{"id":2860,"date":"2019-05-09T11:00:58","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/?p=2860"},"modified":"2019-05-09T13:53:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T13:53:05","slug":"shared-histories-popular-obscure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/shared-histories-popular-obscure\/","title":{"rendered":"Shared Histories, Popular and Obscure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nellie Killian<\/span> is one of today\u2019s most inspired film curators. In addition to cofounding the Migrating Forms Film Festival, she\u2019s worked with an array of A-List festivals, institutions, and venues, including BAM, Anthology Film Archives, Metrograph, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Quad Cinema, and the Criterion Channel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nellie has a passion for popular and obscure cinema alike, inventively presenting rigorous work in accessible contexts, and vice versa. How many curators can say they\u2019ve programmed a <\/span>Chantal Akerman series<\/span><\/a> and<\/span><\/i> a Police Squad<\/i> marathon<\/a>? She\u2019s always impressed me with her holistic view of film history and encyclopedic pockets of specialization, and she\u2019s one of the people I look to for leads on new filmmaking voices and hidden gems in a TIFF, Sundance, or SXSW lineup. <\/span><\/p>\n

Since we\u2019ve moved on from the institutions we were closely linked with for many years \u2014 she from BAM, myself from Maryland Film Fest \u2014 I\u2019ve come to consider Nellie a trusted colleague and my touchstone for where things are in film culture, where they should be headed, and how we can get there.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Film programmer Nellie Killian<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Walk us through your early involvement in curation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shortly after I graduated from college, I found two part-time jobs in film, as an educator at the Museum of the Moving Image and as a marketing assistant at BAM. Those jobs allowed me to see movies for free at every art house in New York City, so I started going to the movies nearly every night. Back then, programming seemed like a dream job. <\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, two of my friends were working at the New York Underground Film Festival, and they got me involved with programming right off the bat. They knew I liked trolling the Internet for weird videos, and figured this was no different than going through a pile of screeners. <\/span><\/p>\n

After a couple of months of that, I ended up running NYUFF with them. We were lucky enough to be handed the keys to a festival that ran a small profit, allowing us to pay ourselves something. Eventually Kevin McGarry and I started Migrating Forms as a continuation of NYUFF, but also as a new direction. This gave me a platform to do the type of programming I was interested in, and every opportunity that came afterwards was because of the work I did there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having curated for a variety of festivals in different markets, what can you tell us about finding the balance between expressing your taste and pleasing other entities, be they distributors, employers, or audience expectations?<\/b><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really think of programming as expressing my taste. You enter into it with certain interests or bodies of knowledge, but ultimately you have to figure out what will broaden your audience, as well as broadening your audience\u2019s interests.<\/span><\/p>\n

It works the other way, too \u2014 the audience should broaden the curator\u2019s horizons. You try to figure out what\u2019s missing in your local film scene, partner with people who have different perspectives, and see what works. If you have an open mind about that process, you might find yourself interested in things you previously thought weren\u2019t your cup of tea.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are there some films you\u2019ve programmed that you didn\u2019t think the audience would be ready for that they actually ended up enthusiastically embracing?<\/b><\/p>\n

Chris Marker\u2019s<\/span> Level Five<\/i> was a huge hit at BAM. I put it in limited showtimes for a week-long run and filled out the rest of the schedule with a Marker retrospective. I thought it would do fine, but it was a sensation. We were selling out every screening in a 272-seat theater. Obviously the bigger Marker titles did well, but even the shorts programs were standing-room only.<\/span><\/p>\n