[Editor's Note: For more on the Gasparilla International Film Festival, check out Mitch Perry's interview with the director of festival entry Full Signal, and Joe Bardi's cover story from this week's issue of Creative Loafing.]
When he's not busy being a Tampa lawyer/family man, Chad Moore is moonlighting as President of the Gasparilla International Film Festival, which opens Thurs., March 18 for a four-night run at Hyde park's CinéBistro, Muvico Centro Ybor and the Tampa Theatre. Moore sat down with me at Tre Amici @ The Bunker for a far-ranging conversation about the economic climate leading up to the festival, the work that goes into putting on the event and Moore's personal festival favorites. (And as a member of the programming committee, he knows what he's talking about.)
Joe Bardi: This year's Gasparilla International Film Festival is down from 10 days last year to four this year. What was behind this decision?
Chad Moore: The economy. We, like most arts organizations, were dramatically affected [by the recession] and the largest supporter we have as a nonprofit is corporate giving, and corporate giving is down dramatically. We knew we’d have serious problems raising fund this year, but we did a lot better than we thought and attribute [that success] to the momentum from last year. The marquee event at Tampa Theater where we bring in 1200 people really resonates with people, and we’ve had tremendous response.
We thought seriously about taking a year off, and now we’re trying to do some long-term strategic planning to ensure we’re here in 10 years. And with the fund-raising difficulties, we thought maybe we should take a year off or screen in the fall to give us more time. But what we decided was to really amp up and press our volunteers; let's not lose the momentum we’ve gained, continue to do long term planning, come down to four days so we’re not consuming our lives over two weekends and the light at the end of the tunnel is knowing we pulled this off. It’s going to be a great festival, I know it. We have something really good going here and people are talking notice. It is a source of pride.
Let's talk about opening night.
Opening night’s a lot of fun.We roll out the red carpet. We have Armand Assante coming coming back. He had such a good time last year. Raymond Barry is a tremendous actor. Look him up and see his resume is mostly character rolls, but he’s a real renissiance man. He writes, directs, played football for Yale.
Click below for more of Chad Moore's thoughts on GIFF and for some video of our interview …
This article appears in Jul 29 – Aug 4, 2010.