3 Ways to Not be a Film Festival Asshole

3 Ways to Not Be a Film Festival Asshole

I meet a lot of new people during the course of Festivals. Some make great impressions. Some don’t. Hell sometimes I don’t. “I ain’t no monument to justice!”

[Extra points if you can identify that quote!]

It happens. But. I have a career. Many of the people who appear to be working overtime to make a bad impression don’t. Or, do, but appear hell bent on a bad impression anyway.

Here are some cautionary don’ts for festivals.

DON’T TREAT WRITERS LIKE PERFORMING MONKEYS: One of the most problematic questions civilians [and also clueless wannabe writers or others] ask writers is, “Oh I see, you are a writer,” [and then they lean backwards in a chair in a condescending way and say] “Anything I’m familiar with?”

How would I know? I don’t know what you watch or even like. I just met you. WTF?

My knee jerk reaction to that is, How would I know?

But I try to be more polite than that.

Seriously, you’re asking a writer to read your mind and figure out what you have read or seen during your entire existence on the planet and dance like a monkey trying to, what, conjure up a list on a platter of anything YOU might have been interested in or seen during your lifetime?

You’re so an asshole.

But. I usually, instead of saying fuck off with your condescending question leaning back like I am some slave girl who must offer up my life’s work for you on a guessing game platter like it’s grapes in Egypt, just say, “I don’t know.”

Pushed, I will cough up a list of things I’ve worked on. Just to be polite. Here’s the next problem that shows up. But you’re already an asshole at this point. Oops. Bad you.

DON’T DISS FILMS: I met this guy one year who did the whole, Anything I’VE ever seen or read? [Fuck you! Oh wait I’m being nice since a friend intro’d us.] And since a friend introduced him, I finally got polite and told him I’d worked on Excess Baggage, The Ladykillers, and One for the Money. The only title he knew was The Ladykillers, so he focused in on that and asked me if I was credited. And I said no.

Then he asked, Did you like it?

This is a really weird and problematic question to ask someone who worked on a film. I didn’t actually like the resulting film, so I opted for honest and said it’s not one of my favorite projects.

He then launched into how it was the worst Coen film ever made. And kept going. And going. And going….

I sat there for ten minutes listening to this guy telling me how much a film I worked on sucked. And finally said –

“You realize I worked on this, right?”

And he looked at me blankly and said, “But you said you didn’t like it.”

And I got up and excused myself to go have a smoke.

Don’t get excited about dissing films. Especially if you’ve never even worked on a produced film. What do you know? Especially if you’re talking to someone who did work on the film. But, even if they didn’t work on a film you are tearing apart? They probably know someone did. Probably are friends with someone who did. Hollywood is a small world. You won’t make friends and influence people ripping apart the works of others.

DON’T BE A DICK PANELIST: Sometimes headed out about town in Austin during the Austin Film Festival – or on the Driskill smoker’s patio before new owners took that apart – I’ll strike up a conversation with someone. I’m usually just being friendly. Or getting hit up for a cigarette. [The number of sudden smokers who want to smoke someone else’s cigs at festivals is truly awe inspiring. I take an extra pack with me every day I am at a festival so I can give away cigs to “non-smoker” mooches and also actually smoke my own cigarettes.] So I’ll say something like, panelist, or attendee?

Some of the panelists get really weird. Like all cagey with their info hemming and hahing like they’re JFK and I might have a long distance sniper’s rifle in my purse and they don’t have their secret service close enough to answer a question.

I get it to a certain extent. They are feeling important and like anyone they tell who they are will jump them wanting some kind of desperate connection. But. Dude. You bummed a cigarette off me. You don’t get to go all Jason Bourne if you bummed a cigarette. These things are over fifteen bucks a pack these days, you essentially asked for money and then got weird when someone was just being polite. WTF?

It’s weird being the main course everyone is trying to jump. I understand that. But you’re at a festival as the main course and you know it, you signed up for that. AND you bummed a cigarette. So don’t be the freak who either doesn’t have a good lie for polite conversation after you bum a couple cigarettes? Or are pretending you’re too important to tell anyone on the smoker’s porch who you are. That’s serial killer weird. And I want my cigarette back if you pull that shit.

*Sidenote: ALSO, don’t steal my lighter.