Rob Lee: Welcome back to The Truth in His Art, your source for conversations connecting arts, culture, and community. These are stories that matter, and I am your host, Rob Lee. Today, I'm excited to be running it back with my next guest. You may remember, he and I spoke about a year ago, and he is a visionary founder and the director of the Washington DC International Film Festival, also known as Film Fest DC.
For almost four decades, this festival, the largest and longest running annual international film festival in Washington DC, has been a cornerstone of the city's cultural landscape, presenting thousands of new films and fostering a vital connection between global cinema and the diverse audiences of our nation's capital. Please welcome back to the program, Tony Gettins. Welcome back to the podcast.
Tony Gittens: Good to see you, man. Thanks so much for having me up, Rob.
Rob Lee: Good to have you back on. It's like, you know, when I'm talking to legends, right, you know, when you shared with me earlier, you know, sort of like your experience level, I'm like, oh, man, I'm going to learn something today. So, you know, I'm looking forward to this.
And when Travis reached out, I was just really excited to tap back in with you and talk with you again. So, you know, as we're in, you know, sort of this stage, you touched on it when we had this sort of pre-show meeting, you know, the year ago we last talked. And, you know, this is year 39. And so in that year of the festival where we're at, what is the like most significant takeaway or lesson that you've learned in this year, you know, as far as like impact and the festival experience for audiences and filmmakers? Because I recall when we talked previously, you know, the festival planning for the following year starts the previous year.
Tony Gittens: Well, we had a plan. We had a plan, you know. And as they say, you know, everybody has to plan until they get hit in their mouth and then that plan goes away. Right. So, for years, we had used one theater for our main theater for our festival. It was a landmark downtown, downtown D.C., landmark East Street cinemas. And about a month out, maybe six weeks out, we got a call from them saying they were closing the theaters. And after I sort of caught my breath, we started thinking of what do we do, you know, what do we do? The first approach was to tell them, okay, we'll take over the theater. You know, if you got to leave, you got to leave. But leave the equipment there, leave it as it is, and we will come in and figure out how to make a theater work. We've had to do this one time years ago before. So, you know, we're not afraid of that.
But they wouldn't go for it. So then we said, well, let us just leave the equipment. If you leave the equipment, we'll work out with the owner of the building and we'll pay the rent from him to him to four months to trust him out the festival. And we worked with that and they said, no, that wasn't going to work. So finally, we had to accept that it was not going to work and we had to find another place. So that was the plan to go awry. I mean, there was no way in the world that we could have prepared for this. I mean, there was no way, I mean, when we thought about the things that could happen, the funding things and the other films might not be there this year and all that. But no one, not even did a flicker across our minds that the theater is going to be gone.
Right. So we found another place to go. We found another place. It's another, it's a commercial theater as well.
It's a regal theater, not far from the one that had to close. So our audience doesn't have to do a lot of shifting. And it's so far, it moved into the second phase of planning. So we solved one problem. But then that began because we're using a new venue. It began, we began to see that there were other problems, things that we hadn't had to do over at the landmark theater.
Now we have to address microphones, Wi-Fi. Where do we have our social events, our parties and little receptions? All that, which was very, we knew how to handle that over at landmark. Now we have to figure out how to handle it regal. That's where we are now.
Trying to, where I am now trying to figure out these, these, how do we approach these new issues? So the films, we got the movies. We're going to have the movie theaters.
Our team has experienced and ready to go. I don't see a lot of problems. And I have to, but we have to avoid spending money. All these problems that we have are resolvable by spending money. I don't want to do that and get us in some kind of, I don't want, not at a loss.
We're not in the financial problem, have those problems at all, but I don't want to go into wrong direction, the other direction. So that's where my mind is right now. And then there's the movies. So I'm happy to talk to you about those as well. Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Lee: And we're going to go into that in a moment, as we go further in. But yeah. And I'm hearing in that, like, despite the changes and the challenges in terms of venue, something that you couldn't forecast as you were touching on, it's like, oh, that's not even, we're not even thinking of that. And I would imagine with sort of all of these, what can happen will happen, sort of thing, putting out fires if you will.
You're kind of thinking about like, all right, how do we solve this problem? I think, you know, from a producing standpoint, like, I think like a producer, when you mentioned the thing about money, I remember this podcast I used to listen to, and it had a director and a producer, and they would share stories about making film. And the director's like, hey, I got all these great ideas and, you know, I'll throw money at it. And the producer's like, no, you won't.
Tony Gittens: Yeah, right, right, right. That's what the producers are there for, man, to keep reality and to set boundaries and guardrails. Otherwise, you can just go fly off and have great ideas.
Well, one thing that helps me in these situations is something that somebody told me years ago. They said that thoughts are not actions. Thinking is not doing. So all these wonderful ideas and thoughts and approaches to it, that is not doing it. Doing the realm, the domain of doing something. That's a different domain than thinking about it.
Not one is wrong and the other is right and all that, but it's just different. So when we started, people coming up with a lot of ideas, why don't you do this, why don't you do that, why don't you move out here once. And they all sound like great ideas, but I knew because we had approached each other venues that it was not going to work, you know. And then we just got to work. We called people. We went to see venues. We, people called us hearing about our issues.
As I said, we tried to take over the theater that that went. I don't know if we were close, but there was a lot of thinking going on there, thinking and talking and and very few people willing to to do. So that that sort of realization helps me in the midst of these because internally I'll get very concerned and then I'll say, well, that's not doing any good. That's just not that sort of stuff going on in my head. That's not I got to get on the phone, get on my emails, call some friends. Yeah. That results itself.
Rob Lee: And I think and thank you for sharing that because it's a thing that's a good, good point. That sort of like ideas and taking and taking from that what's doable. Like, you know, that as I shared as far as, you know, doing this podcast, I try to think about like, all right, what can I get done? What would I like to get done? Maybe give that as time and space, but what can I get done? Cause she flee and I, and I'm hearing that in, in some of the things you touched on in terms of accessibility, right?
That's, that's a thing. That's a hallmark of, you know, the festival with accessibility and sort of sorting out what this and what you're doing currently, as far as the new venue, like, how is that going to meet our needs? And that's why I was so such a challenge and making those offers to stay at the previous venue, cause like this serves our needs. All right.
That's not doable. How can we, despite your best efforts, how can we make this sort of similar experience for the film goers and for the folks involved to still put on the festival, but at a different venue, same experience?
Tony Gittens: Well, that point you just made is also key that we don't put on the festival for us. We put on the festival for a community in Washington and visitors who come to Washington, that the audience, that's who we put the festival on for. And I, and I say, thinking about where we could, could go, we had some options and some of the options weren't bad, but for our audience, it just wouldn't work.
You know, it wouldn't work. And always keeping that in mind and asking myself, well, you know, why are we doing this? You know, it's for the people we serve out there.
Yeah. We've had experiences where people have come to our festival and have seen a film and then you see them walking down the street or gathering some, and if I saw that film, you know, five years ago and it changed my life and the way I was thinking about this and I decided I was going to go to film school and you never know that. And, you know, you just wanted so happy that the film was up there on the screen. That it's actually made it because no one will ever know what it took. You get up on that screen. They just assume, you know, people will say, man, you got a great job.
All you do is go around and see films. No, no, that's, that's, that's like, not even half of what it takes to get it up there. You know, you're dealing with outside of the money thing. You got to have the money thing. I mean, they're not giving us this, this venue. We got to have the money to pay them significant amount of rent for the time that we're going to be there. And that we got to pay that staff.
We got rental on the films. You got all that. So when you get by that, you know, you got a lot to do. You got, you got to get, you got to go to the distributors. Like there'll be a film.
It's probably more than you want to know. No, please, please. You got to go to the, you say, oh, okay. I see that's this film. Either I go and see it at another film festival or somebody has to.
That's it to us. I, we want this film. Step one, step two, who has this film that you can give you the right to show it in your festival? Three, can you get it? Will they give it to you? You know, will they give it to you?
Do they want so much money? The range is anywhere from, I think the cheapest one is 400, but that's enough. But dollars. But 12, I think the most expensive one this year is $1,250 that we had to pay for the rights to show this film twice. Right. And there's some, most of the time I'll negotiate.
You know, I don't care what they say. I'm going to say we, we could only pay, but some more, you know, and that goes back. So you got to learn how to be a rug salesman in the market.
Cause otherwise they will be crazy. That's the last 2000 dollars. Oh man. No. And you can't get angry. You don't get angry with them. You know, no, we can't do that. We're a small festival, blah, blah, blah, send it out. Cause what they're really doing, they're sending out a fueler to see if you're a fool or not. But someone is going to pay that price for it. You know, and you got to come back to them and say, no, no. And if they know that you're tough, that's not going to be a long thing.
Cause they got to decide whether they're going to give it to you for maybe two, 300 year old off for 500 year old off are not our keep it and they don't get any money. So it's a pleasant kind of back and forth, back and forth thing until I think only once. I can't think about maybe that.
No. And then when you don't, they don't hear from you. Cause so you just play, just the angle, I'm not going to respond. Let them sit there and stew in this for a little while. If they come back to you, then you know, if they come back to you, you know, you've got them, you've got them. You know, they say, well, where are we with this? They're telling you, okay, I'm willing to compromise. If they don't come back to you, you got to decide, do you really want it?
And then you got to go back to them. You decide how much do I really want to pay for this? And so that ain't no film is up on the wall yet. And that's for every one of the films that you see up there. You got to go through it. Yeah. And on and on and on, man.
Rob Lee: And I, and we'll, we're going to talk about programming specifically in a moment.
Tony Gittens: I'm right. Most of the things the interviews I do about the program, I'm happy to talk about how we do it.
Rob Lee: No, no. And that, that helps me a lot because like, I keep having this itch of putting on like sort of small screening series in Baltimore. So some of the stuff that you've described, I'm like, I guess playing hardball a little bit or, yeah.
Tony Gittens: And when you hit, when you hit that, that, that wall, you got to know you're not alone. You are not a, the universe is not coming down and persecuting you just by yourself. That said, okay, I will get Rob.
I will get it. No, it's the nature of what you do. Once you step out to do something, you open yourself up to a whole lot of possibilities and problems. If you stay back and you don't do it, you won't have those problems. You won't have, cause you're not in the game. You're not on the field.
Yeah. You won't have them. It's the fact that you stepped out is why you have it.
And that says something about you and who you are. Don't be surprised when they show up. They will show up. And what do you do? Then the thing is that you got to be trained. I don't, I don't, I keep going on, but I keep training and trying to understand how to do this stuff. Sure. Yeah.
Rob Lee: It, it, it makes sense though. Like going, going to back to one of the things that, that you'd mentioned earlier, as far as like having the experience through the team, you know, as far as we've kind of dealt with this before, we've dealt with that you're able to use that magic word that we like so much these days to pivot, to be able to, and at the end of the day, still be able to put on, you know, a strong festival. And, you know, I've been involved with other things that like, you know, I've had like festivals here in Baltimore that it's like, Hey, we had to pause this for a year because we didn't have a venue and this is a milestone year.
We don't want to have, let's say our 25th anniversary and it'd be online or it'd be sort of less than what the standard is. So getting creative and figuring it out amidst all of the background stuff that goes into it that often isn't seen. It's just like, it's like a movie on the screen yet.
Tony Gittens: That's all they see that you just went and got and put it up there. No, no, but that's what you say is true. And the thing is that it's sort of like the bigger problem you have, it means you're doing a bigger thing. Decide if you're doing a little thing, you're going to get little problems.
If you're doing something else that are going to have impact and really serve people and possibly change some lives, you're going to have pushback. The universe doesn't care whether we have to fill festival or not. Universe is rolling along. You know, it don't care one way or another.
Rob Lee: You know, that's the thing I've said to more people and I'm going to move into this next question, but that's the thing that I've said to people recently when, you know, because a lot of the stuff in this season, as I'm talking with guests that have been on, that's the motivation for this season. I'm asking about insights and sort of what the journey is and, you know, in insights around sort of the, the nuts and bolts, how does this come to fruition? And I keep arriving to, no one's asking us to do any of these things. These things don't have to happen. My podcast doesn't have to happen.
You're at the film festival doesn't have to happen, but the effort that we put in to make it happen is so key and we're serving as you touched on sort of an audience and people who are looking for it, but no one's asking for it.
Tony Gittens: No, no, no, they're not, they're not. You're giving them something they don't know, didn't know that they needed and wanted. Uh, that is true. That is true. And, uh, it's a, I guess once you get through it, once the first time, after we did it the first time, um, and then people came up and said, wow, this is really great. You got to do it again. We had no intention of doing it a second time, but because people come up and seem that they wanted, but I mean, so, so I don't, I don't try not to get too philosophical about this thing, but if the universe is a certain way and what you want to do, what you want to do is to make it better. Sure.
You want to make the universe better. And I hate to be grandiose on me. I can go off on this a long time, but I've thought about it and talk to other people about these things who've done big things, you know, and they always have problems.
If you get them and you talk, you talked about somebody, talked to anybody who's made a feature film, they can sit down and tell you the problems that they've had in making the film and these are wealthy people. And you have, they have another part of their life problem, but you want to get some problems, you want to get some pushback because the universe don't care. It doesn't care. The universe don't care. You, we are trying, you are trying to make it better.
You try and you got, and we have a choice. I'm sorry. It's the last thing on this. You got a choice. You know, you can, I can sit back and say, God, there, I don't really want to deal with this today.
Where did this come from? All of a sudden I got to find some mics and wifi, you know, and I can go do it, but you know, and let me sit down here and watch TV. You know, I guess it, and that's a choice. It's a choice that we have to make. Now we, you have made a choice to do with your time, with your life, with your energy, with your liveliness on this, on this planet for the time that you and I have it. You, you, you said, I'm going to do it this way. I'm going to spend my time putting on this podcast, talking to people, reaching out, you know, giving people insights on what goes on in the world around them.
I'm going to do that. I'm going to spend my time and it's not going to be particularly easy to do. And I'm going to run into some problems and all that, but that's, that's, I'm not going to spend my life. I'm not going to spend, sit there and watch TV all day. You know, and then the TV keeps calling you. Keeps TV. Keeps calling me. You know, I can keep calling me. You know, wow, let me sit down here. What did they do over Judge Judy?
Rob Lee: That's kind of it. Come on over here. So it's sitting in front of me and it's so true. And I think in terms of the challenges, right? Like, you know, there's the other one that, that's sitting there, right? That especially it's very pointed because the festival is in DC. And as I was sharing earlier, we get, before we got started, I've spent a lot of time down there. My, my birthday is an auguration day.
Tony Gittens: Oh, yeah. You will. Yeah. Well, I was there later that week and it was biggest news. It's like not Rob 40. It's just like, this is.
Rob Lee: And so, but so with it, this, this sort of regime, diversity and DEI efforts to face restriction and even divestment, like, you know, arts and culture for, for, for lack of better term, it's been, you know, defunded.
It's been under attack in many ways and sort of film fest DC is in the capital as I touched on and it remains committed to sort of accessible international stories and beyond sort of that broad reach. What continually personally motivates you for this commitment amid these, these challenges, especially in this current climate.
Tony Gittens: All right. This goes deeper than I think you want me to bother with. My parents came from Barbados from the West Indies and neither one, I don't think either one got out of high school and they made, came to United States. They made their way and they was a community of West Indian, Barbadian people there and I grew up in that.
Right. So while they were being immigrant. I was going to school and I was immediately immersed. I was born here. I was born into this culture. I immersed into this American culture. I was learning things. I was seeing things. I wanted to show them these things. They could not get what it is I was doing.
They could not get it. I remember hearing some music, some jazz. I really get excited and show it to my father. They said it was okay. Somehow they said it was nothing that we did together where it was a shared kind of wow. They lived in their culture and they came from that. I was coming from this other thing. I have always wanted, when I thought about this, the same thing, why would I wind up here?
I want to show people things that I have seen, that I think they would also be excited about. They would be moved. They would touch their emotions in some way.
Maybe in a subconscious way, that is what drives me. I want to say, man, look at this. Look at this.
Wow. There are some friends when I talk about talking to movies with them, it is a different conversation that I have with other people. There are some films that I think most people would not like at all. But there was one in Toronto and myself and some other movie friends saw it.
That is what we talked about. Wow, this is the best film in the whole festival. We are showing a film in this festival called The Last Breath. It is about death. It is about death, people dying.
Not in murders and wars and things, but yes, for some reason, some illness or by choice or something. It is about death. When I saw it, I said, not a lot of people are going to want to see this film. I think I have never seen anything dealing with death this way. Maybe there is going to be one or two people in the audience that are going to see it and get it.
I give myself one of those every year. I know it is not... Somebody... We have chosen to show this film. This is the last thing I want to tell you.
I keep going on and on and on. We used to do a program for seniors where we bussed seniors from senior centers and we brought them to places like the Kennedy Center or a movie theater. We would show them films that were popular when they were younger. We showed them musicals and things that were popular in the 40s, the 50s, Harry Bell, Fontaine, those kinds of things that this generation wouldn't know, but that generation knew. We would bus them over.
We had to raise money to pay the buses to bring them over. They come to the theater. We did it one time and they were over the Avalon, which is a big independent theater here in D.C. They were sitting there and they were watching this film. I can't remember what it was like.
It was something with Louis Armstrong or something that we were showing. I had to leave. It was in the afternoon. I had to leave to go to another spot. As I was leaving, I looked around and I saw this light in the audience.
I said, man, no. Somebody's doing... I don't know what they're doing, but they got to turn off this light because it's distracting these other people around them. I don't want to play bad guy, but I walk around and I see this guy on his knees with a flashlight and there are people who are sitting on the front row and this row. He's on his knees and somebody's holding the flashlight and he's signing the film because they can't hear it.
Oh. They can't hear it. He's on his knees and he's signing the film and they're watching him and looking at the film. I always remember that incident as the reason I do the film festival. That is why because they wouldn't have seen the film. That guy knew what his humanity towards these people they couldn't hear, but he was going to get on his knees and do his best.
They were there doing it because we decided that we were going to bring him and them to this movie. I remember that. I remember that clearly. I said, oh, that's why. That's why.
Rob Lee: That's accessibility in practice and giving that access like we all want to in some way, shape or form be connected, especially like now and touching on going to the senior homes and bringing folks there to see movies from their youth and be able to reengage with that stuff and maybe reengage and see it in a different way. That's one of the reasons why I like revival series so much when it's like, hey, I've never seen this movie on a big screen like Back to the Future or have you. That came out the year I was born and the opportunity presented itself to watch it in a theater on a big screen. I was like, I've only seen this on a smaller format. Going there and being able to experience that movie with other people, the movie is the movie.
I remember the movie, right? But that experience is now different. You're remarking on an example where those intersections are coming there. The accessibility piece, but also just bringing movies and bringing film to people to either reintroduce it or introduce it for the first time. That's great. When I first started doing this,
Tony Gittens: we used to take films to prisons. My thing was people don't need to come to a movie theater all the way to a movie theater. For some people, it's not accessible, as you put it, to see a movie. We used to take our projectors back in the day, projectors and films, and take them, arrange to go in to show them to their assembly of these men in this prison, local prison, now closed, Lorden. We go out there and we do that. We used to take it to schools, take the projector, take the children's films, the black Africans with children, take them to schools and show them in the classrooms.
Senior citizens, so we would take the films there. And nobody was, no. No. No.
No. You used to travel with a projector in the trunk of my car, and at the drop of a hat, I'm ready to show some movies. I've never made a movie in my life, have no attention to do it. But that's what, again, when I looked at why I was doing it, it was because they were like my parents. They couldn't get it, and I'm going to make sure somebody gets it. I love that.
Rob Lee: So I want to switch gears a little bit into sort of this year's programming. And I see that there's a, at the festival, if I remember correctly, the festival is starting off with the marching band for opening night, and it's at the French Embassy.
Yeah. What was the thinking there, using that particular film to set the tone, really, to open things up, and also what was the thinking in comparing and pairing with an embassy?
Tony Gittens: Well, we have had our opening night at the Embassy of France, I think just like the third or fourth year. And it's, the embassy's here, but it's another effort to bring people together, that the embassies are here, most Washingtonians have little or no interaction with them. They're here, there's an international community, and then there are the people, but we who work here, then it's the federal community, which is the whole other conversation.
And I wanted to try a way to bring those communities together. And the French Embassy, outside of being very great and warm and welcoming people wanting Washingtonians to come to the embassy, so they're not just isolated up there on the River Road where their embassy is. But also, they have the largest and best equipped auditorium of all the embassies. Of all 300 people, they got modern equipment. They got, it's a nice environment to have socially been after the film or before the film.
So that's what we've used that. And well, for the French Embassy, we got to show a French film. So we went through the French films that we had on our list, and this was, we thought, the most appropriate.
There's some humor there, but it's a great ending to the film. It's, it was a hit. It was a hit in France. And we thought it was a film that would appeal to a general audience. And you put all that together and you have a very nice event and a nice spot and people are happy to be there. It's a good way to kick off the festival. Amazing.
Rob Lee: And I, you know, there was one time like last year where I just had a, I had like a free day and I just walked around looking at the different embassies, looking at the architecture and just thinking like, you know, this is right here. And I was just like, I need to make it a point to get over here and just check out these spaces.
Maybe I'll learn something. Maybe I'll, and I did, you know, I would pull up the Google, you know, on the phone and like, so when was this embassy created? What happened there? So when I saw that in the press release for the film, I was just like, yeah, I definitely want to ask about their.
Tony Gittens: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're good people. They work very well with us. They're very generous with their time. And, you know, so it's worked and we hope that it will work again in the future.
Rob Lee: So I got, I got two more questions I want to, I want to hit you with, you know, I want to talk a bit about like features that are being highlighted. I see reading Lolita in Tehran and Frieda's case. They both sound intriguing. They both have like their, their appeals. What makes them stand out in this year's like selection and what impact do you feel they may have or what was the selection process for those, those two films?
Tony Gittens: Well, we see, we see a lot of films. I mean, we maintain a database of the films that we've seen as a team. There are about three of us who pulled us together.
I did a lot of the programming with me having the final say, just for somebody has that final say. It's no magic insight and knowledge about it. But Lolita was, is based on a very popular novel that was the best seller here in the United States. And they finally made a film based on this novel. The novel is about the stories about, about this teacher. And she's an English teacher teaching young women in Tehran. And then it gets very, gets very strict in Tehran and she wants to continue to teach.
And so they gather there and she reads Lolita, which is a, well, it's an interesting book. Yeah. I think something that I'm not a Muslim.
I'm not from Tehran and I don't know, but it was, it was something that was banned and they didn't want people to read it. But she defied that. And so she read the book and the book is based on the actual experience of a woman who we're bringing to the event. Wow. So we're, we're showing the film and she'll be there to talk about her book and the making of the film.
It's the kind of thing that we could do that we enjoy doing. The other film, Frida, I think we have the American premiere of that. It was an interesting take on a, not a murder mystery, because you know who did it. It's about a woman. I forgot where it is.
It's a Brantzaberd, Germany. It's, I can't really recall, who kills her children. So people know that she killed the children. And their argument is my husband drove me to it and that the, the, the way that men were treating women in, during that time in that place was driving them to the point that their children became such a burden that they felt it was better off to kill the children. And that was their argument in court.
Wow. And they hit, you know, was she right? And that the reason the children got killed was because the husband was treating their mother so badly or not. I won't tell you how it turns out, but I thought it was an interesting take on this subject because you know, it raises a whole different thing of more than who done it.
It was why they did it and what, and was, was she justifiable in a social way, social justice way in doing it or not. So place it out and the acting is very good. That's the reason we picked those two. We thought they'd be provocative enough to, to attract an audience here. No one else is showing these films, only us.
Rob Lee: That's great to get a peek behind the curtain and methodology. So I got this one last question that I want to ask you. And I got a couple sort of rapid fire fun questions I want to ask, but these, these two mother's, this last one, this last sort of real question I want to ask you is about the documentary lineup and, you know, with titles like The Last Republican and the local film, Salad Days, between, you know, any of the documentaries, I think, you know, we love a documentary these days, is Sparks Conversation. What conversations are you hoping to, to spark and to generate through just the line up, you know, of the strong documentary films?
Tony Gittens: Well, the two specific ones you asked about are in general. Well, the, the Last Republican is about a woman, a flannish man, his name. I can't remember his name now, but he has, he's a congressman in the Congress and he is a Republican who, his name is Adam Kislejit. I'm terrible with names. Adam Kislejit.
Ken Jingen. So he's a, I'm sorry that I destroyed the names and destroyed this point, but so he's a Republican congressman and he, this is before the election and he decides that he's getting out. He's tried to talk to his people, the Republicans are telling them they might be going in the wrong direction and he is, he wants to get out. So you watch him get out and this bond that he's developed between himself and the filmmaker where he talks about his life and how he became a Republican, which he was forever, but now it's time that he might look another way. And we thought it was timely, obviously, so we thought it was timely, it raised some issues, the films made before the election, but it raised some issues.
And so we thought that it was good to show that. And then the other one you mentioned was salad day. Salad days is about punk. I'm not a big punk guy, but it's about the history of punk in Washington, DC, which when punk was happening, what is that, the 70s or 80s or something, that DC had its own record company, had its own bands, major bands that came out, punk bands that came out of DC.
And it talks about what it was like in the people who were involved and how DC fit into this bigger, mainly primarily New York, Los Angeles kind of punk thing. And so we thought it's a bit of history. We thought we'd bring it back to people who, knowing care about that, give them something to enjoy themselves with. Music is, if you're a punk person, from what I can tell, people tell me it's good.
Rob Lee: Look, you just sold a ticket. I'm looking forward to both. I think timely, provocative, and definitely conversation starters. And I love being able to tap back into history. So this is good. It sounds like a really, really strong foray of programming for the 39th installment. So that's kind of sort of the main bit for the main questions here. So I want to hit you with just two quick questions as we close out here in these final moments. So again, that theme of history, right? You know, we're coming up on year 40, you know, next year is year 40.
I'm sure you're already thinking through what things are going to look like. So in the history, what is one tradition or maybe superstition that you've developed leading into a festival?
Tony Gittens: Superstition? No, I don't think I have any of those. I don't think I have any of those. We sort of do what needs to be done. Nothing that. No, I can't I can't think of any. I'm not a particularly superstitious person myself at all.
And I can't think of any superstition. We I mean, there's. No, no, I mean, we've done it enough to know what to do. The question is, can we do it? But we know what to do. And when something like the movie theater closes down. We still know what we got to do, but we got to change how we do it. Because how we do it is impossible. It's gone. But I can't think of any superstition. Sorry, I can't help there.
Rob Lee: No, no, you're good. I was wondering if it was one of those like I always wear black when the Fed.
Tony Gittens: No, no. I mean, I tend to wear black because I don't want to spend all this time figuring out what I'm going to wear. So, you know, 90% of my wardrobe is black. But I mean, I wear the black shirt and black hat.
Rob Lee: So I guess. Yeah, right. You know, it works. So I bother, you know, for me, it's funny. Yeah, right. I guess that's the case with me as well. You know, I just forget to wear it a lot because we get dirty. Nobody sees the dirt.
Rob Lee: Yeah, but there's no powdered doughnuts or nothing like that. Otherwise, it's just like, I got to change.
Tony Gittens: Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you on that. But I can't think of any superstitions. No, I don't know what other people say. But what does they have to do around it?
Rob Lee: No, that's fine. That's cool. I mean, knowing what you have to do and just executing, that's good. And I think that that's timing with it. So here's the sort of second one. So, you know, turning 40 next year will have you. And, you know, when we have those milestones, every year, it's a milestone in my brain.
But when you have like a zero or five or something, people get really like, yeah, we got to do a big, big. So what is one thing in, you know, sort of, you know, this festival that you're hoping, you know, kind of helps at the stage leading into next year? Like what is one thing that you're hoping that comes out of this year's festival going into year 40?
Tony Gittens: Stability with venue. Whether we can go back to Regal. At RegalWorks, we say, wow, it's ill work. And we can go back and we don't have to worry about that being a big issue. Oh, yeah.
That's the one thing that will settle. That really threw us. It put us behind for a couple of weeks, even though we caught up because we saw it coming. So we did things to help. But it made things just have changed our time when we're going to, we'll open up later than we thought one by week. But it, it threw us. So I'm hoping we don't have to go through that again.
But I know there'll be something every year. I can sit here now. I can sit here now. There's not, there's not a year when I say, I'm never doing this again. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing, I don't need to do it. There's never, there's something that comes up.
Rob Lee: That might be the tradition. There's always something that comes up every year.
Tony Gittens: Maybe I could read your tradition.
Rob Lee: No, I think, I think stability is really important and having sort of, you know, we play with this idea of home and having sort of, this is the home of the festival and having that continue.
I think, you know, being able to check that off and think about whatever the other new thing is going to be, you know, as far as issues. That's, that at least cost that one off the list. So that's really important.
Tony Gittens: And the other thing, the other thing is, I'm glad we have this conversation because I've forgotten this. It's to always do it with joy. Make sure, make sure that running through the festival is a sense of humor. There's some joy seeing old friends, you know, not getting taken down by the breakdowns and the things that don't work. But what I feel like I can last, that I know we're okay.
And the people around me, you know, the people who work with me, you know, they're happy people as well. And I almost forgot that. I got all sucked up into the microphones and Wi-Fi. And we'll deal with that.
Rob Lee: It's important. It's important. And thank you for saying that because I think when we're doing these things, whatever it might be, we get so caught up in, as you said, the Wi-Fi. Whatever the thing is, and you forget the why, the reasoning, the like, what I'm doing is this is the part of all of this that I enjoy. I'm able to talk with someone, reconnect, chat. So all of the stuff that goes into some of these conversations, the interviews, sort of the internet's funky, or I said a question that didn't quite work or whatever the thing is, it's just like, yeah, be in this moment and be in this conversation. And you enjoy it.
And it's just like, hey, you know, this is probably the highlight of my week or someone's week, and it goes really well. There's two things we want to do as we close out here. One, I just want to thank you for coming back onto the podcast. This has been a treat. And two, I want you to share any final things you want to share, website or anything along those lines for folks to stay up to date on the festival. So the floor is yours.
Tony Gittens: Well, as you mentioned, the website, people should go to our website, filmfestdc.org. That's where all of the information about the festival is. Anything that changes very rarely does it, but any notice or something. But all the information about the films, the times, the cost, we're inexpensive, 14 bucks. So that's what I'd like people to know, to follow up with the conversation and anything to do with the festival.
Rob Lee: And there you have it, folks. I want to again thank Tony Gintens from the Washington, D.C. International Film Festival, Filmfest D.C. for coming back onto the program and catching us up for Year 39 of the Filmfest.
So for Tony, I am broadly saying that there's art, culture and community. In and around your neck of the woods, you just have to look for it.
