Founder celebrates 50 years of Chicago International Film Festival

Michael Kutza founded the Chicago International Film Festival 50 years ago at the age of 22.

“Seven movies,” as he likes to say, “one of them actually good.”

Kutza is now 72, but still resembles the wiry, energetic ball of film Flubber I remembered from our first interview way back in 1978.

A consummate showman, salesman, kingmaker and cultural warrior, Kutza sat under a large black-and-white photograph of James Stewart in the festival offices at 30 E. Adams St. in Chicago for a retrospective chat about his life, critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel and the famous rift this festival created between Kutza and his doctor parents.

I began with “Let me ask you the question I'm sure you've gotten before ...”

“You mean, ‘When are you going to leave, Mike?'” he said, suppressing a smirk.

No, thoughts on the festival hitting its half-century mark.

“I don't look at things that way,” he said. “This is just another exciting year with more incredible films. A great group of people helped put it together. If I weren't putting the number 50 on our promotional materials, I wouldn't even be aware of it. It's just a pretty little number.”

Kutza's parents wanted him to become a doctor like them. His dad was a surgeon. His mother was an OB-GYN.

His parents disapproved of the film festival. In a 1989 interview, Kutza told me that they never mentioned the festival, or suggested they might be proud of its success.

“What would your father have thought about this 50th anniversary?” I asked.

“I know exactly,” Kutza said. “My dad helped pay for this from the beginning, so I would get it out of my system so I could go back and become a doctor the way he wanted. We never really discussed it because we couldn't talk about it.

“He helped support it (the festival) with the hope it would go away. There is a line I use in every interview. He would say, ‘This is just a passing fancy, isn't it?' and I would reply, ‘Yes, it is.'

“Anyway. a very sweet thing happened that set everything straight. I visited his office on a Sunday. When I got into his office, I was overwhelmed. I almost cried, and I only cry in movies. The whole office was covered with clippings. Of me.

“We never talked about the film festival. He never approved of it. But there it was, like this shrine. I couldn't believe it. It was such a beautiful moment.”

Kutza prominently placed photos of Ebert and Siskel on the cover of the festival's program and poster. Both critics had provided key support to the fledgling festival.

“I took him (Ebert) to his first film festival in Venice. Both Gene and Roger served on our festival juries for years. Why not put them on the poster? I introduced them to the directors and filmmakers they'd never met before.

What were they like in the early years?

“Roger was very clever. Roger would cozy up to them (filmmakers). Gene stayed away. I know he was smart, but he certainly didn't like to meet or deal with people.

“Roger would absorb them and love them, whether they were (independent filmmaker) Gregory Nava or (French icon) Francois Truffaut. They'd become lifelong friends. He'd hang out with them in their houses in California or France.

“Roger knew how to play it, and it was very good for him. I think we were a great steppingstone for Roger.”

I remembered that during the 1980s, Siskel famously attacked Kutza in print, charging that the founder “lacked a foul-matter detector.”

Kutza said he didn't remember that but wasn't surprised.

“We've had all kinds of sex,” he said of the movies the festival screened. “We were way ahead of our time by showing all kinds of everything.”

These days, Kutza said his role as the young innovator and instigator has evolved into that of a mentor.

“A great sage,” he called himself, only slightly tongue-in-cheek. “I keep teaching the next generation, whether it's the interns or the filmmakers who work for us.

“The people who come through these doors, I expose them to film and filmmakers. (Director) Joe Swanberg is a big deal today. He worked as our travel coordinator in the office. This is a great training ground.”

Kutza has an honorary street named after him. He has expanded Chicago's taste and acceptance (if not toleration) for movies around the globe.

The festival has shown thousands of films and has a long history of including LGBTQ films, since 1969, during a time when such subject matter wasn't accepted in mainstream culture. (Kutza's claim that his programming was “ahead of its time” is accurate.)

“I don't know what I would do without movies. They're my life,” he said.

So, why are they important?

“Because I don't read books, honest to God,” he replied.

“And you don't watch television,” I added, remembering he had made this admission during an earlier interview.

“Very little,” he said. “I watch the news, which I can't tolerate anymore. I'm afraid to turn the TV on. I don't read. That's terrible. I know that.

“You live through these people's lives (in movies) and you learn from them. Maybe it's that simple. I'm not a very complicated person.”

Why film fest's 50th poster is kids' stuff

For the 50th anniversary of the Chicago International Film Festival, founder and artistic director Michael Kutza wanted something different for a commemorative poster.

So he consulted with longtime collaborator and legendary Chicago photographer Victor Skrebneski, whose sexy festival posters have become an art form unto themselves. Kutza said their brainstorming session went something like this:

Kutza: “What are we going to do for our 50th? Something radically different?”

Skrebneski: “We're going with naked people!”

Kutza: “People don't want to see naked people anymore, Victor. The Internet has removed the need for nakedness. We're going to do something totally different: children.”

Skrebneski: “No! I hate children.”

Kutza: “I do, too.”

Skrebneski: “I don't photograph children!”

So, Kutza did exactly what had to be done.

“I took him out and got him drunk, sort of, until he said, ‘Kids? Yeah, OK! We'll do kids.'

“So I go to the modeling agency and find this perfect little boy and girl. I came up with the idea to put them in our T-shirts and mimic one of our earliest posters.”

And?

“They came to the studio. They were wonderful. Their mothers were there. Victor shot it. We were very pleased with it.”

Kutza dubbed it “The Next Generation.”

“See?” he said. “It's like pulling teeth to get this stuff done.”

The Chicago International Film Festival

<b>What:</b> 150 feature films from 50 countries, plus shorts and special events

<b>When:</b> Oct. 9-23

<b>Where:</b> AMC River East 21, 322 E. Illinois St., Chicago

<b>Tickets:</b> Prices vary by film; various packages available. Tickets can be purchased at <a href="http://ticketmaster.com/chicagofilmfestival">ticketmaster.com/chicagofilmfestival</a>, (312) 332-3456, and at AMC River East 21 and the Cinema/Chicago office, 30 E. Adams St., Suite 800.

<b>Opening night:</b> Features actress Liv Ullman's directorial debut “Miss Julie” at 7 p.m. She is expected to attend the premiere.

<b>Info:</b> For a schedule of all events and films, see <a href="http://chicagofilmfestival.com">chicagofilmfestival.com</a>