Since the first of the year, I’ve been working as a programmer for the Seattle International Film Festival, which means I’ve been helping to choose the movies that will play in it. At 25 days, showing hundreds of features and short films, SIFF is one of the longest and largest film festivals in the world.

We’ll be covering it all here at Film.com, from opening night on May 24 through closing night on June 17, but before that I wanted to give you a bit of a behind-the-scenes look. Though I can’t yet give you any titles for movies that will and won't be playing (the full program will be announced May 10th), I can share some general observations of trends I’ve noticed.

If you’ve ever been to a film festival you know some pretty bad films can sneak through. Sometimes it’s because a distributor won’t allow the screening of one film without screening another. Other times it's because the movie is made by a friend of the festival or the filmmaker has some dirt on the Director of Programming. Now imagine all those movies that got rejected. Because this is my first year as a programmer, I had to look through hundreds of blind submissions, and I lived to tell the tale.

The Good

* Anything shot on film. When filmmakers shoot on film, it indicates there was actually some preproduction involved. Even if the script isn’t as polished as it could have been, at least the movie looks better than all of the ones shot on video.

* Personal documentaries. WARNING: Just because you have a video camera doesn’t mean you’re an interesting subject for a movie. However, even the most boring documentary contains at least one kernel of truth that helps make it watchable.

The Bad

* Mobster/gangster pictures. The only research these filmmakers do is watch other movies. The “reality” of the picture is further diminished when recent college graduates play thugs and mob kingpins, which happens far too often.

* Political documentaries. Everybody thinks they’re Michael Moore, but most people just aren’t as funny or as savvy (and I’m not even the biggest Michael Moore fan). We’re left with whiny left-wingers who want to inspire you to change the things that they don’t like about “the system.”

* Horror movies. Even though lowered expectations help the viewing experience, piss-poor acting and idiotic plots generally kill these films. Points are deducted for gratuitous misogyny and homophobia.

The Unwatchable

* 9/11 documentaries. After the World Trade Center tragedy in New York, too many people were inspired to travel across the country and interview “regular people.” Now they’ve decided to submit their footage to film festivals. Ugh.

* Unscripted comedies. Christopher Guest makes it look easy in films like Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show. Watch five minutes of an amateur “mock-documentary” and you will see just how hard it really is.

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