MIAMI DADE COLLEGE
International Film Festival is looking for a new director
Miami Dade College officials declined to comment on their reasons for not renewing Patrick de Bokay's contract for the film festival.
Posted on Thu, Apr. 17, 2008
BY RENE RODRIGUEZ
For the fourth time in eight years, the Miami International Film Festival is looking for a director.
Patrick de Bokay, who took the festival's reins last February from departing director Nicole Guillemet, has been shown the door by Miami Dade College for unspecified reasons. School officials declined to comment on the decision not to renew de Bokay's annual contract.
Instead, the school issued a written statement announcing it was ''moving in a new direction'' with regard to the festival position. ''The college administration wishes [de Bokay] well and thanks him for his contributions,'' the statement read.
A former marketing and advertising executive with various film studios, de Bokay joined the festival in 2007 after a nearly year-long search by MDC to replace Guillemet, who left the director post after five years to move closer to her family in the northeast United States.
Vivien Donnell Rodriguez, vice provost for Miami Dade College Cultural Affairs and Resource Development, will serve as interim festival director until ''the new structure is in place,'' the statement read.
Attendance at this year's festival reached an estimated 74,000, surpassing last year's record 70,000, but with nearly 40 more films in the lineup.
De Bokay did not respond to repeated interview requests from The Miami Herald.
School officials indicated they had launched an ''international'' search for a new director with extensive experience in film programming, fundraising and marketing.
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