Programming committee

Thank you to the 2012 Nevermore members:
Stacey Weger, chair
Melissa Browning
Sydney Miller
Chris Santucci
Will Stroh
Wendy Webber

Welcome to Nevermore 2012

You call them films.  We call them submissions.  Every year the numbers vary, but the end result is the same: We get more submissions than we can ever possibly hope to program in the Nevermore Film Festival.  Some submissions want to be the Goriest Movie Ever Made.  Others see themselves as a mouthpiece for whatever trend is popular at the moment.  Because of recent successes by genre filmmakers in the mainstream, there’s a whole school of aspiring artists determined to become the next Eli Roth or Alexandre Aja, and because of the way that audience approval can affect distribution, a significant number of films proclaim they are “The Scariest Movie since The Exorcist.” (Believe us, the press materials for some of these submissions shine, even if the films themselves necessarily don’t.)  Every submission wants to be the Centerpiece.  Every submission carries the potential to be selected for the festival even if, eventually, it’s not.  And every submission is someone’s favorite movie of all time.

If it sounds as if I’m making light of — or being cynical about — the significance of the selection process, please understand that’s not my intention.  I’m merely illustrating how difficult it is to whittle through the hundreds of movies we receive each year and arrive at the program you now hold in your hands.  It can be — and usually is — a challenging process that requires thousands of volunteer hours.  Every year there’s at least one meeting that gets ended early due to talk of blood on the floor.  If you’re wondering if this gets easier as the years go on, it doesn’t.  As a famous film editor once said, “We don’t finish movies.  We abandon them.” It’s pretty much the same in festival programming.  Nobody applauds when the submission deadline arrives.  There’s only relief in having stopped the chase.  In 2012, things were no different.  Seven new features, twenty-one shorts, and four classics made the “final cut.”  The selections are as diverse as the members on our committee and include an Italian zombie movie to a slow-burning medical horror-drama to our first-ever double feature.  It’s a fantastic line-up.

Many volunteers served on this year’s programming committee.  My heroes, all of them.  None got paid a dime, and nobody had festival programming experience on their current job descriptions.  Each of them, however, brought their own unique worldview to the committee, and that was more valuable. Without their help and unending loyalty, the selections in this year’s edition of the Nevermore Film Festival wouldn’t be half as exciting.  I want to thank everyone who served on this year’s programming committee, beginning with the one who sheltered me most: Stacey Weger, the new chair of the committee.

From me, from Stacey, and from everyone on the programming committee, we hope that you enjoy the selections at the 2012 Nevermore.  And to the many filmmakers whose works will appear on our screens (and even to those whose won’t), we sincerely hope that you’ll continue to make movies that make us scream and laugh and cry and feel.  Keep sending those submissions.

All my best,

Jim Carl
Senior Director