Boulder Magazine Winter/Spring 2007-08
film profile: Boulder International Film Festival

Fast Forward

By Mary Jarrett

Robin and Kathy Beeck (pronounced Beck) have some insiders’ jokes about families. One wall of their office at 13th and Walnut streets—home to both the Colorado Film Society and the Boulder International Film Festival—sports a lurid movie poster from the ’60s: “Three Bad Sisters … Nothing Says Family Like a Knife in the Back.”

BIFF directors Kathy Beeck (left) and Robin Beeck and "Three Bad Sisters" in their office, a frequent meeting place for local filmmakers.

Among their staunchest volunteers are their father, their mother, their siblings, four young nieces and a nephew. The Beeck sisters like to quip, “The family that makes films together fights a lot.” But they can make all the jokes they like, for their life and work together have yielded award-winning films and a Boulder event that’s earned national notice in just a few years. Best of all, they’re fulfilling their goal of entertaining, inspiring and stretching the community with “films you’re not going to see at the cineplex—films that are out there and make people talk.”

Kathy, Robin, their older sister Shelley and their brother Dan were born in Iowa, where their grandparents raised corn, hogs and cattle. When Shelley was 17, their parents moved the family to Boulder, realizing that all four kids would soon need college and a college town (“It took us a long time to realize we were free to leave,” Robin says). Kathy and Robin soon made themselves at home in the Boulder movie scene, selling popcorn and tickets at various long-gone venues.

Kindergarten Sparks Something Big

Some 15 years ago, after their father bought his first video camera to document his grandson’s first day of kindergarten, Robin started messing around with the camera, and in time Kathy joined her in the hobby. With Robin as director and Kathy as producer, they won awards and cult status with their short, humorous documentaries about home-style cryogenics in Nederland, Grandpa’s in the Tuff Shed (1998) and Grandpa’s Still in the Tuff Shed (2003). “There have been thousands of documentaries about Heroes, and about Anti-Heroes,” they write on their Boulder County Arts Alliance Web page, “but all our most critically appraised films have been about the Hero-Klutz, as seen through the eyes of the concerned people around him. This is the documentary we both love to make.”

Both Beecks held corporate jobs when they made their Tuff Shed movies. Kathy spent seven years with Wild Oats, ending up as marketing manager for the Eastern Region, and Robin worked in sales at Sun Microsystems for three years, and for an exhibit production company in Washington, D.C. In 2003 they stepped outside the box by founding the Colorado Film Society to support the work of local filmmakers and students; and in 2005, after 13 months of laying the groundwork and lining up films, they inaugurated BIFF, choosing February for the festival to help boost the local economy during the winter doldrums.

“It’s worth every penny of the pay cut,” Kathy says. “It’s been a struggle, a lot of work, but so rewarding.” She handles BIFF’s sponsorships, public relations and marketing; Robin oversees the programming; and they share the grant writing and festival management.

The festival was an instant hit, attracting more than 5,000 people to 55 films, dozens of filmmakers’ Q and A’s, opening and closing ceremonies, and lots of parties—all crammed into four days. By 2007, BIFF’s third year, attendance topped 8,500, in spite of frigid weather.

“The importance of good programming doesn’t get enough emphasis. Without it, you have nothing to base your festival on,” says Kathy. “Programming is all about balance. We’ve lived here 30 years and we know this town, but you can’t have a whole festival about Tibetan Buddhism.” Finding the right mix of films takes months of scouting and sifting. The call-for-entries process brings in hundreds of films for consideration, but the rest must be discovered at other film festivals, like the Aspen Shorts Festival and the festivals in Telluride, Toronto and Banff.

Turn the Other Cheek

Last September both Robin and Kathy went to the 33-year-old Toronto Film Festival, with its 480-page catalogue. “It’s a really big place to find independent and international films, feature films that are undiscovered,” Robin says. “We watched films from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. I’d say to myself, ‘I’m going to sit on the other side of my butt today.’”

From July through October, BIFF’s unpaid 12-person selection committee of filmmakers, producers, critics and instructors joins Robin and Kathy in the trenches—watching and grading 25 to 30 films every two weeks. They then meet to discuss what they liked and why, and to pass the good ones on to another viewer. If they find they can’t stop thinking about a film, they can go back and raise their rating. By the end of the process, the committee has watched at least 1,000 films, and the Beecks end up with a “final pile” of 200 serious contenders.

“This year we’ve have seen several hundred that could be in the festival; some films just really don’t fit anywhere in the program,” Kathy says. Because it’s an election year and the Democratic Convention is in Denver, the 2008 program is loosely focused on the theme of politics. It has room for 50 to 60 films, including shorts, feature-length films, old and new political documentaries, adventure films, some lighter films, one or two big studio pictures, and eight to 10 films by fellow Colorado filmmakers.

Two of the documentaries slated for 2008 are The Singing Revolution, a film that uses footage of annual government choral concerts to trace Estonia’s gradual, peaceful rejection of Soviet domination; and 3 Peaks 3 Weeks, a BIFF premiere by Michael Brown’s Boulder-based Serac Films.
3 Peaks follows 10 female climbers from the United States and Australia who challenged themselves to raise money for health, environmental and educational causes in Africa by scaling three of the continent’s highest mountains. All 10 climbers plan to fly in for the premiere.

“The festival opens on Valentine’s Day,” Robin says. “All a guy’s gotta do is buy two tickets to opening night, and his wife or girlfriend gets to wear a long gown and visit the chocolate fountain. He’ll be a hero for the rest of the week.”

Or much longer, if she sees a film that changes her worldview. |

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