Thursday, June 12, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Cover story: The Sundance kid strikes back

CineVegas programmer rides into town with a new gang of gifted, indie-flick renegades

By Anthony Allison

First the good news, film fans. The Sundance kid is back in town. Nah, not that one. Once, the Electric Horseman rode a stallion right across the Caesars Palace gaming floor. But nowadays Butch Cassidy's old pardner Robert Redford barely bothers to mosey into Park City, Utah, every January for a token visit to bestow his godlike blessing upon the film festival run by his Sundance Institute.

Nope, Vegas' illustrious visitor is veteran Sundance staffer Trevor Groth, who's here for his second stint as director of programming at the CineVegas International Film Festival, which begins eight days of movie madness Friday at the Palms. And his presence alone ensures Sin City is the movie world's hippest hotspot next week.

"They could almost become a summer Sundance, if they play their cards right," says director Gary Preisler, who's bringing his comedy Lady Killers to CineVegas.

"Trevor Groth is one of the most respected people in independent film," adds Chris Fisher, who attended last year's festival as a producer of Jonas Akerlund's Spun and is back this year with his directorial debut Nightstalker, a chiller about 1980s serial killer Richard Ramirez. "I met Trevor at Sundance a few years ago and thought he was a really great guy. He has a really good finger on the pulse of independent film--a wealth of knowledge as far as films and filmmakers go."

Three months before last year's festival, CineVegas hired Groth, who put together a world-class program in record time. This year, he's back with another impressively eclectic collection of 29 features, 11 documentaries and five programs of shorts (including two showcasing Nevada filmmakers).

"What I was encouraged by last year was, as the festival went on, each day it seemed to build momentum," Groth recalls. "The word was getting out that there actually were good films to come to see at the festival. Hopefully that momentum will carry over to this year. People will see that, again, there are high-quality films to see."

There's even better news for festival fans who've been privy to the backstage shenanigans at CineVegas--an officially harmonious operation that, according to former staffers, has actually seen enough intrigue, ego battles, conflicting visions and backstabbing to make Machiavelli himself green with envy. The latest twist in this tortuous Wild West film fest saga is that the lingering lawsuit by former Executive Director Michele LeBlanc has apparently been settled at last--though as part of the agreement, neither party can publicly discuss the terms and conditions. The other good news is that last year's head honcho is just the latest executive among many who's galloped off to pastures new.

Two years ago, L. Mimosa Jones' Entertainment Development Corp., which aims to foster film and TV production in Las Vegas, "acquired" CineVegas, causing cynics to suggest that this "merger" gave the EDC a raison d'�tre it had previously lacked. In 1998, Jones, then a staffer for Gov. Bob Miller, shrewdly set up the nonprofit, and a glamorous CEO sinecure for herself, just as her boss's term in Carson City neared its end. Yet this articulate speechwriter and savvy political operator never satisfactorily explained the need for a private body whose stated function was already being successfully fulfilled by the taxpayer-funded Nevada Film Office.

After the 2001 CineVegas failed to materialize (it was postponed until last summer), callous journalistic types at CityLife put "Sin City's self-appointed ambassadress to Tinseltown" on the paper's annual "Get Out of Town" list. Amazingly, Jones hightailed it out of the valley the following year. (Disclosure: This writer was a CityLife freelancer, 1997-2003, and helped organize the Las Vegas International Film Festival, 1998-99.)

To be fair, before she left Sin City, Jones did CineVegas a huge service by hiring Groth. It was a serendipitous development for both parties. Groth found a cool job for his down time and CineVegas got one of the best programmers in the business. Meanwhile, Mimosa set about marketing the 2002 CineVegas in her own, unique fashion. In one publicity brochure, she was pictured at a blackjack table with two African-American gentlemen, one of whom is lighting a large, distinctly phallic cigar. Just what message Jones wanted potential customers to receive about her festival remains open to conjecture.

Following this strange interregnum, CineVegas now seems set to return to its primary function--helping filmmakers find an audience. As fest co-founder Josh Abbey points out, this is largely thanks to the unstinting support of longtime board members Danny and Robin Greenspun. Abbey, who quit CineVegas after its inaugural 1998 event, and has gone on to organize the smaller but well-attended Las Vegas Celebration of Jewish Film, is gracious in his praise. "Not only did the Greenspuns obviously come to bat for CineVegas, they've also been very supportive of the Jewish film festival," he says. "It's admirable--and it's important that others mirror their support, to keep these types of cultural amenities strong. I'm extremely optimistic for [CineVegas'] success and endorse it wholeheartedly. I want to see it thrive, because I feel the various festivals support each other. If people have a good experience going to one film festival, they're very likely to attend others."

All this is well and good. But chances are you've barely heard anything about the 2003 CineVegas until now--and this in a town positively bristling with some of the most sophisticated marketing folks on the planet. Nightstalker director Fisher, who had "a great response out of CineVegas" with Spun last year, states the obvious reason: "Some of the other up-and-coming festivals are in smaller towns where there's not a lot going on. In Vegas, you're fighting against a city where entertainment's the No. 1 business. You really have to work hard to make a mark for yourself."

Carol Beinhorn also understands that point. "You have so many things going on in Vegas, you have to anticipate that 1,000 fliers might get you three people," says the actress, comedian and arts activist. Last June, this indomitable septuagenarian was so appalled by the lack of local publicity for CineVegas that she dressed up in an eye-catching alien costume and stood outside the Palms, in triple-digit summer heat, with a billboard promoting the event.

This one-woman PR firm then set up shop in the Palms food court as unofficial fest opinion pollster. Festivalgoers' comments included gripes about the overall poor attendance, the lack of senior discounts, the absence of publicity fliers around town or even forms to sign up for CineVegas' mailing list. "We didn't really know anything about it until two or three days before it started," said one attendee. Sadly, notes Beinhorn, nothing much seems to have changed since then.

"Where lies the fear of breaking the mold?" she wonders. "They have a set pattern and they keep repeating it. They really don't learn by their mistakes. They should've had committees of local people and groups, of seniors and others, working on it." But Beinhorn is sanguine, too. "If they want to be part of a mundane presentation for the locals, hey, it's their money they're wasting, not mine."

Groth is well aware of her concern. "I took note of that last year. I was happy with all the people that came in from L.A., but I was a little discouraged with the lack of turnout from the locals," he admits. "So this year, I'll be flooding the radio airwaves and the newsprint and hopefully we'll get the awareness up.

"We've also addressed a big problem last year--that we didn't sell individual tickets to screenings before the festival. People said, `If I don't have a ticket, I'm not going to go.' This year, there are tickets available for every screening." (Caveat: The June 14 premiere of Scott Caan's Dallas 362 and the closing-night screening of Breakfast with Hunter are already listed as "RSVP only" for festival passholders.)

Finally, indie cinema's most ardent champion has an eloquent answer to the suggestion by some showbiz snobs that CineVegas' program is comprised of "Sundance's rejects."

"If they don't think they're good films, that's fine," Groth says. "I think these are terrific films and they were last year. I stand by every film I showed. Some were submitted to Sundance, quite a few weren't. But I've never claimed that the films we show at Sundance are the only good films out there. A lot of heart and soul goes into all these productions. And I think that for them to find an audience is what independent cinema's all about."