PRINTRising up the ranks
T/F volunteer climbs the indie ladder
Heather McGuire
Robin Griswold has been a part of the True/False Film Festival since she volunteered in 2006. She is the current director of submissions for the festival, which begins Thursday.
February 28, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Robin … wait … Hi, this is Robin Griswold … oh, geez sorry,” Robin Griswold says, laughing as she answers her cell phone. Frazzled after a busy day dealing with e-mails and phone calls about passes for the True/False Film Festival, Griswold is on her way to the old Ragtag at 23 N. Tenth St. from the True/False office above Tellers two blocks away. Even though Ragtag has moved to 10 Hitt Street, she still walks between both locations. An organizer on the go, 24-year-old Griswold works two days a week at Ragtag and three days as True/False submissions director.
Griswold volunteered to escort True/False filmmakers around Columbia for the 2006 festival. That August, she contacted Paul Sturtz and David Wilson, co-founders of True/False and asked for a job. They offered a paid internship and a job doing promotions at Ragtag.
In August 2007, Griswold met with Sturtz and Wilson again and was hired as director of submissions for True/False. “The things I do are directly important to how well the fest gets put on,” Griswold says. “It’s nice, but it’s also stressful.”
Griswold’s responsibilities are as lengthy as film credits. She spreads the word about the festival to film groups across the world and organizes incoming submissions. Griswold assembles a viewing committee of herself and four other people to watch more than 450 entries. In one particularly intense week, she watched 25 films for this year’s festival. The committee rates each film, and after the final cuts, Griswold writes rejection letters. “We try to personalize it and write specific things about their film,” says Griswold. “It’s tedious on my end, but I think it’s good for our relationship with filmmakers.”
She also handles submissions to Gimme Truth!, a contest in which Missourians create and submit films, and judges decide if they are fact or fiction. She helps promote Filmmaker Bootcamp, a program for kids ages 12 to 16. For the kick-off parade on Friday, Griswold writes a proposal, gets a permit and talks to the police. “I’ve been learning so much about grass-roots organizing of arts with True/False and Ragtag,” says Griswold. “I could see myself eventually opening some sort of multimedia center, something like Ragtag on a bigger scale.”
When she’s not working, Griswold produces her own film projects. She recently applied to seven graduate schools for filmmaking with a focus on directing and producing. Wherever she decides to go to school, Griswold hopes to remain a part of the True/False Film Festival, even if it means flying back for it.
As she heads back up Tenth Street, Griswold says she looks forward to introducing some of the films. “I feel like with the amount of work I’ve done this year, it’s sort of a payoff,” says Griswold. “I’m not just the girl on the computer 24/7. I get to have a face and do something.”
