After 9th year, Little Rock Film Festival calls it quits

Sometimes, life catches up to you. Sometimes, that means you have to put some things aside.

That’s the story with the Little Rock Film Festival, which is calling it quits after nine years, the festival announced Sept. 30. The event had actually been growing every year, says Matt DeCample, communications director for the Little Rock Film Festival.

Essentially, it had become a victim of its own success.

The festival is “generally a break-even enterprise,” DeCample says. He says part of the problem was that money couldn’t be raised for a full-time executive director.

Aside from the executive director, a part-time job, everyone that worked for the festival was an unpaid volunteer. With its growth, the festival was going to need more sponsors and more volunteers, which can be hard to come by.

“They decided if they couldn’t put on a festival of the scale they wanted, then they wouldn’t put one up,” DeCample says.

The last festival was held May 11-17 and included not only movies, but also speakers, music and other activities.

The festival was founded in 2007 by brothers Brent and Craig Renaud, along with Owen Brainard and Jamie Moses. The brothers are filmmakers who’ve been actively involved since the beginning, but their schedules for the next two years have become more full, DeCample says.

MovieMaker has rated the Little Rock Film Festival three times as one of the top festivals worth the entry fee. The event awarded more than $10,000 in cash prizes each year, according to the festival’s website.

Aside from showcasing Arkansas art, the festival also prided itself for highlighting Little Rock’s Southern hospitality for visitors through assisting guests with airfare and downtown hotels, as well as providing drivers and free food and drinks.

“You’re either going to find the money you needed to move to the next level, or you’re going to dial it back or mothball it,” DeCample says. “The festival had a lot of good sponsors but not the big ones that would keep it going.”

Gabe Gentry, the previous executive director, had only served a year before stepping down. Like the Renaud brothers, he is also a filmmaker who just didn’t have the time to spare for the festival due to forthcoming projects.

After Gentry left, the role was unfilled.

“Not having money to pay someone made it difficult [to find someone],” DeCample says. “They definitely did not want to scale back.”

For a festival in a small city, it made waves, DeCample says.

“The Little Rock Film Festival has gotten a national reputation,” DeCample says. “The parties, especially. People have a great time, and many are going to miss it.”

While the absence of the festival will leave a void in the local film community, there will still be other events.

“There’s a lot of genre festivals in town and local film showcases,” DeCample says. “There’s smaller film festivals throughout the year.”

Two other prominent festivals in Arkansas include the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, which is set for Friday through Oct. 18, and the Bentonville Film Festival, which will be held May 3-8, 2016.

But when it comes to films that don’t have millions of dollars in studio money to pay for advertising campaigns, promotional tours and big stars, a festival is a film’s way of getting the word out.

“A lot of filmmakers in Arkansas use Little Rock as a conduit to a wider audience,” DeCample says.

Contact Joseph via email (joseph@syncweekly.com)

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