With HollyShorts Short Film Festival founders Theo Dumont and Daniel Sol, the conversation is one of catchphrases, the words: quality, diversity and community repeating in a loop throughout. While these catchphrases could seem anchors of a well-planned public relations coup, and certainly the idea wouldn’t fall far from believable what with Dumont a veteran of that often “smile-in-the-face-of-disaster-and-sugarcoat-as-much-as-possible” industry, the words expressed by the two programmers ring utterly sincere.

“Our underlying goal is to help everybody promote their work, network and build their careers,” Dumont says, a focused enthusiasm layered on each syllable. “…We’re really not making a lot of money from this. We are passionate about independent films and seeing these careers grow.”

Celebrating its third annual event this past weekend at Cinespace Digital Superclub, HollyShorts offers a bit of the independent-minded to the town of blockbusters and paparazzi. From running the annual event held in August, showcasing a monthly screening series and compiling a DVD of The Best of HollyShorts, the always-working pair Dumont and Sol, a former film student himself from California State University, Northridge, share time here to talk about the festival atmosphere, independent distribution and why it is that they do this.

TD: We started off in this tiny theater, which we still work with. It’s a forty seat independent theater where we do our monthly screenings. We had a lot of friends who were filmmakers, and even though LA is just a big entertainment capital, people tend to shy away from festivals. There are a number of festivals here: LA Shorts, LA Film Festival, Hollywood Film Festival. The major ones, the prestigious ones Slamdance, Tribeca, Sundance—people want to get into those, and it’s like, “Well, why did they leave LA?”…We want to do something independent where people can come, meet, mingle and advance their careers. It’s shaping out to be special, and it’s growing.

SM: With the increasing importance of the festival circuit and also the increasing importance of the way digital technology is effecting filmmaking, there seems to be a fight between a new school ideology of constant collaboration,…and an old school theory, a more competitive theory, to remain insular and create a brand that everyone knows as just that brand…[With HollyShorts] there seems to be a lot of energy and collaboration, and so which model do you think is the best to walk into this new age of independent film with?

TD: We embrace the new age; we embrace technology; we embrace all the new avenues that filmmakers can promote their product, sell their product, distribute their product…But, we also embrace the old school system as well. Obviously, our festival is an exhibition, so we don’t want to showcase (films) too much on new media before the festival. At the event, it would obviously take away some of the premiere luster…

But, we embrace the technology. Anything that can move the careers of these filmmakers—we’re all about it. That’s why we’re doing partnerships with these new media…It’s the future. A hundred years ago there was only one way to watch a film. There was no TV. There was no iPod. You had to go to the theater; everybody went to the theater. With the coming of television and then new technology, that’s going to advance…

At the end of the day, the important part is that (filmmakers) need a budget to make their stuff, and we’re going to find out how to monetize their efforts as well. So it’s “Alright, new media’s great, but at the end of the day, they’ve got to get return on their investment.”

SM: Another important question: There’s been talk about a short film renaissance, but although creatively we’re seeing that renaissance, we’re not necessarily seeing that reflected in the distribution outlets. So, the DVD you guys compile, for example, is very important to promote distribution in the short film community. What’s your take on that, and how do we need to progress in order to get this either new, avant garde, documentary, animation or experimental work out there so that people can actually view it and appreciate it?

TD: It’s similar to the music business. There needs to be some sort of uniformity.

People are still cautious. No one really knows what’s going to work yet—except iTunes. iTunes is the only real distribution model that’s making people any money right now.

With our DVD, we leave it up to the filmmaker’s to promote their work; we promote it as well, and the distributor IndiePix also promotes it. I don’t know what other festivals do and who they work with, but for us, it’s how hard you promote yourself. Working with IndiePix is interesting because you’re going to get out of it what you promote, so it’s like you’re your own studio.

But, no one really knows what the big channel for independent film distribution is and what’s going to work and what’s not. We keep our arms open to new ideas. We’re all about the filmmakers; whatever we see that’s going to be beneficial to them is what we’re going to embrace.

SM: Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you wanted to add?

DS: As far as going to film school, and the whole process of film school, that was where the initial idea behind the whole (festival) was—to give film school students, people just getting out of film school—you make your film; you’re $20,000 dollars or more in debt; and, now, it’s “You’re out on our own, have a career and make movies.” Well, that’s not going to happen in LA, and a lot of times (filmmakers) don’t know where to take their films. They don’t have a good avenue to showcase…So this year we added a student category for that reason. We wanted to give back because we started with that.

Going to film school, I know you’re kind of on your own. Once they were done, a lot of people I knew—they didn’t really know where to go from there. You get a degree, and you instantly go get a job or you know where to go apply. If you make a film, and you’re in film school then you’re done, that’s it: you have your film, you show it to whoever you can and try to get a job. There’s no real path, and you’re not obviously just going to start directing.

One of the reasons we started doing this would just be [to add to] independent film and the people we know that are doing this here in Los Angeles…[It’s] finding another avenue to expose everyone’s work.

Check out the festival at www. hollyshorts.com, and next week check out a recap from the festival with interviews and reviews.

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