Film festival in the works, but barely

I’m trying to get an atheist film festival going. I talked to Philip Cowan, the Executive Director of the Grand Cinema (very nice man), and he said that his main concern is getting the films into the maximum number of slots available, to make the distributors happy. I understand his predicament. But he says that this type of festival just doesn’t have broad interest. I think people would come out of the woodwork, both for the films themselves and for the controversy.

Finally there is the question of film quality.  The more of a niche group the film is targeted to, the more the selection (and therefore quality) decreases.

Really, who wants to see Religulous or Jesus Camp again? Those movies are just exhausting! I have a list of the types of movies I’m thinking about, actually, it’s quite broad, nothing like Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter.

The list includes: Contact; Bedazzled (1967); Oh, God!; City of Ember; Saved; and others.

I’m trying hard not to see this as any kind of a snub. This is perfectly legitimate from a business perspective, especially now. But, in April there was the Faith and Film Series at the Grand, and that was sponsored by two local churches. Those films, which included Earth, a Deepa Mehta film about India’s partition, weren’t exactly mainstream movies.

We atheists have more than a thousand people who belong to atheist groups in the Puget Sound, more than 150 here in Tacoma alone. That’s not small potatoes. Our cash is as green as everyone else’s, and I want to show people that we have a strong and vibrant community.