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

MARGARITA LANDAZURI: You mean, of when to have it?
CLAUDE JARMAN: Yes, why it moved to April. I’ve never understood that.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Well somebody else probably does understand.
CLAUDE JARMAN: Well, I don’t know. Maybe you can find out. I’m always interested as to why it
comes before the Cannes Festival, because a lot of films, if they’re going go to Cannes, they’re not
going show in San Francisco before they go.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: You alluded to the fact that maybe there was some sort of rivalry with
the Los Angeles Film Festival.
CLAUDE JARMAN: Because they were starting out, and they usually finished right after ours. And
Filmex—I think they considered us a rival more than we considered them a rival. Gary Essert, who was
the director, was always up at the Festival. And we gave him carte blanche and didn’t try to say, “Don’t
do this, don’t do that,” but then he never said, “Give us the film and don’t give it to San Francisco,”—I
think they were trying to build their event, but we already had our event, so I think they were working a
little harder to create a rivalry. But we never considered them a big rival.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Let’s move on to 1977. The Opening Night film, Bobby Deerfield: How
was that, and how did you end up using that film? There was a problem with the film you originally had,
right?
CLAUDE JARMAN: We originally had? I don’t remember.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: The new Lina Wertmüller, Night Full of Rain.
CLAUDE JARMAN: Was that going to be our Opening Night?
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: And it fell through at the last minute.
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