat a rib, have a chicken wing, or a bottle of beer with them. All that is gone now.
CK: In what ways do you hope the festival will benefit New Orleans and its rebuilding process? And tell us a little bit about the American Red Cross's involvement with the event.
FM: When we become an annual event and bring people to the city, like the Jazz Festival, Voodoo Fest, we’ll be players in the Big Easy’s biggest source of revenue, tourism. One of the reasons that rebuilding is taking so much time is the lack of Fortune 500 companies and big industry in the city. Even though the Port of New Orleans is one of the biggest in the country, there was never much industry there. It was one of the charms of the city, but one of the problems in rebuilding. There was no great immediacy the way there would have been in other cities.
We’re dealing with the New Orleans Blood Bank, the group that collects blood for the Red Cross. You can imagine how their resources were stretched during Katrina. When we had our earlier Vampire Fest, the Hollywood Red Cross had bloodmobiles at every venue. We’re hoping to have the same in New Orleans.
CK: How did the festival originate? Was it a lengthy process taking it from idea to reality? Who are the people behind the festival?
FM: My partner,
Asif Ahmed, dreamed of it. Asif is from New Jersey, a real Yankee. People don’t realize that New England is the real home of the American vampire myth, but Anne Rice in her brilliance transformed the vampire into Louisiana iconology. Asif went with the flow and always planned to move the festival to New Orleans. There are dark corridors, above-the-ground graves, and a Gothic spirit in the city that has only gotten stronger since Katrina.
I’ve known Asif since he was a college student and saw how determined he was to succeed in everything he does. He was a film major when I met him and had been making his own films since he was a kid. One of his first was a horror classic about a killer bunny rabbit. The film was made on a shoestring; a wire propelled the killer bunny, and Asif used Karo syrup and red food coloring to make the blood. The whole film was a lot of campy fun.
Asif has created a lot of things from nothing and is a real visionary. Like all young filmmakers, he worked with the digital medium that has taken over filmmaking and is very knowledgeable about new media. He always loved New Orleans and wanted to bring the Vampire Festival there.
The process of creating a film festival is a killer and doing it in New Orleans makes it more difficult. Prior to Katrina, New Orleans was becoming the hub of filmmaking in the South. Most of that has disappeared but we want to help bring it back. We were forced to start at square one because, to be honest, the original Vampire Fests were more like parties. We started with the website--our site is located at
www.vampirefilmfestival.com--the sponsorship package, the endless hours of going through submissions, the publicity, contacting media throughout the country, securing the right venues…and we’re all in Los Angeles. Thankfully, we’ve got feet on the ground in New Orleans. The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau is behind our effort and we’re connecting with all the non-profits in the city.
The people behind the film festival are varied. I was a film critic and entertainment writer for years, as was Tim Cogshell, one of the other partners who is now a filmmaker. We have filmmakers, writers, and the people involved with our parent company,
Reel Energy, and we’re bringing more and more on board every day.
CK: Looking at the past two festivals, do you find that most independent filmmakers seem to stay in the realm of horror when making vampire films?
FM: Many filmmakers confuse gore with horror. The yuck factor prevails and a lot of filmmakers see impalings and beheadings as horror rather than examining the concept of psychological horror. Some of the most frightening horror films contain no gore--I’m thinking of classics like the original
Dracula, the first version of
The Haunting, The Innocents, Rosemary’s Baby, and many others. The horror is in the writing and the director’s vision, not in how many body parts litter the screen. Many have never seen the classic films of the genre, though Francis Ford Coppola’s
Dracula has a lot of admirers. We’ve shown
Nosferatu, Vampry, and
Interview with a Vampire and are securing permission to screen some of the original Hammer Horror films. Of course everybody has an idea about what they want to see, so we’re open to suggestions on our message board.
CK: Aside from vampire movies, what other types of films do you hope to attract to the festival?
FM: Vampire Fest accepts all films that could be classified in the context of vampire, supernatural, and the bizarre, including documentaries. We’ll accept any narrative or experimental films that emphasize the grotesque, mysterious, or desolate. Since other supernatural creatures, including werewolves, ghosts, and zombies, are interconnected with vampires, especially since they are included in current vampire fiction, Vampire Fest is also open to films of the Gothic, zombie, and the werewolf or ghost genre.
CK: How can filmmakers submit their films?
FM: The submission forms are on our site. We’re contacting every film school, production entity, and film festival. I hope the people who are fans of your blog will tell their friends about us. We want to become the biggest portal to supernatural and horror cinema on the web.
CK: What other events/activities do you hope to offer festival goers? How can potential sponsors/entertainers/etc. get involved?
FM: We're planning cocktail parties, street fairs, literary panels, and our own vampire ball. We’re hoping to eventually include a screenwriting competition and a book fair. We are trying to attract the most visible people involved in the rebuilding of the city: Emeril Lagasse, Brad Pitt, and Lil Wayne, as well as citizens of the city who open up their hearts and their homes to the effort. We’re sending packages out daily and are elated to see more and more traffic on our site.
We’d love to encourage people to get involved with us--the sky’s the limit. We’re only boxed in by negativity and limitation to our imagination. I contacted a few colleges and found potential panelists from the academic world. These are college professors who don’t see anything silly in our interest with vampires, ghosts, and werewolves. We connected with musician
Jill Tracy through you and plan to attract others to our effort, including writers, actors, musicians, professional fundraisers, and everyone in between.
CK: Any parting comments?
FM: I personally think the world of vampire and supernatural films is just opening up. The economy is in the toilet and the world needs diversion. Maybe some people see the interest in vampires as frivolous, but we don’t, and neither do those who love the genre. You see fan fiction and little vampire films culled from popular television shows all over the web. More people are familiarizing themselves with the vast amount of Gothic and vampire novels that’s available on-line, in libraries, and in their local supermarket. There has been a renaissance in the interest in vampires because of the popularity of books like
Twilight and Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries. There will be another vampire series on television this year besides
True Blood,
Vampire Diaries, and I’m thrilled about it.
CK: Thanks so much for joining me today, Francesca, and good luck with this highly intriguing event.
The 2009 Vampire Film Series & Festival will be held Halloween weekend 2009 in New Orleans, LA. For more information, please visit
www.vampirefilmfestival.com.
