Hebron leaves London legacy

HebronWhile the BFI London Film Festival will welcome a raft of fresh titles -- "Shame," "The Artist" and "Carnage" to name a few -- this year's 55th edition, Oct. 12-27, will be bidding farewell to longstanding artistic director Sandra Hebron.Hebron, who has worked with the festival for 15 years and stood at the helm for nine of them, made the decision in July to step down.Former Sydney Film Fest topper Clare Stewart will replace her after the current edition ends. Hebron is closing the curtain on her tenure on a high note: Last year saw more than 132,000 in attendance at the festival -- its highest number to date. She's leaving at a time when the British film biz is undergoing a shakeup: As part of the newly restructured British Film Institute, the London fest artistic director also will oversee BFI's Southbank Theater, a job that had previously been a separate one. But Hebron says her move was a timely and personal one. "I feel as I've been putting my particular stamp on the festival for quite a while," she says. "Yes, I've only been the artistic director since 2003, but I have been working on it for longer than that, so I've had an influence over the festival for more than 15 years now, and I sort of feel like that's enough."I'm a big believer in cultural renewal, and as much as I love the festival, I never wanted to stay on it to a point where I felt like I was just going through the motions," Hebron continues. "Although I don't feel like that now, in a year or two, it would have been time."Hebron, like many fest directors, took a circuitous route to the job: She began her career as an academic in Sheffield. She cites the city's "vibrant, independent filmmaking scene" and the Anvil -- a two-screen cinema programmed by Dave Godin (who introduced Motown music to the U.K.) -- as being the impetus for her interest in the film world."I think it really shows that if you have the right people in those jobs, they do affect people's lives," Hebron says. "Knowing Dave and seeing the films he programmed definitely made me want to be more involved."Hebron moved into independent film distribution and ran Manchester's well-loved indie cinema Manchester Cornerhouse before an opportunity at the London Film Festival came up. London started as a festival for the public, and it still is primarily a festival for those who love film, Hebron maintains. But the best way to ensure a topnotch fest is to develop and maintain excellent relationships with the industry both at home and abroad. "What makes a good festival are good films and interesting people there to talk about them," Hebron says.Her record bears out that philosophy. World premieres unspooling during Hebron's tenure include "Fantastic Mr. Fox," which brought George Clooney, Bill Murray and Wes Anderson to the capital; and Working Title's "Frost/Nixon." She also kept auds guessing with an annual "surprise film," which has ranged from "No Country for Old Men" to "Sideways" to "The Wrestler."In the end, her philosophy has been simple."We don't necessarily have to choose a film for any other reason than it's a very fine film (that) we want to show," Hebron says. "We're not a festival that is predicated on premieres." Contact Diana Lodderhose at diana.lodderhose@variety.com