Filling in the Director's Chair

When programmers from around the world converge next week at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Olympics of bleary-eyed cinephilia, for the first time in several years a new face will represent Nashville's own 39-year-old film fest. That person is Brian Owens, co-founder and director of the Indianapolis International Film Festival, who will assume his post as the Nashville Film Festival's new artistic director this week.

Owens' hiring follows the surprise resignation earlier this summer of Brian Gordon, the NaFF's artistic director for the past seven years. Under Gordon's programming guidance, the festival attracted coverage from national trade publications, cultivated relationships with Tennessee filmmakers such as Nashville's Harmony Korine and Memphis' Craig Brewer, brought in celebrities ranging from Oprah Winfrey to Kiefer Sutherland, and boosted attendance this year for the first time past the 20,000 mark. His departure raised concerns about the festival's direction, especially its attention to foreign and experimental films.

But if the Indianapolis fest is any indication, Nashville can expect a seamless transition. Not only did Owens' 2008 lineup feature several of the same films as Nashville—among them Son of Rambow, Young @ Heart and the surprise sell-out In the City of Sylvia—but he managed to snag some strong titles that didn't play NaFF, such as Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Flight of the Red Balloon and Sergei Bodrov's Mongol. His experience also mirrors Gordon's in that he grew his festival quickly in a short amount of time. Since it began in 2004, Indianapolis' attendance rose from 2,400 to 9,100 last April.

"I became aware of the Nashville festival very early on, as it's about the same size city as Indianapolis," Owens said in a call last week. "It's one of those festivals that's been fascinating to watch. Obviously Nashville is much larger, but our lineups are somewhat similar." In Indianapolis, a die-hard sports town, Owens says his festival focuses on sports documentaries and features the way the NaFF emphasizes music films. "But each has a nice strong international flavor," he said.

Owens said he learned about the job while passing through Nashville on his way to visit family in Georgia. So what can Nashville expect from his tenure? Once he settles in with his partner and his "four-legged daughter" Phoenix, Owens says he looks forward to extending the festival's relationships with boutique distributors and its music-industry connections. He also means to "pan through a lot" of American indie and international features and short narratives looking for hidden gems. That's why you'll find him next week at Toronto's Varsity cinema, red-eyed, sifting through five-movie days for next year's NaFF line-up.

"A film festival can't be everything to everyone," Owens says. "But a good film festival should have something that does please everyone." His guiding principle as a programmer, he says, is the same one he'd use as a moviegoer: "Would I pay $15 to see this?" Come next April, Nashville will get its first look at what Brian Owens would pay $15 to see.