Apparently you can't kill a tardigrade.
These nearly microscopic creatures--they can be as much as a millimeter long--live in Antarctic ice and lightless trenches at the bottom of the sea. They live on Himalayan mountaintops. They can survive temperatures of more than 300 degrees below zero for a year. They can withstand atmospheric pressures 600 times higher than what they typically encounter on earth. In 2007 European scientists shot a bunch of them into space, and two-thirds of them came back alive, having survived the double jeopardy of solar radiation and an oxygen-deprived vacuum.
Tardigrades, colloquially known as "water bears," are enjoying a fashionable vogue these days. They're the stars and mascots of the American Museum of Natural History's exhibit Life at the Limits, which will be going on through January. Stuffed toys are on offer, children's books have been written. (It's not hard to see why; in some photos they look like tiny bears. In others they just look like what you'd expect a nearly immortal eight-legged dust mite to look like--a horrible translucent nightmare bug.)
We checked in on the tardigrades when we were in New York last week for the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. That's where I saw a couple of near-great movies (Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart and Todd Haynes' Carol) and talked to a lot of New York-based film journalists while standing on line. Mostly I was telling them about Arkansas and the small but undeniably strong film culture that has developed here over the past 20 years or so.
I told them about the local art cinema and about the vitality of the digital film programs at Arkansas colleges. I talked about the quality of movies that are being made here and how we'd already produced a number of talented technicians and artists who were sure to be heard from in the not-too-distant future. And I told them about the Little Rock Film Festival.
I told them they should try to come, that they should encourage their filmmaking friends to submit movies to the festival. I told them that while I love New York's Tribeca Film Festival, Little Rock's programming over the past couple of years has been stronger. I told them that pound-for-pound it was probably the best film festival in the country.
And I believed all that.
So when, about 18 hours after we got home, we found out that the Little Rock Film Festival had decided not to continue, I was shocked. I won't try to spin it: I was caught completely by surprise.
In retrospect, I knew about some of the difficulties they were having but thought they were minor. At this year's festival, a key player from the beginning had told me 2015 would be his last festival. I knew the executive director, Gabe Gentry, had resigned, but I understood it had been for reasons unrelated to the festival. I often wondered how a relatively small group of folks had the sheer psychic energy to organize and program what seemed an increasingly ambitious and complicated event, but I don't understand the rules of cricket or how hummingbirds hang in the air, either. So I didn't think too much about it.
And now I feel sad about losing it because, selfishly, it was a great thing. I looked forward to it. For the past nine years, it's been a real boon to our little city, to our little state. I think I'll recuse myself from commenting on the autopsy, or speculating about the "real reasons" it has shut down. I think it's highly likely that it just became very hard to pull off every year. I think it's highly likely people decided to rake back some of the emotional capital they'd expended on behalf of the festival, to apply it to other more fiscally rewarding endeavors.
It might be possible to point out what seem in retrospect missteps, or to identify lost opportunities, but the proper attitude is that we ought to be grateful for having what we had for as long as we had it. The Little Rock Film Festival helped galvanize a local film community. It facilitated connections. It was a great party.
And while I may be in denial, I'm not willing to say it is dead.
Maybe someone--or some corporate entity--with deep pockets will step forward to revive it. Maybe some kids will find a way to do something on a smaller scale.
We only need to look to the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival for hope. A few years ago that festival was moribund. I wouldn't have bet lunch money on its survival. But now under the stewardship of Courtney Pledger, Susan Altrui and the Arkansas Motion Picture Institute, it's thriving. It's solvent and doing wonderful work. I'm anticipating spending the next couple of weekends in Hot Springs--it's going to be great.
I ran into a handful of veterans of the Little Rock at First Thursday in Hillcrest the other night. They were disappointed, but not defeated. They will survive.
Nobody owes us a film festival. Like most things, we get the sort of community we deserve. Artists will find ways to make art, even in cultural deserts. Maybe the Little Rock Film Festival has, like a tardigrade, just slipped into a low-metabolic state designed to endure stressful environmental conditions--from which someday it will emerge.
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Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@arkansasonline.com and read his blog at blooddirtandangels.com.
Editorial on 10/06/2015