ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Noreen Golfman's summers are going to be different now that she won't have to watch hundreds of films leading up to the fall launch of the St. John's International Women's Film Festival (SJIWFF).
The founding chair for the annual event, which has grown from a strictly volunteer endeavour to a fully-staffed year-round entity, recently decided to step down from the festival's board of directors after 30 years as chair. The move was made official at SJIWFF's annual general meeting Jan. 15 in St. John's.
Golfman told The Telegram it was something she's been thinking about for years. She felt the current combination of staff and board members made it the right time to step aside and let others lead the charge, noting there can be a tendency for founding directors in arts organizations to stick around too long and not properly plan for succession.
"I was determined — because this festival is so important to me — that I needed to pass the baton to a team that was ready to take over, that was confident and experienced. And that goes for both the volunteer board and the paid staff. After 30 years, I thought it was really time to make space for other people to inhabit the space I have and to allow myself — let's put it bluntly — maybe a summer without having to watch three-to-four-hundred films, which is what I've been doing for decades."
I cannot imagine our community of #FemaleFilmmakers without @ngolfman and her incredible legacy at @SJIWFF Deep gratitude for all the hours she’s clocked for us! https://t.co/UIgih3qt43
— Ruth Lawrence (@IamRuthLawrence) January 28, 2020
One of the longest-running women’s film festivals in the world, there was no comparable showcase event for independent films in the capital city of Newfoundland and Labrador when Golfman helped launch the festival in 1989 with assistance from staff at the National Film Board of Canada's St. John's office.
"The films that we were largely showing were NFB products at the time," said Golfman, who majored in film studies as an undergraduate and focused on the medium throughout the course of her academic research career at Memorial University.
There were a number of turning points over the years, all of them linked to resources. When the local NFB office moved to Halifax in the mid 1990s, Golfman was left just about on her own to look after grant applications to funding partners. The budget was modest, and there was plenty of work to do for herself and other volunteers at a time when physical film was still in use and movies were sent by mail instead of digitally.
Dealing with doubts
A decade in, Golfman said, there was some doubt whether the festival could continue.
"I couldn't see sustaining it," she said.
Fortunately, there was a lot of moral encouragement to keep trying. A few years later, the festival obtained Canada Council for the Arts funding. Eventually, there was enough financial support to hire a festival co-ordinator, which later became the executive director. What was initially a six-month position is now a year-round job — Golfman said that's been the case for several years now. The festival organization currently operates with a staff of five.
"That's really important. Building the 12-month-a-year staff complement has been absolutely critical and a major, major priority of our strategic planning for the last 10 years."
Thank you @ngolfman for your incredible leadership and vision with the @SJIWFF The festival has helped build the careers for most of the female filmmakers in this province, including my own. I am eternally grateful. https://t.co/4QejD9Cc17
— Wanda Nolan (@wandanolan) January 29, 2020
Beyond screening films from around the world featuring the talents of female directors, writers and producers, amongst other roles, the festival has also taken on a strong advocacy role in promoting gender diversity within a thriving provincial film and television industry.
"It's not just about watching films. It's about encouraging younger filmmakers, and in our case particularly women, to think they have a future working in the industry. Many people who've had their films in the film festival over the years from here first came to the festival as spectators and were inspired to see that something could be done and got involved in the industry. Many of them are working on crews in the city and have been for quite some time."
There are a lot of memories for Golfman to hold on to in 30 years of work building the festival into what it is today. The camaraderie with the board and staff are the things she will miss the most.
"They're my family," she said. "I know they're all still in my life. But when you meet so regularly and you're arguing affectionately about films and investing so many hours of your life during the year to a single project like this, there's no doubt I'm going to miss that. I'm grateful for the time it will open up, but I know I'm really going to miss the close collaboration with all those fabulous women."
The festival board has since named Golfman an honourary member. The new board chair is CBC producer and host Angela Antle.
Twitter: @CBNAndrew
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