SF IndieFest founder Jeff Ross is taking over as SFFF director.
From Hitchcock’s The Birds (inspired by true events in Capitola) to The Lost Boys, Santa Cruz has had some cool but weird ties to the film world. And its entry into the film festival world was just as unusual when the Santa Cruz Film Festival debuted in 2001. Sometimes inspiring, sometimes bizarrely convoluted, sometimes hunting high and low for the right approach, the SCFF has nonetheless survived over a decade thanks to the dedication of a few pretty incredible individuals.
Now, it’s getting a makeover, with the announcement of new festival director Jeff Ross, and some other big moves—most notably, the move from May to November of next year.
The festival is also contracting from 10 to four days, finally acknowledging what many of its supporters—and some of its organizers—have been saying all along. “With a whole week and a half, we tend to get audience fatigue with that much programming,” said Festival President Elizabeth Gummere. Next year’s festival will take place Nov. 7-11.
Gummere says the goal of the new festival is to have bigger crowds and fewer, more curated screenings. She thinks the date change from spring to autumn will help direct people indoors. “This past year during the festival the weather was really perfect and it was really hard to convince people to sit in theaters,” she explained.
Called by SF Weekly “a cheerful champion of the underdog, the outsider, the gadfly, and the diehard,” Ross has a reputation for admiring and promoting the persistence of independent filmmakers. It’s very likely because he can relate to the gamble and sacrifice of putting together something independently—Ross launched SF IndieFest in 1998 with credit cards.
IndieFest includes the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, SF Documentary Festival and the horror/sci-fi festival Another Hole in the Head. These days, Ross’s festivals cumulatively draw around 25,000 people to the events annually.
Gummere calls him “incredibly qualified” and perfect for the new direction in which she hopes to move the festival. “What’s exciting about Jeff is he’s really into big events and drawing audiences. This is exactly what we’re set up to do next year. He likes to create happenings,” she said.
“The festival is widely respected in the film world and I hope the skills I bring to the organization will be a part of helping the organization grow in coming years,” Ross said in a press statement.
In the spirit of keeping Santa Cruzians involved in the event, Ross will meet with artists, filmmakers and the local community at Santa Cruz First Friday on January 4, from 6 to 8pm at NextSpace.
