 I'm here today with Kathy Beck who's the co-founder of Biff, that you and your sister Robin have been doing Biff for. We're going into our 19th year this year. 19th year. I can't believe it. 19 years. Yes, sometimes it feels like you know three years and sometimes it feels like 30. Yeah. And it's so and then what's the date of the festival this year? The festival this year is March 2nd through the 5th and that's a Thursday and it's coming up in a few short weeks so we've got lots going on. We have all kinds of events. It starts with our big foodie event which is always fun. We're where we have chefs that cook dishes based on movie themes that they love from just their history of watching film and then people vote on it. It's a competition so that's a lot of fun. It's called CineChef. That starts on Thursday night and then we go from there with all kinds of activities and parties and movies of course is what it's all about. It's quite the festival atmosphere. You've got the red carpets, you've got bands, you have everything. It's quite a big deal, quite fun to be a part of. It is fun. Yeah, thanks John. It is a lot of fun. And so now Biff is also showing films here in Longmont. Yes. And you've been in Collins for a while but you're not doing that. But you have the Longmont program that's going to be this year. What are venues here in town? Well we use the Stuart Auditorium at the museum and it is lovely. It's really kind of state-of-the-art. It's really comfortable. We just love that venue and so do people who come watch films there as well. They of course have year-round activities going on there and some really cool stuff. But we come in during the festival on the third, fourth and fifth which is Friday, Saturday and Sunday of that weekend and we bring a slate of wonderful films, their features, their documentaries, their shorts programs and we kind of pick what we think is the cream of the crop and it's really really great programming. So we love it. I think we're going into our sixth or seventh year here in Longmont and it is, excuse me, one of our favorite places to screen films. Okay. And so and if somebody wanted to find out what the films are, what they're showing, there'll be programs around town here in Boulder and then also the, and we'll put the website right up on the screen. So what's the website? It's BiffOne.com and you just go there and you can view our entire program but you can go to the Longmont pages on the website or when you get the program it's page 46 and 47 where we cover the Longmont films specifically and so you can find it either on the website or in the program. Okay. Probably in our app as well. We have an app as well. So download our app and you can see it there too. Great. Yeah. And you got teens involved and you got adventure films. We do and we have a whole adventure film pavilion. I'm glad you asked that because it's one of my favorite things at the festival. It's something we started just a few short years ago. You know, there used to be an adventure film festival in Boulder for many many years. I think they started when we did. So it's been, they were there for a long time but they went away three or four years ago and we just saw this opportunity to show some of the great movies that are out there that really focus on adventure and this area of course being in Colorado and being along the front range here is just such an adventurous community and so we are showing films from all different kinds of genres whether it's you know mountain climbing or it's high lining which is slack lining really high. We've got kayaking, you know really wild river kayaking. We've got we've got BMX biking this year, a fabulous movie and that's something that I thought I would be that interested in but it's amazing how a wonderful, fabulous, well-made film can get you interested and excited about a topic and that is it's a very tiny bike. It is but it's a fascinating story and this is really a wonderful love story between two people and and this BMX racing but just all kind we hit all kinds of with surfing I mean all kinds of genres and we are bringing a few of those adventure films to Longmont as well and we're excited about that. We're gonna bring the Yin and Yang of Jerry Lopez which is he was a huge in the surfing community starting back in the 70s and just a really big surfer and that's a wonderful film and that's another funny thing I don't surf of course a lot of us don't because we're here kind of in Landlock Colorado but fascinating story and interesting character he was and is and we're gonna bring that here and then we've got one of our adventure shorts programs we're bringing here as well and I really like those programs because there's just something for everybody in that you know shorts program whether we there might be a film on backpacking there might be a film on rock climbing there we have some animal films this year which I love too so there's a wonderful short about walruses and you know that's always fun too so we like to bring a little bit of that adventure flavor out here to Longmont as well so so we and we were talking before before the interview started here and you were saying that you and Robin got your start with a situation just like Longmont media just checking equipment out in Boulder yeah well I was admiring the wonderful space you have here for community media and it is fabulous and there used to be a place like that in Boulder and it was community you know Boulder community media I think it was called something like that and they used to check out equipment to filmmakers and potential filmmakers and people interested in you know just using that equipment or using the studio space and that kind of thing so Robin and I were making films and mainly short docs and that kind of thing and you know we needed we needed equipment we didn't have equipment so we went there and checked it out and started making films and then we ended up you know going to some really cool film festivals like Banff and and Telluride Mountain Film and Robin started winning awards at some of those places and that's kind of where we got the foundation to say you know what why isn't there a film festival in Boulder we always said somebody you'll start that sometime and you know then finally nobody did and we said then let's do it and so we did yeah but it got its start from a wonderful place like this wow and at first I ever heard of you was the frozen dead guy up in Netherlands that's because I was living up there when this whole thing was going down and it was just this media you know just just extravaganza satellite trucks Japan everyone was there you know trying to find out the frozen dead guy and you guys did a film and is it grandpa's in the tough yes yes grandpa's in the tough shed we made and then we made it a little longer into grandpa's still in the tough shed and that was funny what a fascinating story I mean great film is all about great storytelling that's what it is you can have very high production value you can have great acting if it's a doc of course there's not acting but you can have great subjects but if there isn't a great story to tell you really don't have much at the end of the day but that's a great story so that's where we kind of that's where we learned our you know how important great storytelling is and that's still the basis of the films we select at Biff today is they have to have great stories right and I think that's what a lot of people mess they think I mean I think a lot of people think hey I want to go make a film I gotta have the best lights the best cameras the best lenses and I think that a viewer is a lot more forgiving on the technical side if the story is compelling you are right so because that was our experience we didn't have equipment we didn't I mean our first film we didn't even have a tripod and so we always joked that we were the first ones to do the shaky Blair which project camera I thought that was just done in post no we we started that no I'm just kidding but you know but we were forgiven for the quality because the story was fabulous and and Gramps in the tough shed was one of the prime examples of that yeah a story that is just just too good to pass up even if the production value is not that great and now it's in us this park yeah next year it'll be in Jackson Hole I can't even imagine yeah great story though right yeah so well cool so thank you so much for coming in and you know just encouraging everybody to check out the Boulder International Film Festival and with the Boulder International Film Festival the program that you are setting up here in Longmont and it's a you know it'd be just great entertainment a fun environment you know just to go out and you know have a good time at the movies exactly and there's even we even do a party here at the museum on opening night which is Friday oh that's a lot of fun so we you know we try to give it that party flavor there's lots of parties of course in Boulder but we do one here as well and there's lots of fun you know things to do in the festival itself that you know come to the Longmont screenings we absolutely encourage that but there's a lot of fun stuff going on in Boulder too and a lot of that is whether it's our youth programs we have some free programs for students we have our call-to-action program where we do discussions after the films and we also have as I mentioned a lot of wonderful parties great music we have a singer-songwriter showcase that's free for anybody to come and see some wonderfully talented musicians from the area so really something for everyone the films of course are the the best part of all of it and our films this year are fantastic and we have a lot of really compelling stories whether documentaries or feature films and a couple maybe I'll just talk about a couple of them coming here I mean one feature film that's coming here is called the Thief Collector and it's a fascinating story about a art theft from the University of Arizona art museum and it was a Willem de Kooning painting which was extremely valuable and they'd never figured out somebody somebody came in and took the painting and they never figured it out until like 30 years later they found it in someone's bedroom behind the door a pair of school teachers in Arizona really interesting story though so that's one great example teachers are the worst teachers I think we know the lesson here but you know unassuming people that how did they pull this off it's a great story and it's well-told and then we also have a film about Richard Williams Serena and Venus Williams dad and it's a documentary and you know you think you know that whole story but you end up watching the documentary and it's fascinating you learn so many new things and and they kind of go through their whole career and how they got you know where they where they got at the end of the day which is always a wonderful story so that's another good one we've got two shorts programs coming from our regular shorts and those are always fun the thing I really love about shorts is that you know it's a lot of stories so you've got not just one big wonderful story but you've got five or six and so if you're not so hot on one of them just wait a few minutes there's another story coming but you will love all of these stories because they're all fascinating and again you know the most important thing is telling that story and even in short films even if a film is five minutes you can tell a great story you don't need 90 minutes you can do it in five sometimes and it's fun to watch as each film comes up you know how long it is and how they tell that story in that in that time frame and so those are always fun they're very popular they're already selling and we're also bringing as I mentioned that one the adventure shorts here so we've got three shorts programs so for those short shorts lovers we have lots to offer there as well so just just a lot of fun stuff yeah great and been putting in a lot of time getting this all ready to go and you got about a month that's in what we hear I wish we had a month crossing those days like two and a half weeks or so by this time so it's coming kind of fast and furious and we'll be at opening night before we know it and got a lot of good music film speaking of opening night we have a wonderful film on opening night so I think there's some tickets left they are going fast but that's a fun night and and then our closing night film is a lot of fun this year too and that's a film called still working 9 to 5 and it's about the making of the movie 9 to 5 which is hysterical of course as you remember if you saw that film back in 1980 it's kind of a you know they talked to the gals from the film Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton and they talk about how it was to make the film but it was all it's also about the culture of that time and we have another film similar to that that we're bringing to Longmont about the making of midnight cowboy and the culture at that time it's called desperate souls dark city and the making of midnight cowboy and that is really great if you it really a good film also just transports you back to a place in time in you know really well they do a good job on that in that movie and it's just about that interesting culture at the time and why why that film came out and why it was cutting edge for the time and that kind of thing so you can check that out right here in Longmont and a great opportunity to see these films that you just don't normally get to see right it's not just a Marvel comic no it's not just another Batman it's something that you're like well take a chance on this I'm gonna go and I'm gonna see this and I think I mean you bring up a good point like I have a distinct feeling when I walk out of a really good movie that air has changed the light has changed I feel different I you know people talk about being reset like the mountains I'm gonna reset films can reset you that's such a great observation John you're exactly right it makes you feel differently it makes you think differently and it stays with you a good film a great film will stay with you for days and days that's always the mark of a good film for me as well and it changes you because you see your perspective can change based on what you learned and what you saw on the screen so that's that's excellent that's an excellent description of what great film does and I think this is one of our best programs that we've ever had to be honest it is fantastic and all the films are just great stories and will help change perspectives and they'll stick with you for days so we're really excited terrific really looking forward to this year well thank you so much yeah thanks so much for coming in and we will all the information will be on this interview how people get tickets so great great just go to come right out here to Longmont party and watch some movies absolutely get your tickets at the Longmont Museum they're at the Stewart Auditorium or go to biff one dot com either one great great okay thank you John really appreciate it thank you