Exclusive Interview with Jason Carney, Director of the Phoenix Film Festival

Flickreel talks with Jason Carney, Director of the Phoenix Film Festival:

Flickreel: MovieMaker Magazine has named the Phoenix Film Festival one of The 25 Coolest Film Festivals. What do you think has put the festival on the map?

Jason Carney: I think it’s our relationship with our filmmakers. The films and the filmmakers are who we really want to showcase at this festival. The interaction between our audience and our filmmakers is so great. I think filmmakers truly appreciate that.

Flickreel: How did you first get involved with the Phoenix Film Festival and how many years have you acted as its director?

Jason Carney: For the first year, a guy I went to high school with, Greg Hall, who’s our Feature Film Program Director, called me up and said, “Hey, wanna help out and volunteer with the film festival?” At that point I was like, “What’s a film festival?” It was 2001, so festivals were still kind of foreign. So I just came out and jumped in. It was the first year so everybody was kind of finding their way. Over the years, I gathered more responsibilities. In 2005, I became the Festival Director.

Flickreel: How do you think the Phoenix Film Festival has changed over the years and what do you think makes this year particularly special?

Jason Carney: It surely changed in size and, in a lot of ways, scope. As you grow and your event gets bigger, the quality of your film is gonna get better. It’s not like we just have a half dozen, or ten, or fifteen good films. We have A LOT of really good films. It’s such a deep group of films because so many people get excited about the event and they wanna submit their film. So the quality of the film is a big change for us over the years. We pick up accolades through MovieMaker Magazine and the word of mouth from filmmakers has grown over the last years especially.

Flickreel: What can you tells us about The International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival, which happens in conjunction with the yearly Phoenix Film Festival?

Jason Carney: During the festival, we have a theater dedicated to The International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival and late at night we’re running three or four films from that group. Our programmers are diehard horror/sci-fi folks. Danny and Brandon, who program our horror features, just do an outstanding job. These guys breathe horror movies. Mike Stackpole, who does our sci-fi competition, he’s a longtime sci-fi author. He goes to different conventions and makes appearances. These guys, their commitment, and their love of the genre, just make those film selections that much better. Monte Yazzie, who’s the director of that festival, he also curates a lot of our showcase films and he really went all out. It’s a really great group of films this year.

Flickreel: This year marks the festival’s first-annual Arts Day. How did this event come about?

Jason Carney: Over the last few years, we’ve really tried to position ourselves as part of the arts community. Film is art. Getting more and more to recognize that is a thing we’re working towards. We have good relationships with the other arts groups in town. We thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase other arts groups at our event. We have all these patrons coming to our festival. Let’s spread the good word and get the word our about other arts groups. We want to be a good neighbor as part of the arts community for sure.

Flickreel: The Phoenix Film Festival isn’t just for adults as it also includes Kid’s Day. The festival additionally features educational outreach programs for middle school and high school students. What can you tell us about those?

Jason Carney: Educational outreach we’ve been doing for – I wanna say – twelve years. That’s a really great program because you have groups coming out from all parts of the Phoenix Metro Area. It’s broken down into four days. Our first Friday of the Festival, the students get to hear from the filmmakers we bring in from around the world. We do like four different panels during the day and these filmmakers talk about how they got involved, what they like to do, what they love about filmmaking, and give a lot of good advice to the students. The following week, we have a screenwriter day. We have a lot of local film professionals come out and help mentor the students. They all break out into groups and they all write a screenplay. One of those is chosen as the winner and on the next day, the pre-production day, they’ll actually pre-produce that film. On the fourth day they’ll actually shoot that film in the theater. It’s a really cool experience. We know that every school can’t come everyday. So we’ve set it up in a way where they’ll get a great experience whether they come one day or all four.

Kids Day, which happens on Saturday of the Festival, is geared more towards ages three to twelve. There’s a lot of variety of activities. Coloring for the little ones, green screen and special effects for some of the older kids. It’s a really super fun day. After the Kids Day, we’re going to screen Shaun the Sheep.

Flickreel: What can you tell us about Industry Night?

Jason Carney: It’s kind of like prom for the local film industry without the crazy dresses and cummerbunds. Pretty much a majority of the local film community comes out that night. We have a lot of different tables set up from local film companies that advertise and promote their services. It’s a great opportunity for the local film community to come together for one night. A lot of mingling, networking, and catching up with people you haven’t seen in a while.

Flickreel: If you had to single out one seminar to attend at the festival, what would it be?

Jason Carney: We have a director’s roundtable that goes on. They all have really interesting stories to tell about things that went great and things that went poorly when making their films.

Flickreel: How many of the 150 movies being screened have you watched?

Jason Carney: I’ve watched probably 30 to 50 or so. From the time we select the film to the time the festival rolls around, my time is just CRAZY packed. So trying to catch up is kind of a challenge. That’s why we have program directors in all of our different categories. We have probably 10 different programmers and they’re a diverse group.

Flickreel: What film playing at this year’s festival are you most excited about?

Jason Carney: The film I’m most excited about is a movie called Sing Street, which is directed by John Carney, who directed Once and Begin Again. I love both of those films so much. It’s about a young Irish kid who, in order to impress a girl, creates a band. He doesn’t really have any music skills going in, but he wants to gets this girl’s attention. It’s kind of a semi-autobiographical film about John Carney’s life since he was a musician back in the day.

Flickreel: Is there anything else you would like to mention about the festival?

Jason Carney: Something cool we have going on Saturday night is that Scorpius Dance Theatre is going to be performing their show, Catwalk! We booked them for their whole show and it’s so fantastic.

The 16th Annual Phoenix Film Festival goes on from April 7-14. To learn more, check out their website here.