The first time Jacqueline Dupuis dove in to save the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF), the stars, to some degree, aligned to help her.
It was 2006. Dupuis, with an economics degree from the University of Saskatchewan and a sales background, had sat on CIFF’s board for three years. She had just taken on a consulting role as the festival’s COO when its director resigned.
“I was the only employee of the festival, and we were about six months away from the festival,” Dupuis recalled, while sitting in the CityTV atrium at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), where she recently assumed the newly created position of executive director.
Dupuis recounted how, as CIFF’s board scrambled to keep its event from falling apart in 2006, she agreed to become executive director and lead that year’s festival.
“I thought, ‘Well, let’s just do it. Let’s have that festival [and] see how it goes.’”
The gamble paid off. Bolstered by strong staff, volunteer and community support, the festival was a success.
But Dupuis added that it was when that festival wrapped up that the real work began. She accepted the role as CIFF executive director and set about tightening ship.
“I said, ‘OK, we did it, but now we need to look at building a strategic plan and see if we can actually retire [the festival’s] debt, rebuild the relationships that we need to in the community, implement an artistic vision for the festival and an artistic direction, and start to operationalize the festival.’”
Dupuis added that to pull that off, she dug into a skill set she’d developed in the private sector working in sales for Xerox Canada and the former Sun Microsystems Inc.
And for the next two years, Dupuis’ leadership delivered tangible results: CIFF built a strategic plan, retired significant debt, increased public funding, nearly doubled its sponsorship revenue and, to differentiate itself from other film fests, drew on the cowboys and can-do spirit of Calgary’s brand to craft an artistic vision hinging on film mavericks.
“Right across the board, we were really humming,” Dupuis said.
But then, in the fall of 2008, disaster struck – and struck again.
That year, for the first time, CIFF had opted to outsource its ticketing to Calgary-based RepeatSeat Ltd. But later that year, the ticketing company hit a cash crunch, and it failed to remit most of the funds from CIFF’s ticket sales.
According to Dupuis, that translated into 25% of CIFF’s annual revenue.
“So then we had a bunch of unpaid suppliers again. It drove our debt levels way back up, and it sent us right back into a state of crisis.”
And then, right on the heels of that first crisis, stock markets crashed and a deep recession took hold. The festival’s corporate sponsors and public funders pulled back.
To keep the festival from folding, Dupuis spearheaded downsizing measures that halved CIFF’s budget to under $1 million by 2010 and reduced a staff of five full-time employees to just one: Dupuis herself.
Dupuis characterized those layoffs as her career’s darkest period.
“Those were people that I’d worked with for years, so closely together, day in day out we’d been in the trenches,” she said. “I knew in my head that it was a business decision, it was the right thing to do for the organization, but I struggled very much personally doing that – and still to this day do.”
Luke Azevedo has worked in those trenches with Dupuis for the past four years. He’s the commissioner of film, television and creative industries at Calgary Economic Development and a former CIFF board member.
While Azevedo said that most film festivals face financial struggles, he characterized CIFF’s recent financial problems as “extremely large.”
He said Dupuis’ role over the past few years has required huge dedication and “the patience of Job.”
“To be able to do what we needed to be able to do, within the scope of the financial capacity that we had, was very difficult,” he said.
“And she was able to do that with a small staff of dedicated folks that she led and directed, and we were able to get through the tough times and the year before she left, this past year, was one of [CIFF’s] most successful years ever.”
Would CIFF have survived its dual crises without the budget-tightening measures Dupuis implemented just before the disasters?
Dupuis is doubtful.
“We barely got through. I always said, when things were really tough in 2010 and we were doing our last round of layoffs and making more cuts to the budget, ‘We could have survived recession or we could have survived the RepeatSeat issue, but not both.’”
Azevedo also sees Dupuis’ efforts as key to the festival’s survival.
“It would have been significantly more difficult for the festival to have been able to survive if they didn’t have a leader that was as dedicated and put in the time, effort and knowledge base or abilities that she dedicated to it,” he said.
With CIFF now sustainable, Dupuis sees her new job at VIFF as a way to move beyond crisis management and try her hand at expanding a festival that’s already successful.
“I’m relieved that I don’t have to fix anything here,” she said wryly.
In the VIFF’s new executive director role, Dupuis said she’ll focus on the event’s business side, while long-time festival director and CEO Alan Franey will focus on its artistic side.
Dupuis said she’ll be helping VIFF tap into new festival technologies and other emerging trends. She’ll also be exploring opportunities for micro-distribution of festival films – “where a community organization out in White Rock could license a film for us that they could show in their community centre about something that they’re interested in.”
Dupuis said she’s also keen to explore how the festival can do a better job of capitalizing on its space to create a facility that’s more vibrant year-round and develop new revenue streams.
For now, Dupuis said, she’s diving in and doing lots of reconnaissance as she figures out the best ways to drive VIFF forward.
“I’ve got a ton to learn, and I’m excited to start to see how all the pieces all fit together.”
�I�m relieved that I don�t have to fix anything here,� she said wryly.
