Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.10.2012, Blaðsíða 19

19 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 16 — 2012FILM
Awkwardly Awesome! Festival Director Craig Downing rolls
out the welcome mat for Couch Fest Films
The Reykjavík Grapevine is a media sponsor of this event! Check out
couchfestfilms.com for the schedule of film screenings on November
10 in living rooms around Reykjavík. See you there!
“We have come to steal your boat,” Craig
grandly announces as we enter the tour
office. The lady behind the desk isn’t
startled in the slightest; she and Craig
have been acquainted. “Follow me,” she
says and we are promptly shown to Ros-
in: Special Tours’ whale watching boat,
one of the Reykjavík locations playing
host to Couch Fest screenings around
the world on November 10.
We stumble aboard and get comfort-
able just as the sun begins to set over
the harbour. Craig is very likeable. He
speaks quickly and energetically about
everything and anything that comes
to mind. Within minutes of meeting
me he’d already told me how he’d once
spent two months in my hometown of
Melbourne. Why was he there? He was
being paid to regularly poop in a bag for
medical research.
The topic he speaks most passion-
ately about though is Couch Fest Films,
now into its fifth year of screening some
of the world’s best short films in ordi-
nary people’s homes across the globe.
“Take your favourite film festival, take
everything about it. The chaos, the vot-
ing, the drama, all of it, and just take out
the theatres and replace it with living
rooms,” Craig explains. “We’re a very
legitimate film festival, it just happens
to be in your living room.”

Tricking Seattleites into
loosening up
Craig moved to Austin, Texas when he
landed a job as a screener for the SXSW
Festival, but later relocated to Seattle
where the idea for Couch Fest Films was
born.
“Austin is really casual. You can go
to the bus stop and the next thing you
know you meet your best friend, you’ve
quit work and you’ve started a band. Ev-
eryone’s very open and casual. Seattle is
a very creative town but it wasn’t quite as
open as I was used to. And I kept think-
ing ‘what can I do to get people to moth-
erfuckin’ open up a little bit?’
He tricked Seattleites into opening
their doors to strangers by creating what
he calls a ‘community development pro-
gramme’ disguised as a film festival,
luring them in with the promise of
world-class short films. And it worked.
“Next thing you know, there’s an inter-
mission and they find themselves so
awkward in five minutes so they start
talking. It was just a way for them to
get over themselves and find other cine-
philes and have a shared experience to
kind of connect over.”
The selection process for Couch Fest
Films isn’t a technical one. Films are not
marked against any formal criteria and
there is certainly no vote tallying. “Real-
istically we say to ourselves, ‘would we
take a bottle over the head for this film?’
It’s just kind of a gut reaction,” Craig
says.
“We’ve rejected films from profes-
sionals. But on the other end you’ve got
films that’ve been totally shot with a cell
phone and you could tell the roommates
got tired of being in the film so then
halfway through it suddenly becomes
an animation. But that is a testament to
someone who is obsessed with this film
and is going to finish it no matter what.
And he pulled it off.”
Bros watching shitty YouTube
videos?
Despite having such a relatable staple of
modern life as the couch to use as a mar-
keting tool, Craig says selling the idea to
people can be challenging.
“We got a grant from the Seattle
City Council, but we almost didn’t get
it. They were like ‘Why the fuck are we
gonna pay a bunch of bros. down in the
basement to like order pizza and watch
shitty YouTube videos?’ There’s this idea
that it’s just cheap couch films. That’s
why we do try to get the very best films
to combat that. But our mission has al-
ways been to bring people together with
mind-blowing films.”
I tell Craig I’m not sure how I would
fare watching a film with complete
strangers in such a social atmosphere.
Mid-film discussion annoys me. As do
people who ask me to explain details of
the plot, and I abhor people chewing,
crunching, chomping, or doing any-
thing audible with food while a film is
on.
“When I go to the cinema it's dark,
I have this experience,” Craig says. “I
think people are more relaxed in the liv-
ing room environment. There isn’t an
usher that’s going to tell you to be quiet.
There isn’t a screen to tell you to turn
your cell phone off. It’s a very casual en-
vironment and I think that encourages
people to talk.”
So just how cosy is one permitted to
get in a stranger’s home?
“I think it’s pretty much up to the
host how casual or cosy they want to
get,” Craig says. “One year this one
woman did this whole theme. She called
it ‘the swinging ‘70s’ or something and
she dressed up in a velvet jumpsuit.
Everyone had to put keys in a bowl and
whoever’s keys got pulled out got a fon-
due cheese kit. I was like that’s cute, but
you know we’re going to be showing
films? And she was like ‘oh yeah, but I
accidentally bought like 50 cheese kits
a year ago and I just want to get rid of
them.” “So it’s the host’s prerogative to
make it as cosy or eclectic or as comfort-
able or as thematic as they want. But if
someone just wants to open the door,
turn the TV on and press play on the
DVD, they’re already a winner.”
Growing pains in Iceland
Last year Couch Fest Films made its Ice-
landic debut, although it didn’t receive
the kind of support Craig had anticipat-
ed. A number of factors could have been
responsible. Craig believes there was a
lot of reservation about letting complete
strangers into your living room and then
being expected to host them socially.
“Iceland is a fishing country, not a
chatty loud American country unless
you’re out at 4 AM throwing bottles
down Laugavegur. I think it was a little
bit new for the community and a little
bit on the edge of the comfort zone. This
year I think they recognise that we’re not
a Chinese company trying to take over
real estate inside their living room,” he
says, laughing.
And support this year they have
received. Aside from the whale watch-
ing tour boat, the festival has secured
screening locations as diverse as “the
motherfucking Harpa,” in Craig’s own
excited words and a downtown bike
workshop.
“Last year there was no way we
could have got into Harpa. This year
the response has been amazing. We’ve
contacted people and they’ve been like,
‘Totally, awesome, when can we meet?’
This boat, it was one phone call. They
were like, ‘a film festival on the boat?
That’d be great. And how do you feel
about taking the guests out on the wa-
ter?’ We were like, ‘Umm, yeah!’ Like
we’re gonna say, ‘Oh no, don’t take the
guests out on the whale watching tour
for fucking free!’” he laughs.
Expanding all the way to Oman
The 2011 festival opened Craig’s eyes to
the possibilities of hosting screenings
in locations that are a bit out of the or-
dinary. Last year, for instance, they se-
cured a host in Oman, a country where
all media must be cleared by the min-
istry of censors before being broadcast.
“We delivered what ostensibly is
western Satan media and had a film
festival in someone’s house. I would
like for this person to email me and let
me know he’s still alive at this point. He
hasn’t emailed me since. I think he’s ok.
But I mean we delivered a film festival
in Oman with Western media. I think
that’s pretty fun.”
Logistically, the biggest difference in
the 2012 festival programme will be the
number of unique locations organised
for screenings. “In Germany we’re fuck-
ing hosting in a castle, we’re hosting in
a media arts centre in Nepal and we’re
going to be hosting on this boat.”
Craig talks with contagious excite-
ment about possible future directions
for the festival. “I would love to do an
open-air screening in an old city in Po-
land. I would love to do it in Ikea. The
couches are already there. All you’d have
to do is set up a screen. Everybody sits
down while they’re taking a break from
shopping. Kind of like a f lash-mob film
festival. A planned f lash-mob film festi-
val in Ikea.” - THOMAS L. MOIR
A not so authentic seagull “ca-caw, ca-caw” steals my attention as I wait outside a whale
watching tour office at the Reykjavík Harbour. I initially write it off as a species of rare
Icelandic bird I am yet to come into contact with, but it gets louder and louder until I turn
and discover said rare bird is Craig Downing: Festival Director of Couch Fest Films. He
rolls in astride his bicycle, still ca-cawing, then executes a mid-motion dismount, parks
the bike against a nearby pole, de-helmets and introduces himself.
“
I would love to do it in
Ikea. The couches are already
there. All you’d have to do is
set up a screen. „
Alísa Kalyanova
INTER
VIEW Don’t Miss These Five
Couch Fest Films
There are two rules to follow when
submitting a film to Couch Fest Films:
Rule One, films must not suck. Rule
two, films must be less than 8 minutes.
That's it, but they’re even kind of flex-
ible with the second rule.
This year the festival received hun-
dreds of entries from all over the world
and organisers have put themselves
through hour upon gruelling hour of
film-watching to narrow it down to 40
finalists (to be honest, it's probably
what they'd be doing anyway). These
top 40 films will be shown at screen-
ings worldwide on November 10.
None of the films suck, but here are
five that we think especially don't suck!
Locations have yet to be confirmed
so you might want to visit www.
couchfestfilms.com to find out where
they will be shown as November 10
approaches.

The Maker

A strange creature races against time
to make the most important and
beautiful creation of his life.

We Refuse To Be Cold

A couple from Montreal make a pact
for the winter.

Funny Web Cam Effects

A moment witnessed through the eyes
of a web cam.

Voice Over

A stranded astronaut struggles to
return to his ship as he runs out of oxy-
gen, but then…

Thumb Snatchers

A carnivorous Texan sheriff defends
his right to eat meat from extra-terres-
trial beings.