Have you ever sat through six movies back-to-back? Probably not – unless you’re a programmer for a film festival. Cara Ogburn, the artistic director at Milwaukee Film, marathons movies at festivals across the country in her efforts to find the right flicks for Cream City’s annual cinema showcase.
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In mid-January, she had just landed at Sundance Film Festival with three other Milwaukee Film staff members and had a jam-packed schedule filled with world premiere movies she hoped to bring to Milwaukee this year.
“It’s actually really exhausting,” Ogburn says about attending screenings from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. “Sitting for that long is not easy on the body. But it’s also emotionally challenging. … If a film is doing a good job, you’re being pulled empathetically into the lives on screen, so it can be a real emotional roller coaster.”
Ogburn, who’s been at Milwaukee Film for 13 years, watches movies differently than the average film buff. She studies them with a screening at the Oriental Theatre in mind. She’s looking for quality, obviously, but also a lot more: Does the movie have any Midwest connections? Does it cover any topics that the festival hasn’t broached in years past? Is it different enough from other potential festival flicks to ensure the lineup is diverse?
“We’re thinking about our audience before ourselves – that means getting outside of your own biases,” Ogburn says. “When I’m watching a screening, I think about specific [Milwaukee Film] members that I have conversations with in the [Oriental Theatre] lobby. … What would they think about this?”
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Sometimes this means watching movies outside of her usual purview. Ogburn’s primary focus is documentary, but when she’s attending festivals, she finds herself screening thrillers, horror and other genre flicks with an analytical eye. She finds that detached lens has made it harder to really enjoy movies for fun outside of work, but sometimes a film transcends that. “Last year, that movie was King Coal,” she says. “I spent the first 15 minutes watching it with my usual, ‘How’s it going to fit? Who’s it going to appeal to?’ and then I was just like, ‘I love this movie. I’m just going to enjoy it and then bring it to Milwaukee.’”
Her job is far from done after she finds all the films she wants to bring to Milwaukee’s festival. “The work is actually much more emailing people than watching great movies,” she says.
When Ogburn and the team decide on a movie, the next step is to reach out to the studio – possibly offering a screening fee – and try to get them to bring it to the Milwaukee Film Festival. That involves a lot of strategic thinking and clever pitching, like considering whether someone involved in the film has a local connection, or if the studio is looking to preview the movie at festivals before a theatrical release.
And once the lineup is secured, Ogburn turns to the tedious task of scheduling over a week’s worth of programming across three theaters, before the festival kicks off and the movies finally hit Milwaukee screens.
“The best experience as a programmer is standing in the back of the cinema during a movie and hearing the audience laugh or gasp at something you thought would get just that reaction,” she says.
The Milwaukee Film Festival runs April 11-25. Find tickets at mkefilm.org and watch for our coverage at milwaukeemag.com.
