By Pamela K. Johnson
AFI FEST Daily News

So there’s this guy named Bernie, who ambles up to the Guest Services desk on the first day of the AFI FEST. He’s heard it’s free, and that happens to fit within his budget. But he’s told that all the tickets have been snatched up. Disappointed, he strolls across the street to one of the Roosevelt Hotel bars, swills a drink, and then doubles back to see if his luck has changed. Turns out It has, and several hours later, he moseys out of Mann’s Chinese 6, having just seen his second film, EVERYONE ELSE by Germany’s Maren Ade.

“That was pretty good,” he says of the tale of a young couple, clawing their way to intimacy. Bernie has discovered what a number of people are finding at this years’ AFI FEST: Hang loose, dude, because things change, and you could wander into a totally cool film that you would never see at the multiplex.

AFI FEST Director of Programing Robert Koehler is, you might say, stoked about all the Bernies attending the nine-day event: People who are enticed by the prospect of catching a free film, and remain open-minded about what they see.

“That’s how I grew up,” Koehler muses about his early festival-going years. “It exposed me to a whole new set of films that I wouldn’t have seen.” Now, as a programmer, he believes his role is “to choose a range of films that affect and influence the audience, to move them in some way…” He hopes the impact will not only broaden public taste, but also widen the range of projects that filmmakers can get financed—and distributed.

Part of the intention, says festival Producer David Rogers, is “to have Hollywood audiences drawn in, and get traction for that film from Israel, or that documentary about poor Mexican children.”

The notion of a free festival actually began with broke Americans in mind. In the wake of double-digit unemployment, and the economy praying to the porcelain god, as they say, AFI FEST programmers tried a different tack. Instead of simply scaling back, which the economic times demanded, Rogers and Artistic Director Rose Kuo asked, How do we make this work for our audience, and how do we stand out?

“Last spring, we decided to offer free movies to the public, and just attract more sponsors. It was a combination of [presenting sponsor] Audi stepping up and really embracing this, and not pulling back their sponsorship dollars,” Rogers adds. Other sponsors bought into it, as well, along with Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO, and Nancy Harris, AFI COO, who extended additional resources to make the new paradigm work. The Festival also got a slew of in-kind donations. So they gave away tickets—even to the high-end, previously pricey Galas.

“The Galas closed out in 15 minutes,” Rogers says. “Within two hours half of the Festival was at capacity, and in eight hours all but two screenings were full. The response was amazing. All the good will has been fantastic. We’ve definitely tapped into a new audience; people who haven’t come to a film festival in the past.”

Rogers met a ‘Bernie’ from Tennessee, who heard about the event, clicked on a link to the site, and scored tickets to two Galas, including one for Terry Gilliam’s THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS, which features Heath Ledger’s final performance. The Tennessean also somehow got a hold of Rogers’ cell phone number. “He called and said, ‘I never attended anything like this before. How do I dress? Do I wear a tuxedo?’ I thought it was really cool to include people in this who wouldn’t [usually] get to experience this.” It was first come, first served, with no socioeconomic barriers to get in the way.

Rogers has been amazed at the role Internet marketing has played in spreading the word. For a few clicks, people signed up for up to 20 tickets, printed out the receipt, brought it to the Guest Services desk at Mann’s Chinese theater in Hollywood, and redeemed paper tickets for the screenings on their print out. The seats of people who don’t show go to those who do. People can turn in tickets they aren’t using, or trade them for movies they’d prefer to see as they come available. Or they can amble up, ask what’s showing next, and if there are tickets available, walk right in.

Not everyone is getting in for free, however. AFI FEST has sold quite a number of badges that range in price from $500 to $5,000. The price of those badges actually went up this year, paid for by those patrons of the arts who could afford them. That support helps organizers create a budget, rent venues, and fly in filmmakers from all over the world.

Free is good. But can it last?

“I feel like the intention is to [keep this going],” says Rogers. “We need the blessing of our sponsors, of course, but this does distinguish us. Sundance doesn’t do anything for free, Tribeca does nothing. In one respect, all eyes are on us to determine where all this falls in the end,” he says.

Koehler is also encouraged by the direction in which this precedent could take independent film: “In a way, movies can be divided into those that offer an entertaining distraction, and those that give the audience an experience. A good film festival does the latter,” he adds.

He caught the quirky movie, MOTHER, about a doting mom who stops at nothing to free her son when he winds up in the clink for murder. The film, from Korea’s Bong Joon-ho, won Cannes’ Un Certain Regard prize this year, and showed at AFI FEST on the phenomenally huge screen at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. “I saw it with my wife,” says Koehler. “She was blown away by the film.”

It’s like those credit card commercials on TV:

Popcorn: An arm and a leg.

Soft drink: Your first born.

Movie experience for free: Priceless.

Pamela K. Johnson can be emailed at pjohn5@aol.com.