COLBERT : MITSU YASUKAWA ; HALL & MOVIE STILLS : COURTESY OF MONTCLAIR FILM |
MONTCLAIR FILM WAS ONE OF THE FIRST BUSINESSES IN TOWN TO SHUT DOWN DUE TO COVID . HOWAND WHY DID YOUMAKE THATCALL ? Colbert : We were really , really lucky , and Tom was brilliant in his decision to pivot almost aweek before everything else shut down . We were about to go into our heavy expense period of hiring festival staff and printing our catalog . The fact that we made the decision to postpone before we had those expenses allowed us to have a bit of a runway economically . So while we didn ’ t have a great year where we made alot of money , we haven ’ thad to lay anyone off , and we continued operating with virtual programming . |
WITHOUT PROFITS FROM IN-PERSON TICKET SALES , HOW DID YOU KEEP AFLOAT ? Colbert : We got PPP ( Paycheck Protection Program ) loans , which were then forgiven , and a Shuttered Venues Operators Grant , both from the federal government . From the state , we got agrant from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority , and increased support from the New Jersey Arts Council . We ’ re incredibly lucky there were a lot of avenues through the federal and state government to keep arts |
nonprofits afloat . ( Ed . note : Colbert represents New Jersey arts organizations as part of Gov . Phil Murphy ’ s Restart and Recovery Commission .)
The whole premise of that kind of relief funding is that organizations that are dependent on ticketed revenue and , frankly , volunteer participation , are in some ways the most vulnerable sector . Everybody ’ s got to find away to get back towork and school , but you may not choose to go to aconcert orplay for awhile . That ’ s why we worked really hard on the commission to find ways to support arts and cultural nonprofits .
HOWARE YOUPROTECTING
FESTIVAL PATRONS DURING COVID ? Hall : We ’ ve upgraded the HVAC systems at Montclair Film and the Clairidge , and the Wellmont and MKA Upper School Auditorium also have COVID-compliant HVAC systems . We have a COVID committee , have hired a Chief COVID Officer and are following the lead of the New Jersey Theater Alliance and other performance organizations like NJPAC that have been dealing with all this since the summer .
Montclair is in good shape vaccination-wise compared to a lot of places in the country , so we feel like we ’ re in a solid position . That said ,
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there ’ s a lot we don ’ t know about the Delta variant . All we can do is project safety , make sure that people are welcome , and put out the best work we can .
WHAT OTHER SHIFTS HAS THE PANDEMICCAUSED ? Hall : Reinventing the festival from an in-person event at multiple cinemas indoors to a drive-in and virtual event was abig shift for us . It took alot of manpower .
The shift to virtual has brought about changes with film distribution and exhibition and the meaning of film festivals . That ’ s all still happening and in play . We ’ re seeing that , for a lot of film companies , the windows for release and exhibition and the windows for streaming are all sort of collapsing into one big film release strategy .
The result is that we ’ ve seen a huge uptick in the sort of films that are possible for us . Especially on the independent film side , where they don ’ t have major studios and they make their bread and butter on art house cinemas , which have been closed or modestly reopened recently , they ’ d been holding everything for a long time . And of course the awards seasons have remained in the fall ; the ’ 21- ’ 22 Oscar season started in September . So this fall , a huge volume of films were released , and high quality films . We ’ ve never looked at more movies .
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