Melanie Addington and the Oxford Film Festival: Regional Film Fests killing it (versus being killed) during the year of COVID

One of my most enduring film festival partnerships has been with the great Melanie Addington and the Oxford Film Festival in Mississippi.

It was a fest I had heard about via a hardcore and loyal network of journalists who traveled there annually and talked it up (back when I was still at AFI) and praised it until experiencing Oxford became this not-so-secret goal of mine.

That eventually happened, and as it frequently does also happen, I pretty quickly found myself doing PR for the film festival. Well, there are several reasons why the Oxford Film Festival has been viewed as a “can’t miss” stop on the regional tour by in-the-know filmmakers and film veterans for more than a decade now, and the majority of those reasons begin with Melanie and end with Addington.

To be blunt, the state of Mississippi has a lot of problems.

However, the Oxford Film Festival is damn near literally an oasis of culture, entertainment, progressive politics, and the celebration of women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, and the disabled in the state. You can almost count on the fact that if the state legislature passes some hateful, backward thinking, or damaging legislation, that Melanie and the Oxford Film Festival will think of a counter-measure. That may be the creation of a robust LGBTQIA+ programming plank, it might be instituting reduced submission fees for women filmmakers and disabled filmmakers, it might be programming panels to speak out on the issues long before others have done so, and it also includes being one of the first to start revenue sharing with filmmakers.

Melanie Addington from the Oxford Film Festival is a leader.

And the Oxford Film Festival has been a leader that other fests, like Bentonville for example, have clearly drafted off of in recent years as they institute similar inclusive-based policies that Oxford pioneered.

That is why it comes as little surprise that Oxford didn’t simply lead the way when it came to developing the strictest safety protocols and procedures to combat COVID-19 and publicizing them loudly when we all were still approaching the idea of doing physical versions of our film festivals in February and early March. When we learned that there just wasn’t an avenue to be in theaters safely – she was the most aggressive and forward thinking in her response there too.

How did Melanie Addington from Oxford Film Festival respond?

First, the Oxford Film Festival took the reins and rode the virtual presentation horse well beyond a weekend or even a week into a weekly film festival presentation lasting two- and-a-half months that more-or-less trained Oxford and Mississippi and Memphis audiences to adopt the “appointment television” approach to online viewing.

Next, an Oxford FF “channel” which gave independent film fans access to the top indie films streamed during the summer was introduced side-by-side to the weekly virtual film festival titles. Then, they created OFF to the DRIVE-IN, a pop-up presentation of beloved movies with some indies mixed in that was so instantly popular that a second location was soon added to the mix.

As this seismic shift and adaption/innovation on the run was going on, Addington was also shaking up and adding to her staff to help manage this brave new film festival world. She worked in a hands-on manner with a new board president and additions to that board to add diversity to every level of the film festival and cement the gains they made in 2020, while assessing the challenges that remained. The Oxford Film Festival hasn’t just survived the year of the pandemic. It is one of the key film festivals others will continue to draft off of as the exhibition and presentation model we have worked with for so long is being reinvented right in front of us.   

FGW:  Melanie, why, does it seem to you (if that is the case) as though many regional fests fared much better than the larger, market-based fests?

Melanie: I can’t speak to the larger fests as most canceled or postponed. But I know those of us who did pivot in the spring or summer did so when our audiences needed us as everything was shut down, no sports, no concerts, no movies, no art openings.

So, in providing our communities some activity, it also provided us the ability to survive this year. I imagine larger fests were unable to do this mostly because they are so large and it is harder to pivot. I never had been so thankful to be a smaller fish than now. I do know that Sundance took their travel funds and turned them into new jobs in each region of the country as we begin a new collaboration with media makers and festivals across the country trying to improve support for filmmakers. That’s been a wonderful new collaboration as well and I got to help hire the southern coordinator and she is amazing.

FGW: Programming-wise, what did you discover doing this year’s edition of your fest that you had not anticipated (if anything)? What was communication like with the filmmakers? What adjustments did you make in that regard?

Melanie: Our fest was already programmed out and shut down 5 days before it was supposed to happen so our story is a bit different than later virtual fests who programmed with virtual in mind.

 
So for us, we had to let everyone know about the festival postponing. I then made sure to ask our filmmakers what they were comfortable doing. Most were open to anything we tried, some only wanted to hold out for a rescheduled fest. When I think of how so many thought this would be resolved quickly back in March,… Well, it has been an eye-opener.

So we had several new additions of email communications with filmmakers and once we decided on a platform, we had another new communication. Once we saw the real issue in Mississippi with so few able to access the Internet for streaming (it is a real, real, real issue of being an Internet desert here), we knew we had to pivot again with a drive-in. That allowed opportunities for the filmmakers who did not want to go virtual to have some sort of physical screening. 

A big change was that we implemented our ticket revenue share with the filmmakers as we had been looking into doing that for a while now. So that led to another round of communication and transparency with the full reports of their audience numbers and either money to send them or no income available to share. 

FGW: Presentation-wise, how were the growing pains for the virtual shift? The biggest challenges and also the pleasant surprises? And what about doing drive-in screenings? What are your thoughts following doing the fest this year as you look ahead to 2021’s edition?

Melanie: Well, my previous job was being a social media director and I also helped with live streams for a magazine, so honestly, it was not that tough a transition once I learned how to use the new Eventive system. It was sort of more of a dusting off of old skill sets.

 
Pleasant surprises included how easy the new system was. Challenge was how few people know how to stream something to their TV. Creating a new mindset that we were really acting more as broadcasters and utilizing only social media and emails to garner interest was a fun challenge and helped to really stretch how we utilize the tools.

 
The drive-in screenings are hard, a lot of work to build, and require a lot more people, but have been the most rewarding of all the activities. It has been fun programming a mix of old nostalgia films and new independent films like MISS JUNETEENTH. We were set to launch our new monthly series this year and this forced us to ramp up and suddenly become a 3 or 4 day a week exhibitor and there were a lot of new rules and distributors and negotiations to deal with.

Luckily, my associate director’s day job is sound for films so he was able to quickly engineer a really solid FM transmitter plan to make our drive-in have the best quality sound I have ever experienced in that setting. It’s been a lot of fun bringing some new films to Oxford that otherwise would not play here anyway, and, of course, lots of fun old films. 

As for 2021, the writing is on the wall that next spring will not look that much different so we are already planned to host a drive-in and outdoor film festival in March and then have our virtual fest for the month of April. We likely will never go back to the way we used to do things. The hybrid model makes a lot of sense and really allows more opportunities for us to help support filmmakers on a larger scale. 

FGW: Audience-wise, what did you personally see as the participation, enthusiasm, the actual numbers?

Melanie: We increased our ticket sales from 2019 to 2020 by about $15,000 which for a small fest like ours, is a lot. The trick to people watching at home is we really do not know how many saw films as we could at a physical screening. The majority of survey respondents said 2 people were in their home so as an average we also increased views by about 2,500 people. The important part of that was the filmmakers who chose to not geoblock only to our state allowed people to support the festival and the films from at least 6 countries and about 920 zip codes. 

Enthusiasm was there for a while but I think that people everywhere have Zoom and screen fatigue so towards the end of the fest it quieted down. So we saw a real draw to our drive in all summer as a way to get out and see other people but safely. 

FGW: Staff-wise, what did you do this year to make it all work? How will that affect next year?

Melanie: The work really came down to me, the programmers, and my publicist. My Associate Director Matt Wymer was committed to the drive-in and keeping it afloat while I managed the virtual fest. All other staff who normally assist really did not pitch in as they had their real jobs and lives to deal with mid-pandemic. But I was also able to hire new local people for the drive-in who were out of work including local musician Bill Perry as there are still no concerts happening.

 
What I learned from the lack of sleep and being available non-stop is that next year I will make sure there is more help. One major shift for us is Donna Kosloskie is now Head of Programming and we have added Greta Hagen-Richardson as our new Narrative Feature programmer and her main focus is on finding diverse voices. Our board is also looking at how to restructure in the future to not just rely on me to handle all things but to actually have some more staff roles and to grow the festival in a healthy way. It has been a great year to open some eyes on what it takes to run a successful festival. 

FGW: Sponsorship-wise, and financially in an overall sense, what worked to even make having your film festival possible and keep the organization going not just for 2020’s edition, but also looking ahead to 2021?

Melanie: Luckily with our postponement back in March, no one asked for their money back other than 2 or 3 ticket holders. Most sponsors supported and appreciated that we had added value to what we originally promised them. My main concern is not the support this year but as this pandemic continues, the support for 2021 or 2022 may be bleak. Even one of the major grants we receive every year gave us $5,000 less for next year. So we will have to make cuts that will hurt our hospitality and I hate that but want to keep us lean and afloat until the economy improves.

I can tell you that our board is not just focused on surviving but there jhas been a major shift and focus on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) as well, along with the programmers, as they continue to focus on that aspect of our film festival. I’m building our wrap report now and honestly, it is challenging to explain bravely what worked and what did not and hope those sponsors see our commitment to our community and want to support that again.

FGW: Finally, none of us operate in a vacuum, Film Festival Alliance held weekly Zoom meetings addressing each of these concerns and production elements with member fests comparing notes, etc. Beyond the obvious, how did that help you specifically? Did you and do you have a sense that FFA took/takes a leadership role throughout the process? 

Melanie: YES. I turned to them a lot in the beginning and really needed so much help. Not only the Friday chats but just constant postings and private messages with other festivals as we navigated this new world ahead.

With both the virtual and drive in running, I fell behind on Friday chats and I miss the camaraderie it provided more than anything. Barbara Twist and Lela Meadow-Conner are such forward thinkers anyway but this year they stepped up to the plate and really helped us all out so much.

Melanie Addington and the Oxford Film Festival: Regional Film Fests killing it (versus being killed) during the year of COVID