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Months of hard work by hundreds of volunteers and two dedicated staff culminate in a week of frenzied activity and suddenly — it’s all over. The ninth Bermuda Film Festival has drawn to a close.

To find out what goes on behind the scenes before, during and after the festival, we spoke to Aideen Ratteray Pryse, the Director, and Duncan Hall, the Deputy Director of BIFF. They’re already very pleased with this year’s festival. “It’s going pretty well,” said Ratteray Pryse. “Certainly, people have been very enthusiastic about the line-up, and we’ve had several shows that have been full houses. A filmmaker always likes to see lots of people at his or her show.”

Hall added: “ What filmmakers find when they come here is that their films are supported — filmgoers here support the film festival and that not only helps us, but it supports the filmmaker.”

BIFF began as a seven day film festival in March nine years ago — now, not only has the festival itself expanded to nine days, but there is also the BIFF Kids Film Festival, the BIFF film series every month and the BIFF Kids Summer Camps.

Part of the appeal for expanding to nine days was that it gave BIFF the opportunity to screen more films in the ‘prime’ time slots, where more people would attend. It also means that the festival takes place over two weekends, giving overseas visitors who only want to visit for a short time the option of attending either one weekend or the next. Organizers estimate that between 200 to 250 people come to Bermuda for the film festival each year. Hall said: “Somebody at the Conversations with Michael Douglas stood up the other night and said, ‘I live in Jamaica, I found out about this two days ago and flew in’.”

Ratteray Pryse added: “Over the last two years we’ve certainly been working very hard to improve the quality of the films in the line-up itself and that has a huge part to play in addition to the fact that the local audiences don’t get the opportunity to see the foreign language films and documentaries that we screen, so there is a demand out there and we’re able to supply that demand at the film festival in March.”

But organizing BIFF isn’t without its setbacks. This year, filmmaker Jonathan Demme was supposed to be the Filmmaker in Focus, but due to last minute work commitments had to pull out. This year, they also had their first fundraiser during BIFF, A Conversation With Michael Douglas. Ratteray Pryse and Hall say that Douglas was a longtime – often behind the scenes – supporter of BIFF, and this year asked if there was another way that he could contribute to the event. “He had an opportunity in his schedule to be here and do A conversation With. He selected the film Falling Down — it is one of his favourite films — and it was hugely successful.”

Hall added: “Bermudians and the expatriates who live here, like the rest of us are big Michael Douglas fans. He’s one of the biggest stars of the last 30 years. He’s someone everybody has been wanting to hear from, but Bermuda being what it is, nobody stops him on the street to do it, so they have been waiting for a public event. As soon as we announced it, we could see that there was great interest, and anybody who was there the other night could see the same thing. It was fascinating.”

BIFF also attracts international press to Bermuda. This year, attendees included press from OK! Magazine, National Public Radio, In Touch/Life & Style Magazines, WireImagePhoto, Fodor’s and Film Threat Magazine among others. Hall said: “We’re getting great coverage on websites like FilmThreat.com, Ain’t it Cool News, FilmFestivals.com. One of them called the [Michael Douglas] interview ‘utterly brilliant’. We’ve all created a film festival to be proud of locally. You get a really diverse selection of films from around the world,” he added.

The festival finishes this Saturday with the Wrap Party at Hamilton Princess. There will be a full open bar and hors d’oeuvres included, an awards ceremony, live entertainment and film showings. Tickets are $75 and are available online at www.biff.bm, at #6 Passenger Shed & at the door. (Limited 500 tickets only) More info available at www.Unite.bm.[[In-content Ad]]

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