The importance of storytellers can’t be underestimated, and Carol Fleisher, Durango Film’s new executive director, wants to bring more of them to the Durango Independent Film Festival.
Fleisher is taking the helm of the film festival from Joanie Leonard, who ran it for 18 years. The festival is slated to run Feb. 28 to March 3 in various venues around Durango.
And when it comes to all things film, she knows what she’s talking about: Not only has she been an award-winning filmmaker for more than 40 years, she owns her own production company, has worked for Rocky Mountain PBS and teaches film at Fort Lewis College.
“It is with great pleasure that the Durango Film Institute Board of Directors welcomes Carol Fleisher as our new Executive Director for the Durango Independent Film Festival,” said Durango Film Board Director Dwayne Baker in a news release. “Carol comes with a considerable background of both film festival management and independent film production experience. We are very excited that she has decided to join us in making our festival a better experience every year.”
Fleisher moved to Durango with her husband in 2014 from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where she worked with Jackson Wild (formerly Jackson Hole Film Festival) for 26 years. It was for that festival she worked in production, programming and moderating sessions, while working with some of the world’s foremost natural history filmmakers, the news release said.
As a filmmaker, Fleisher has won a slew of awards – including Emmys for “Why Dogs Smile & Chimpanzees Cry” and “Chasing El Niño.” She’s made films for NBC, CBS, ABC, National Geographic, Discovery and Animal Planet, and with her own production company.
“I’m a filmmaker and a festival goer as well as a festival lover, and I think I can bring all my passions together in this job to help other filmmakers and also our community,” Fleisher said. “It’s a really exciting opportunity. I’m so deeply honored that they’re entrusting me with this town.”
For those keeping an eye on the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes, Fleisher said she doesn’t expect the upcoming film festival to be affected.
“The independent films should still in large part be ongoing,” she said. “I’m a very proud member of the Writers Guild. I have a Writers Guild of America award I am very proud of. And God bless them. I wouldn’t have had my first house, I wouldn’t have had insurance or health care for my husband, any of that, if I hadn’t been a member of the Writers Guild, so I’m in complete support and stopped even pitching as soon as we went on strike.” She added that there are still workers not on the strike list and, “I think a lot of people saw this coming and have productions in the can that we can share as well.”
Looking at the future of Durango Film, Fleisher said she would like to make the festival accessible to more people.
“What I’d like to do is get the word out. First of all, I’d love to see us take a traveling DIFF, to other communities around the Four Corners and beyond, taking some of the award winners to another kind of road show,” she said. “I’d also like to let more independent filmmakers know about us. I don’t think we’re necessarily on everyone’s radar, and that’ll be something I really want to look at. And also expand the universe of filmmakers who just won’t be able to resist coming to Durango to have great conversations and screenings where they know that both they and their films will be deeply respected.”
And for Fleisher, the role film festivals serves goes beyond a fun week of catching movies and meeting actors and directors – they can fill a greater human and societal need.
“I think we need storytellers,” she said. “As human beings, we need storytellers, and we need them to have safe and engaged places to share their perspectives and inspire conversation, inspire thought, inspire humor, inspire feelings. It’s such a basic human need. And it’s also something that is so good at bringing a community together over a shared experience.”
katie@durangoherald.com
