A funny thing happened with NYAFF

I don't live and die by hits. I am amused by what gets read and what doesn't. To that end I am amused that for the last bunch of years my readership during NYAFF drops. When I do festivals and series readership goes up, but during NYAFF it drops - which is funny since my coverage of the festival was what helped put me on the map.  Seriously once the NYAFF coverage hits my readership goes down as if the regular readers seem not to think there is anything there for them. If I was covering the festival for hits I would have to stop doing so because I know I would not have a readership. 

This is not a knock, but more a statement that NYAFF maybe a big  festival with great PR  that gets them stars and coverage around the world, but in NYC and  in the local film community its  now insular and it's own world. I kind of saw it happening over the last few year but this year it really hit me. Most of the film fans that I know no longer talk about it, with many of my fellow writers not covering it any more. It seems  none of the regulars who went to every screening go any more.

Yes, the screenings sell out and there are butts in seats, but at the same time it feels like it is playing to a very defined audience and not so much outside of that. It's playing to its membership and I do mean its own membership and not so much the Film at Lincoln Center Membership since I did not see a lot of Lincoln Center faces at my screenings, and none at SVA. (though to be fair I could have missed them)

My personal problem that has bothered me the last few years, and one kind of made worse this year is the casual vibe the festival has towards screenings and pretty much everything. Things will happen eventually, and you just have to go with it because its summer and all you should care about is the festival and nothing else. Who cares when things start end end. (The end part is why I don't go to night screenings unlessits very important to me because I have been told numerous times  by the head of the festival the festival is made for city people who don't have to commute and for people only going to the fest). The regular people in the seats seem to be okay with that as was revealed in the fact  that people were just sort of going with the fact that screenings were starting late. The two of the comments I heard at screenings  were " I don't know why I expected them to start close to time, they never do" and the other was  from people blowing into HOPE 25 minutes after the advertised start time, before anything had started "See, I told you we didn't have to rush, they never start on time".  

Basically I no longer like the in person vibe. I no longer like that it feels like you have to be one of their people.  I dislike the casualness and the sense its being made up on the fly.

To be honest while I have enjoyed the hell out of all the films I saw for NYAFF this year, it’s honestly the best programmed since Subway Cinema left, but outside of their getting me the films to cover remotely, dealing with the festival in person was too much of an adventure.  

Every time I tried to do something in person, I felt like I’d walked into someone else’s dinner party. Ultimately the experience of covering  the fest is no longer fun. 

At this point I really am done with NYAFF as something I'm going to cover. I'm not even sure that after this year that I'll even bother with the odd film.