With new management and a new year-round home, the 20-year-old Palm Beach International Film Festival is turning over a new leaf.
Broadway producer Jeff Davis (Rock of Ages) took over the reins of the festival in February, serving as its president and CEO. This weekend, beginning tonight, he opens The Palm Beaches Theatre — the 240-seat Manalapan playhouse and screening room that was formerly the now-defunct Plaza Theatre and, before them, Florida Stage.
For the next four nights, it will be the site of a Cancer Awareness Weekend, a mini-festival of four movies on the subject, a prototype of future thematic programming. As Davis sees it, a permanent space that attracts the public throughout the calendar year is crucial to the success of PBIFF.
“You can’t run any kind of business for one week a year. What happens is people forget about it and then you have to re-educate them on what it’s all about,” he says. “This way, if you do it all year long and you do different events, you keep it in people’s minds, you keep it in their faces, you keep people engaged, they enjoy it.”
In addition to festival screenings and related events, Davis envisions the theater hosting concerts, lectures, “private events in the catering facility that we have attached to it,” and theatrical productions by outside stage companies.
Nothing is booked yet beyond this weekend’s films, but Davis hints at a high-profile show that he would produce himself. “I’m looking to do a show very shortly, a one-woman show about Judy Garland which was directed by Burt Reynolds,” he says. “On top of that, I happen to be very friendly with Liza Minnelli. So with a little bit of prodding, maybe I can get her to come down.”
Also in the works is an ongoing relationship with G-Star School of the Arts. Davis has been in talks with the film-oriented charter school’s executive director Greg Hauptner, saying “they’re going to produce a couple of films and then use the theater to show them.”
By next April, when the Palm Beach International Film Festival rolls around, Davis envisions The Palm Beaches Theatre being the venue for the first two days of the fest — “we’re going to be able to show about 4 or 5 films a day there” — and after the bulk of the screenings in the traditional commercial movie houses, returning to the Manalapan site for the closing day events.
Asked how often he expects to have programs in the theater, Davis says without hesitation, “If it was up to me, every night. That’s the game plan. That’s what we want to do. We want people to feel comfortable going there.” He is convinced that with enough bookings of popular entertainment, The Palm Beaches Theatre can be a moneymaker for the festival. “I wouldn’t go into it if I didn’t think so,” he says.
As to the failure of the previous tenant, Davis says, “The problem was because it was used now and then and here and there, and some of the quality of what was brought in was lacking, so people forgot about the theater. It hasn’t been utilized to its fullest.”
Davis also sees room for improvement in PBIFF. “I don’t want to be disparaging about anybody, but the ticketing, the way it was run, the quality of the films, they were all lacking. It wasn’t run professionally, unfortunately. It’s time to bring professionalism back to it. I hit the ground running and I’ve got my hands full, that’s for sure.”
The Cancer Awareness mini-fest opens at 7 tonight with the East Coast premiere of A Woman Like Me, a “hybrid documentary” about one woman’s battle with the disease. Director Elizabeth Giamatti will be present to introduce the film.
Also scheduled, all at 7 p.m., are:
• The Human Experiment, narrated by executive producer Sean Penn, an expose of the carcinogenic chemical industry (Friday).
• Decoding Annie Parker, a fact-based feature film about a woman (Samantha Morton) with a genetic disposition to cancer and the research scientist (Helen Hunt) trying to prove the genetic link (Saturday).
• My Big Fat Cancer Wedding, the world premiere of account of filmmaker Sivan Mor Goldman’s story, diagnosed with a cancerous breast mass just as she prepares for her own wedding (Sunday).
The cost for each screening is $15 with a portion from each ticket sold benefitting The Pap Corps and the American Cancer Society. To reserve tickets, call The Palm Beaches Theatre at 561-362-0003.