San Francisco Film Society Oral History Project Interview with ...

CLAUDE JARMAN: Yes, Ray Syufy moved on, and then we asked George to take over. That was good
timing because Albert was gone, and we wanted to keep George’s involvement. That was a natural
transition.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Who did the programming then, after Albert left?
CLAUDE JARMAN: Mark, Lorena and myself. And we brought Marty Rubin in, and he did the
tributes.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: You had a reduced budget that year, so did you cut back on
programming or increase ticket prices or anything like that?
CLAUDE JARMAN: We may have increased ticket prices a little bit. Tickets were still about $3.50.
Opening Night went up to $100, which included the party. And the party was wine and drinks unlimited.
That was it, which was a pretty good bargain, frankly, for people.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Of course by this time it wasn’t the big society event it had been in past
years, right?
CLAUDE JARMAN: Not really. I never thought it was a big society event. I always considered
“society” was the opera and the symphony. A lot of people who supported those two endeavors were
never really that into [the Film Festival]. It was kind of a cross-section of people. We got some business
support, we had Transamerica, who was always a supporter; we would sell tables for the Opening Night,
and that worked out. We made money on Opening Night, which helped support the rest of the time.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: This was the year of the Truffaut retrospective.
CLAUDE JARMAN: Yes, and we had Ruth Gordon.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Well you definitely had Mark Chase doing Truffaut.
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