Mike Goodridge is now into year 2 of his job as Artistic Director after coming on board to replace Marco Muller in 2017. With IFFAM still very much in its infancy – the edition that started on December 8th is just the third placing Goodridge is in a position to shape the vision and the future of the event by leveraging the unique characteristics of Macao.
Bringing together East and West, showcasing Chinese cinema, creating an industry-friendly environment while maintaining the casual, informal vibe that is often associated with the place. These are some of the challenges for Goodridge, who has already transitioned with great success from film journalism (with decades of experience at Screen International) to the business side (as CEO of Protagonist Pictures), and who got his feet wet in the world of curation by programming the Kinoscope section of the Sarajevo Film Festival.
Together with Lorna Tee (Head of Festival Management), Goodridge has assembled a promising Competition slate with some of the year’s most interesting titles, while also launching a new Chinese-language strand to highlight new local directorial voices. Here is my sit down.