Several board members of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival told j. they were “shocked” by the sudden departure of Executive Director Don Adams last week — but not surprised.
A handful of former or current film festival officials chalked up Adams’ resignation after only nine months as the understandable result of the “rocky transition” following the departure of a longtime director who embodied the festival.
“It’s a very typical sort of thing. A founder resigns after a 21-year tenure, you make a transition to a new director, you go through a one-year cycle and a new festival with that person and then everybody takes a look to see if this is a good fit. The mutual decision is it wasn’t a good fit,” said Marcia Freedman, a former festival board member and participant in the “transition team” that bridged the gap between the resignation of longtime executive director Janis Plotkin and Adams.
“I don’t think it was a major clash of the wills or anything of that sort. But the person selected for the job was not exactly the right person for the job. The fit was not good enough. Everyone realized it in an amicable way, and that’s good.”
Adams, who relocated with his wife from Seattle to take the SFJFF’s reins in January, declined to be interviewed by j. He did, however, wish his successor, Peter Stein, “every success in the year ahead” via e-mail.
Susie Coliver, the SFJFF’s board president, said she looks forward to working with Adams as an outside consultant. His resignation, she claimed, stemmed from underestimating how much work was involved with the director’s job because Plotkin had “been able to make it work almost in her sleep.”
Plotkin concurred, noting that for “someone new walking in, of course it’ll be harder if you don’t have those inborn, long-term relationships. That’s a challenge for any transition.”
The position also may not have jibed perfectly with longtime consultant Adams’ qualifications, according to Plotkin.
“Don’s prior work had been as a consultant. That’s like being an emergency room doctor; you come in, you fix it and you leave. The difference is between that and being more like a general practitioner is based on long-term relationships.”
Plotkin emphatically took her name out of the running for Adams’ full-time replacement, noting “No, no I did it for 21 years and that’s a whole lifetime for some people. I’m moving forward in my life, and it’s still about film.”
Stein, who will lead the SFJFF until at least the completion of next year’s festival in mid-August, said he was “absolutely thrilled” to take the position.
“I love the Jewish film festival. Obviously, my roots in media creation and presentation are really deep and I felt myself among several communities that the film festival counts as its bailiwick,” said Stein, a documentary filmmaker and a former KQED producer and curator for the Judah L. Magnes Museum.
Stein, himself a SFJFF board member, said he was approached in mid-September by fellow board members about taking over Adams’ position.
As a filmmaker, producer and fourth-generation San Francisco Jew, Stein saw the post as “a total natural for me.”
However, he admitted, “It was not a position I thought of even last year when Janis retired or now.”