Thumbs Up: Screeners immersed in film as they choose what to show at this spring's RiverRun

When Mary Dossinger isn't working, she often goes to the movies.

Dossinger, who works for RiverRun International Film Festival, has seen several of the films nominated for Academy Awards, which will be presented tonight at 8 on ABC.

Slumdog Millionaire has emerged as her favorite movie of the year; she hasn't been able to stop talking about director Danny Boyle's latest effort, which recounts what happens when a young man from the slums of Mumbai makes a highly successful appearance on India's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

All this might not seem terribly extraordinary, what with all the movie fans out there, except that Dossinger has seen, evaluated and helped determine the local fate more than 500 additional films since June.

These films, along with about 300 others, have come from all over the world. They are vying for one of about 100 spots in the next RiverRun. Dossinger, the festival's program coordinator, will keep tabs on each and every one of the films until all programming decisions have been made public on March 25. (A few films were announced last week; see the information below.) The festival will be held April 22-29 in Winston-Salem.

If Dossinger seems about to catch film fatigue, she doesn't show it.

"I have always loved movies," she said by e-mail. "Even when I was a small child I would watch the movies I loved over and over again, (oftentimes to the annoyance of the rest of my family).

"Also, having a brother and sister who are much older helped, because I could watch movies that not many young kids were watching. They both also have good taste, so I was watching great movies at a young age."

Dossinger, who is 31 and single, began working at RiverRun last year after earning a master's degree in contemporary cinema cultures from Kings College in her native London. Her thesis focused on mockumentaries, a genre that either mocks documentaries or their subjects. She said that her love of Christopher Guest's comedic mockumentaries led her to do research on them and others.

Art of organization

Andrew Rodgers, the festival's executive director, said that he hired Dossinger both for her background in film and for her attention to detail.

"We (were) looking for somebody to watch movies," he said. "You know how many resumes you get for that? A lot…. You need somebody who's got good critical skills but also is able to look at the art and the commerce of it and also be really organized."

Indeed, although Dossinger said she could see all 900 films submitted to the festival, doing so would leave her with no time to get any other work done.

"I have to keep track of every single film that comes through our door," she said.

This involves recording vital information on several spread sheets. One spread sheet she has recently begun compiling lists each film accepted into the festival, along with its category, title, director, description, running time and country. This information will then end up in the program book.

Another major responsibility for Dossinger is making sure that each film is seen by at least two people -- either Dossinger, another festival staff member or a member of a committee of volunteer screeners.

The idea is to decide which films get considered for inclusion and which ones don't. In general, if a film gets two very weak scores by two screeners, it doesn't get considered; if it gets two very strong scores, it does. If it gets one strong score and one weak one, then at least one more person will see it to give what amounts to a tie-breaking vote.

Dossinger has lived in several places, both in the United States and Europe. She is the daughter of Ginny and Jim Dossinger, who, after retiring in Ginny's hometown of Winston-Salem, became ardent supporters of the Winston-Salem Symphony and other arts organizations.

Others with Mary Dossinger's degree -- she also minored in film studies while pursuing a bachelor's degree in English at Emory University in Atlanta -- end up teaching at the university level or writing scholarly criticism. But Dossinger saw film studies as a route into the film-festival business, for which she had volunteered for several years before going to London to study.

Dossinger's love of films seems especially strong when her thoughts turn to the next RiverRun event.

"This is the kind of stuff you'd never see anywhere else," she said, describing independent films with much merit but little chance of becoming major commercial success stories.

"People aren't going to like everything they see," Dossinger said. "But it's a lot of fun. We're bringing films that have gotten awards at film festivals all over. But they'll never be shown at a (mainstream) movie theater."

Different feelings

RiverRun, like other festivals, helps "you get a completely different feeling about a film," Dossinger said, contrasting the experience with watching a DVD at home. "It's very different when someone's sitting right next to you and laughing hysterically or crying."

And, of course, a festival offers plenty of opportunities for a patron to ask what Dossinger enjoys asking right after she has seen a film, namely, "What did you think?"

That question is being asked a lot lately at RiverRun's offices, at 870 W. Fourth St. Dossinger and two other festival programmers -- Rodgers, the festival's executive director, and Margaret Neff, its special projects and hospitality coordinator -- now meet regularly to decide which films to screen at the festival.

While Rodgers has the final say about whether to include a film, he said he necessarily wants programming decisions to reflect multiple points of view. During a recent programming meeting, he used Dossinger and Neff as a sounding board. Several questions emerged during the meeting and in conversations that preceded it:

In which category does a film belong? What is its audience? Does the film work in a group of similar efforts? If it's a short, should it precede a longer, feature-length film?

Rodgers said that he aims for "sense and order" when he groups films together. This means, for example, that four films can be about death, but each must have a distinctly different tone.

Ultimately, as Dossinger said, "it is my job to make sure each person hears back about the fate of their film." For Dossinger, there's a nice side to that and a not-so-nice one.

The nice thing, of course, is that she can not only invite "so many amazing people" to the festival but also get to meet them as well. These include actors such as Bill Pullman and filmmakers such as Les Blank.

"The worst part (of my job) would be having to tell filmmakers that their films did not make the cut," she said. "Some people take it very hard. You wish you could find a place for all the films, but with so many submissions you have to make some hard decisions."

■ The RiverRun International Film Festival will be presented April 22-29 in Winston-Salem. Three movies to shown at the festival were announced last week. They include Goodbye Solo, by Winston-Salem filmmaker Ramin Bahrani; and two documentaries: With These Hands, by Matt Barr, a professor of filmmaking at UNC Greensboro, and Herb and Dorothy, about a couple who collect contemporary art. The rest of the festival's lineup will be announced March 25. Fifty all-access passes are now available for a reduced price of $300 until March 25; after that, the price goes up to $350 and individual tickets go on sale. Admission for regular screenings is $8, $6 for students with a valid ID. If 10 or more regularly priced tickets are purchased at one time, the cost is $7 a ticket, whether the tickets are for the same screening or not. For more information, go to the Stevens Center box office, see www.riverrunfilm.com or call 336-721-1945.

■ Ken Keuffel can be reached at 336-727-7337 or at kkeuffel@wsjournal.com.