Editor

THE SANTA FE FILM FESTIVAL LAUNCHES FILM CENTER

Santa Fe has a new film center, operated under the auspices of the Santa Fe Film Festival.

The Film Center, a division of the festival, is occupying the theater wing of the former Cinemacafe at 1616 St. Michael’s Drive in the St. Michael’s Village West Shopping Mall. Through the generosity of Thomas Properties Ltd., which owns and manages the mall, the festival will offer year-round film programming at the 125-seat theater. Thomas Properties is still seeking a restaurateur to run the café side of the operation.
“Our festival every December has evolved into a cherished, community-wide celebration,” said Jon Bowman, executive director of the Santa Fe Film Festival, “Now, after five seasons, we have a home and a golden opportunity to bring some of that same excitement to the balance of the year.”
The festival hopes to launch the new venture toward the end of April, after completing some remodeling, painting and technical improvements in the hall. The Film Center is designed not only as an extension of the Santa Fe Film Festival, but also to expand upon the diverse range of cinematic offerings currently made available in the city by the Center for Contemporary Arts, the Jean Cocteau Cinema, the Lensic, The Screen and the UA Regal movie houses.
“It’s not our intention to duplicate the offerings of these existing commercial or non-profit enterprises,” Bowman said. “The goal is to bring something new and different to the table.”
Forrest Thomas, president of Thomas Properties Ltd., said he was pleased by the opportunity to make the Film Center possible. “Our family’s long history in Santa Fe makes us especially proud to enable this unique, intimate cinema space to become an integral part of the city’s major cultural highlights,” he said.
Marty Rosenberg, chairman of the film festival’s board of directors, stressed how the center can become a tool for economic development, by providing workshops and seminars to help New Mexicans train for careers in the film industry.
“We have built our goals on a foundation of ‘outreach’ to all segments of the community who share an interest in the economic development and artistic and creative value of movies to our state and this city,” Rosenberg said.
The center will play an assortment of different programs each week, including a local showcase, various revolving film series and feature attractions.
Stephen Rubin, who books films for the Lensic, will curate the local showcase, falling on Sunday afternoons and Tuesday nights. Besides new features, documentaries and shorts by New Mexico-based filmmakers, the series will present retrospective tributes to film artists living and working in the state.
Revolving film series will occupy berths over the weekend, as well as Wednesday and Thursday nights. Anna Darrah, acquisitions director for the Spiritual Cinema Circle, will curate one of the first series – a six-week survey of spiritual cinema.
Also forthcoming: A collection of biographies and concert films celebrating jazz and blues legends. Guest curators currently developing series include:
• Jerry Barron, former executive director of the Center for Contemporary Arts.
• Ray Hemenez, longtime assistant to director Godfrey Reggio (Koyaanisqatsi) and an expert on documentary filmmaking.
The Film Center’s feature attractions, scheduled Friday through Sunday, will consist of a broad mix of imports, American indies and documentaries. Highlights will encompass many prizewinners from other film festivals, and also invited works from the pool of more than 750 filmmakers who have participated in past editions of the Santa Fe Film Festival.
“Fewer than 10 percent of the movies made each year receive broad commercial distribution, so there’s really a surplus of titles that we’ll be able to play that would otherwise never reach the city,” Bowman said.
Over time, the Film Center also will add lectures, panel discussions, workshops and other educational programs to complement the lineup of film screenings. “This is a superb hall, so we’ll find as many ways to use it productively as we can,” Bowman said.
The Film Center, he said, will seriously entertain any and all proposals from outside groups wishing to use the theater, particularly schools, arts-oriented and non-profit organizations, and filmmakers.
Michael Stearns, who composed the scores for Baraka and numerous IMAX presentations, has been working with the festival to improve the sound quality in the hall. Many other improvements are planned in the weeks and months ahead.

For more information on the Santa Fe Film Festival, call (505) 988-5225 or visit the festival’s Web site at www.santafefilmfestival.com
Major festival sponsors include the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, The Santa Fe New Mexican, KBAC-FM, Comcast and Thomas Properties.