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

CLAUDE JARMAN: Well, it was. I’m sure it would have come up, and I think she just didn’t want to
do that. And we respected that.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: The New Directors Forum was dropped in ’77. Why was that?
CLAUDE JARMAN: I can’t tell you, other than that we just hadn’t researched enough to find enough
new directors. And every other night, we were going to the Castro and just decided not to do it that year.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: And you had fewer retros, also—four.
CLAUDE JARMAN: We had four?
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Yes.
CLAUDE JARMAN: If it was four, it meant we couldn’t get other people that we wanted. I’m sure if
we had been able to get someone, we would have added to it, but if we only had four, we wanted the
best.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Was it also a financial issue?
CLAUDE JARMAN: No, not at all.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Again this year, 15 U.S. premieres, ten of them by directors whose work
had never been seen before in the U.S. In your wrap-up press conference you said that this was probably
the most difficult year. What was the reason for that? Was it the locations, the logistics, adding the
Castro?
CLAUDE JARMAN: They were all difficult. (LAUGHS) They all had their own challenges, let’s put it
that way.
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