Mark and Christine Holder had spent their careers in Hollywood building up the careers of others as managers who would ultimately come to found their own production company Wonder Street, but after deciding to move out of the city a few years ago for a less hectic life in Idaho, they weren’t only thinking about themselves when considering the potential in the state capitol where an increasing number of refugees from the coasts like themselves were starting to build up the arts scene.
“There’s a lot of space here for appreciation of film and the arts in general, so we just thought, “Why not start a film festival?” said Christine Holder on the eve of the inaugural Boise Film Festival, which launches tonight with a 20th anniversary screening of “Miracle” where seeing the 1980s U.S. men’s hockey team defeat the Soviet Union won’t be the only triumph on display for local audiences when the Holders have built an event aimed at bringing films that might not make it this far to the Midwest otherwise and give residents the inspiration to make a few of their own.
Although the long weekend will conclude with the former football player-turned-illusionist Jon Dorenbos performing at a closing night night gala, audiences can expect a little magic throughout the festival in Boise where master classes from “Miracle” producer Mark Ciardi and “CSI” creator Anthony Zuiker will help close the gap for aspiring filmmakers who might think their Hollywood dreams are unfathomably far away and films will be making their way from Sundance (“Sugarcane,” “Every Little Thing” and “A New Kind of Wilderness”), Slamdance (“Chaperone”), SXSW (Cutter Hodierne’s crypto thriller “Cold Wallet,” Alison Tavel’s “Resynator” and the Aussie comedy “Audrey,” and Cannes (Tyler Taormina’s raucous “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point”) in addition to a shorts block showcasing local talent. If the Holders have their way, the event will make an impact beyond being four days of fun, having a new generation of local filmmakers grow up alongside it and in the midst of a busy run-up to the event, the two graciously took time away to talk about the launch of the Boise Film Fest, creating a festival specifically geared to the Boise community and finding a home there themselves.
How did this all come about?
Christine Holder: We were in Los Angeles for many, many years, and we moved to Boise about four years ago during the pandemic. We found ourselves just falling in love with the community here, and when we went on strike last year, we thought, “Well, what can we do? We represent writers, actors, and directors, and all the creative folk, and with our strike situation, no one was able to go to work.” And we thought, what can we do here that gives back to the community? It would be fun. We can utilize our talents and our skills and our relationships. The Boise arts community is really vibrant and rich. we might as well give it a go. How hard can it be? [laughing] And it’s been so hard.
Does it work the same muscles as producing or is it totally different?
Christine Holder: There is a learning curve to it, but what we’ve learned through our producing careers is how to be problem solvers in the moment, and a lot of that comes into play with a film festival. You’re putting on multiple big events over a four-day period, and we love bringing people together. We love artists and [we thought] how could we best serve our community of artists that we have here and give them access to education and people and subject matters that maybe they don’t have as widely here in Boise, so [we wanted to] bring our friends from Los Angeles to Boise, a lot of them for the first time, and just really connect. We learned that one of the skills that we take away from being a producer is how to be the best connector as possible and to know when you can allow people to thrive and to shine in their own light.
Were there specific needs that you saw in Boise as far as the filmmaking scene in Boise was concerned or ways you could engage the community?
Christine Holder: Yeah, what we first did was we went to BSU, our local college here, and their film program is the fastest growing program at the college, so they’re really proud of that. It’s amazing and one of their professors is on our jury, so we went to them and said, “If we were to start a film festival, what would you like to see?” We really tried to listen to what they thought would work and what they didn’t need and we built it based on the input we received from people in Boise. We have a really thriving arts community here — filmmakers that were born and bred here and then filmmakers that are transplants who have come from cities like New York or Los Angeles for quality of living and they’re filming and shooting things constantly. In fact, a few of the shorts in our program are from local Boise productions and we have a feature that was filmed in the Pacific Northwest because we’ll have categories for best Pacific Northwest short and best Pacific Northwest feature, so we really tried to embrace the local community and tap into what they were doing here, finding out what they thought they needed and what could enhance their career as artists.
It seems like the Anthony Zuiker Master Class could be really helpful practically for aspiring writers. How did he come into the mix?
Christine Holder: Anthony is a friend and he [recently] wrote a short filmed in Boise. He teamed up with a local director and that director’s brother stars in the short, and when he came to Boise for the first time, he fell in love and said he wants to shoot everything here, so we suggested “CSI: Boise.” I don’t know if that’s going to happen. [laughs] But we asked Anthony, if we could screen his film during the shorts block of our programming and asked if he could be a part of the festival and he said, “Anything I can do to enhance your programming or help with the local community,” so we said, “Let’s get you to teach a master class,” and on Saturday, he’ll go over everything of how to pitch a TV show, how to break story, how to sell a TV show, and how to write your characters, so I think the attendees will get a really great in-depth education about everything TV and if you know Anthony, he’s one of the most charismatic guys I’ve ever met, so we anticipate his master class being a lot of fun.
I know for the actual screenings you brought in a pair of strong programmers from the Los Angeles scene. What was it like putting together an actual lineup?
Christine Holder: We have never done this before, so we really leaned on our programmers and we were so grateful to get [Sundance Features Programmer] Ash Hoyle and [Indian Film Festival Film Traffic and Presentations Manager] Caroline Bloom as our programmers. They’ve done amazing work on the circuit and their taste is just impeccable. They were both very collaborative and also know so much about film and what it takes to put a good program together, just in terms of even what movies should show at certain times and what short pairs with what feature. We really were happy that we all had the same taste as well, which was always helpful, and we had a great experience with them. They taught us a lot about how to shape a programming for a festival and how to appeal to different audiences. We’re going to have a different audience than Tribeca or Sundance and being a first year film festival, we really had to take a lot of things into account and I think that they allowed us to do that in a really intentional way.
As I understand it, you’re already planning a few traditions like opening with something tried-and-true on Throwback Thursdays. How did the big opening night of “Miracle” come about to kick off this year’s festival?
Mark Holder: Boise is a hockey town, and we don’t have professional sports here, so most people lean into the Seattle or Denver market, but what we do have in the middle of our downtown is a very special arena that’s built into one of the best hotels here, The Grove. So the Idaho Steelheads, which are a minor league hockey team, play here, and when we were thinking about what film to use, [producer] David Permut’s on our board, so we thought maybe we’ll do “Face/Off” or Frank Marshall’s on our board, so we thought maybe we’ll do “Indiana Jones.” But then Mark Ciardi, who’s also part of our board, produced “Miracle” and it’s the 20th anniversary, [so we thought] wouldn’t it be cool to tie in hockey with this hockey town? We reached out to Disney and we licensed the film and then we reached out to Mike Eruzione, who couldn’t have been cooler about saying yes to come out to Boise, which is a place he loves, and Mark’s coming out and Patty [O’Brien] Dempsey, who lives in L.A. and played Mike in the movie, is coming out. It just all came together super organically at the Egyptian, which is our big historic theater in the middle of downtown here that a couple owns and renovated and it’s beautiful. It seats 750 folks, so we’re really excited about it.
What it’s been like just seeing the community come together to help put this on already?
Christine Holder: Like I said earlier, it’s really hard work and I think we underestimated what it takes to put on a film festival, so any festival out there that’s in existence, like “Good for you, you’re doing something that’s really hard.” And it was the support of the community that really kept us going. There was not one person that we talked to that we said we had the idea of doing a film festival here in Boise that said that’s a bad idea. Everybody said it’s a fantastic idea. Our city is really set up for it with the way the downtown is. It’s all walkable. October is the most beautiful time of year here. We have great food. We have great hotels. We have fantastic music. The city itself really supports artists and our ballet is top notch, our symphony is one of the best in the world and for us, we really found that the more we talked to the local community, the more support we got for the festival which really kept those long days and long nights a little bit more palatable because we had so much support. We have great sponsors like Key Bank and ICCU and the Grove Hotel that are really helping to make this a successful first year.
And we plan to have a gala every year. This year, we’re honoring Esther and Jack Simplot and Esther is like the first lady of Boise. She supports the arts and makes artist programs possible. She supports the ballet and the symphony and a lot of different artistic programs here and her husband Jack passed away a few years ago, so we’re honoring him posthumously, but to honor them was really important to us because she’s just a wonderful patron of the arts and her and Jack both made a huge difference in the way we embrace arts in the Boise community. It’s just really important for us as a couple to honor another couple that has done such wonderful work in the city and really makes a lot of these artistic programs possible.
The Boise Film Festival runs from October 10th through 13th.