Maxine Philavong Photo
Michael Moore and Gorman Bechard at Modern during last year’s festival
Last year at this time New Haven Documentary Film Festival, or NHDocs, was getting ready to fill screens for 10 days — from May 30 to June 9 — with over 100 films from all over the world, including New Haven. This year the festival’s organizers find themselves moving their seventh festival to the end of the summer, adapting and offering more viewing options as the world and their city deal with the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting restrictions.
“We moved the festival to Aug. 18 to 23,” said Gorman Bechard, filmmaker and executive director of NHDocs. “We had to, unless we went completely online, and that’s not special right now. If somehow we can still get people there in person, that’s much better.”
While some screenings will be moved online, Bechard also hopes to get more larger venues involved and do outdoor screenings, as well keep some degree of interaction between the filmmakers and their audiences.
“There is an exchange and a relationship between the filmmaker and the audience that’s really unique,” added Katherine Kowalczyk, director of NHDocs. Their hope is to preserve that while adapting to the times.
“The majority of venues are still on board,” said Bechard. “We have a lot of great venues we will rely on. It’s more about asking the question, ‘what are we allowed to do?’ like we are doing in all of our lives right now.”
“It’s like a bowl of Jell-O: we have a general idea but it hasn’t gelled yet,” said Kowalczyk. “We will have a festival and some will definitely be in person. Jell-O looks like whatever you put it in. We don’t know what we’re putting it in yet.”
“The stuff is amazing, the stuff we have to put in,” said Bechard, noting there were “a ridiculous amount of great films this year.”
“The quality and variety of subject matter is really wonderful,” said Kowalczyk. “There’s something interesting for everyone, no matter what age you are.”
“And lots of fun local stuff” added Bechard.
Bechard noted that security is an ongoing concern when showing films on the internet. “I have to respect any filmmaker who doesn’t want to put their film online,” he said — though he has recently used this option with his two most recent films.
Seniors: A Dogumentary — a film directed by Bechard, who says its basic premise is “old dogs are cool” — had its world premiere in Nashville on March 5, “a week before this all started,” he said. “I was lucky. It worked out perfectly.”
An online live screening of the film followed by a live Q&A with Bechard on May 2 sold out. He is hoping to replicate that success with a similar event for his Pizza: A Love Story.
“I had so many screenings cancelled throughout the mid-Atlantic states and West Coast,” said Bechard.
Karen Ponzio Photo
Fred Hersch performing after the screening of his documentary at last year’s festival
Scheduled for this Saturday, May 16, the Pizza online premiere will have a Q&A afterwards with the film’s three producers — Bechard, Dean Falcone, and Colin Caplan — and a little something special added. Each one is going to be eating a pie from one of the “Holy Trinity” of pizzas. Bechard will have Modern, while it’ll be Sally’s for Falcone and Pepe’s for Caplan.
Bechard has seen enough screenings of his film to know how to do it right. “I told my friends [who haven’t seen it], ‘before the movie starts order your favorite pie or you’ll be dying in a half an hour.’”
Tickets for the event can be ordered through Eventbrite, which then gets the ticketholder links to the website to watch the film and then the Q&A that follows on Zoom. Tickets are available up to an hour before on Saturday. This will be the final time to see the film before Pizza and Seniors both have their premieres on DVD and pay-per-view on September 29.
NHDocs has found another way to support the city and its local filmmakers in the form of a new challenge — this one to students — to convey their current situations through film. The Student Quarantine Film Challenge, created by Lindsey Thompson, educational director of NHDocs, offers an option to Connecticut’s middle school, high school and college students “who were personally making films or films for courses but couldn’t finish them,” said Bechard. Those who sign up through the NHDocs website are then partnered with filmmakers and receive three free sessions, in which they are assisted in making a five minute film “with whatever equipment they have.”
Bechard said they have 12 or 13 students on board thus far and they are cutting it off at 50. He himself is one of the filmmakers involved. “I jumped on an obvious one about a dog,” he said with a laugh. “I pulled rank.”
He noted that the tales being told thus far are everything “from personal stories to what their families are doing. They just want to show what they’ve done.”
It is free for students, who just need to fill out the form on the website, but Bechard emphasized that anyone who applies needs to fill out and submit the form and wait to hear from someone at NHDocs before submitting any films. Bechard also noted that if students don’t want to do this challenge they can still submit their films they’ve already made for free to the NHDocs festival. The festival’s student competition is sponsored by the CT Department of Film, TV and Digital Media and is a regular part of the yearly festival.
Although changes need to be made to the festival this year, the organizers hope to continue their tradition of bringing a wide variety of documentaries to the city, even some that have gone on to gain the national spotlight — like Circus of Books, which was shown as part of last year’s festival and recently became a hit on Netflix.
Bechard declared Circus of Books to be his “personal favorite” last year. “It was fun and moving. It had emotional moments. It was the perfect doc. It’s just a great film. It doesn’t feel at any time like a documentary.”
“It was fun, in my top three,” said Kowalczyk. “It’s such a great glimpse of a family, yet also [a story about how they] helped create a safe place for the LGBT community.”
Kowalczyk promised more of the same for the 2020 festival. “The films this year are some sweet intimate looks, some that are wow, and even fun ones.”
One film that has been announced already is Joaquin Phoenix’s The Animal People, sponsored by Compassionfest. Phoenix’s film, according to Kowalcyzk, follows seven people over a decade working in animal activism. That film is currently scheduled at The State House — where Circus of Books was shown last year — for Sunday, August 23.
Other possible venues this year include Cafe Nine and the New Haven Free Public Library, but of course until more is known about how and when many venues and businesses will open, and to what capacity, Bechard and Kowalczyk are continuing to explore all of their options, including outdoor screenings.
“We want people to be safe and have a good night,” said Kowalczyk, “Maybe sitting outside, together apart. August looks like our best luck at a sweet spot, with things calming down and students going back to school…. We still want this to be something where the public joins us and is involved with it.”
“And if there are people who are like, ‘hey, I have a great outdoor space,’ give us a call,” implored Bechard.
“We want to show great films and do it safely: safety first,” Bechard continued. “We want to help bring New Haven to life. Every city will need all the help it can get.”
Kowalczyk agreed. “We want everyone to come out and come back to New Haven. It’s walkable, it’s accessible, and it has all the restaurants and shops.”
NHDocs is Connecticut’s only documentary film festival, and the organizers feel a responsibility, not unlike most documentary filmmakers themselves, to keep pressing forth to realize their vision and share it with others.
“We’re going to get through this” said Bechard. “We’re going to alleviate the boredom.”
For more information about the festival and/or the student challenge, please visit the NHDocs website. To purchase tickets to the Pizza movie event, please visit the Eventbrite page