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Rotterdam 2004
Letter To Simon Field
By Hans Beerekamp

Dear Simon,

Unfortunately, I am afraid I will not be able to say goodbye to you during this year's festival. I have no idea if there is going to be a small private reception or a larger public farewell bash, or perhaps none of the above. We may have lunch or dinner some other day, as we did before, but I do feel like saying a few words to you in public.

It looks like both of us are about to be exempt from the constraints of cinematic diplomacy. You have always been a great diplomat, and most of us, blunt Dutch, tended to believe that the ability to say terrible things in a polite and pleasant way, must be part and parcel of a British upbringing. Even after your departure from Rotterdam, I think you will remain loyal and as kind as ever. So, I will spare you any speculations about the reasons for your departure as festival director. All but one: I think it was very inelegant to allow the news to leak to the Dutch press on the day after last year's festival. Luckily I don't know who was responsible for this.

I have never been famous for any form of diplomacy or restraint in reflecting on cinema, when I was a film critic for NRC Handelsblad (1977 – summer of 2003) or now that I write television reviews for the same paper. The hermit's position of a home viewer makes one even more bold and independent, because you don't have time to go to drinks, premieres or receptions anymore.

So, let's have it out in the open! I think the board of the Rotterdam festival is going to regret they let you go. Not because I am so stupid as to think that Sandra would not be able to live up to directing the festival on her own. Of course she can, as she will be smart enough to appoint a few new programmers to the staff and give every programmer due credit.

My concern has to do with the longer perspective. Over the last years, as I have not hidden from you, I think the festival has been taking a few dangerous turns. When you first came to Rotterdam, probably around 1990, the festival was not as international as it is now. In the early days, it was necessary for founding director Huub Bals to get prints with Dutch subtitles, and since the festival couldn't afford them, it was essential that festival selections had Dutch theatrical distribution. Nowadays, I should think that a Dutch subtitled print in the festival is rather a burden than an asset. And Dutch distributors need the festival rather than the other way round. Still, the distributors pressure and blackmail the festival to select certain titles. Last year, A-Film Distribition threatened to withdraw all seventeen or twenty-three festival films, if you persisted in the refusal to select their turkey "Max" by Menno Meyjes. I would have loved to see the festival take that courageous stand: lose 17 titles for refusing to show shit. But you, the diplomat, preferred peace and gave A-Film one single performance to please their sales company.

Something tells me that after the Field era, more compromises are to be made, and not only for diplomatic reasons.

This year for instance, all tickets are being presold, whereas last year the final 30 percent could be bought in the morning. So this year the long morning queues will disappear, but, more importantly, also the idea that you could come to this festival and stand a small chance you get to see the film you are interested in. I was told the reason for this change was that last year there were not enough sold-out screenings. Bums on seats, a good idea for any festival, but for Rotterdam it should not become a leading principle.

The festival risks becoming a management-driven event, with enough bums on seats, happy sponsors and happy distributors. The press however will have to pay for their accreditation, because there was a small deficit in the budget, as I understand it. Also, foreign journalists are paying for all kinds of services the festival is rendering, to a cynical extent that I have never witnessed anywhere else in the world. I already know a number of colleagues who for the very first time decide to skip Rotterdam this year. I am among them, but for different reasons, practical ones, that is. Please be assured that it is never, under no circumstances, a sensible idea for a festival to convey to the press that they need the festival more than the festival needs them.

But what am I going to miss this year? I am not well enough informed (the website is not yet mentioning the program, while I am writing this letter early January) to assess what I will be missing, But I do know that very few films by Raul Ruiz have not played the festival before.

You may argue that I, for one, have always stressed the historical task for Rotterdam, to educate and show classic films to young audiences. True, but making a regular guest over the last thirty years this year's "Filmmaker in Focus" is a bit silly, I think. Unless you manage to dig up some unknown treasures from the vaults of Mr. and Mrs. Ruiz, of course.

Rather, I would have been interested in a program that shows the influences on Tarantino's "Kill Bill", including some vintage Sonny Chiba.

So, this letter is slowly changing into muttered complaints from a runaway veteran. Instead, I would rather pile some more praise on your shoulders. I hear you have been instrumental in defending the position of programmer Gertjan Zuilhof. You also know Gertjan and I are not great friends, and I have teased you over the years by asking what folly Gertjan was going to present this time. I must confess now, when I am safely home and no longer risk being grinned at and belittled by His Insanity GJZ, that I do hope the GJ Follies will be continued in Rotterdam, because they are crucial to the maverick character of the festival. And somehow I am not completely reassured that anything insane will be sheltered from management reasoning in the future.

Thank you for being a patron to the loony bin. In that respect I think you were the true heir to Hubert Bals (whom you never met): one year he scolded me for liking Blake Edwards' "10"; two years later he selected "That's Life!" from the same director because "somehow Blake Edwards belongs to the Rotterdam family". May the God of Cinema protect that dysfunctional family from "film event marketing policies".

See you in London, Amsterdam or wherever.

Kindest regards
Hans Beerekamp

This text is re-printed with kind permission of Hans Beerekamp and of "De Filmkrant in Rotterdam", the daily festival edition of the Dutch film magazine "De Filmkrant".

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