Five-star debacle: The Palm Beach International Film Festival that never was
Bankrupt promoter lures filmmakers; no movies screened, tempers flare, drama ensues.
Turning to filmmaking to fill his empty days during the pandemic, William McNeice was ecstatic when his third movie was accepted into what was billed as the 28th annual Palm Beach International Film Festival.
Boarding a plane in Spain last month, McNeice stifled feelings of growing unease as he read an email from festival organizers that all-important screenings in theaters had been canceled and the films would only be shown online.
Once he arrived in West Palm Beach, McNeice and other filmmakers from around the world began suspecting they had been duped.
Not only were their films not going to appear on big screens in front of large audiences, but there were none of the typical trappings of film festivals.
There were no panel discussions with celebrity actors, producers, directors and distributors, who could help boost the filmmakers’ careers. There were no red carpet galas. When filmmakers asked to see posters or other materials that had been produced to promote the festival, they were told there were none.
Ultimately, when they raised their concerns, they were attacked by festival organizers and told their films were being disqualified. During a raucous online chat with organizers, they weren’t even offered a refund of the $25 to $70 each paid to enter what was supposed to be an eight-day celebration, featuring more than 150 films.
“It’s been such an awful experience,” said the 45-year-old McNeice, shortly after returning to Madrid last week. “The more I think about it, the more upset I get. Just to think people could treat other people like that.”
Board had just three directors
What McNeice and others said they didn’t know before spending thousands of dollars on airfare and lodging is that organizer Kevin Mills had no connection to the once prestigious festival that was shuttered in 2018. Further, they were unaware of Mills’ history of legal and financial woes.
To convince filmmakers he was part of the original success story, he papered his website with photos taken at the long-defunct festival that over its two-decade run premiered such films as “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and featured stars such as Sylvester Stallone, Adrien Brody, Jacqueline Bisset, Edward Norton, hometown hero Burt Reynolds and even a brief appearance by Michael Jackson.
State records show the original organizers disbanded the corporation in 2018. Last year, Mills formed a new business, PBI Film Festival Corp., and said it would operate under the name Palm Beach International Film Festival.
While the 56-year-old California transplant told distraught filmmakers there were 12 people on the board of directors, in state records he listed three. Along with him, the woman who shares his West Palm Beach apartment and his 5-year-old daughter are named as directors of his nonprofit. Under Florida law, directors have to be at least 18 years old and nonprofits must have at least three board members.
Further, while Mills insisted he pumped a sizable chunk of his own money into the festival, court records show that in September he filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy to devise a plan to repay what he described as up to $50,000 in debts. He said he was working as an Uber driver.
Before he filed for bankruptcy, his landlord sued him in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, claiming Mills had failed to pay more than $3,000 in rent. That lawsuit has been put on hold by a federal bankruptcy judge in West Palm Beach.
On the neighborhood social media site, Nextdoor, Mills said he is available for work as a handyman.
“Hello Neighbors,” he wrote, touting his availability. “We recently relocated from Southern California to WPB. In CA I have a licensed Contracting and Building company and I am in the process of getting my license for Florida as well. Until then I am available for non structural projects and handy man type projects. I can also provide consulting services including Project manager for your Building Project.”
He isn’t licensed in California, according to the state’s contractor licensing board. Court records in Orange County, California, show that in 2017 he was found guilty of working as a contractor without a license. He was placed on probation for three years and ordered to make restitution and perform 10 hours of community service.
‘Mr. Real Estate here’
Despite his legal troubles, Mills spent years posting videos on Instagram, portraying himself as a wildly successful real estate investor.
“Mr. Real Estate here, Kevin Mills,” he says in one videotaped outside The Breakers in Palm Beach where he says “my family and I spend a lot of time.”
He talks about his billionaire “neighbors” on the island and tells the 33 people who viewed the video that such an opulent lifestyle could be theirs.
He offers similar motivational, and sometimes instructional, advice in each of the 132 videos he posted between 2019 when he lived in California through 2021 after he moved to West Palm Beach.
In the videos, Mills also promotes his other business ventures. He directs those who want to get rich to check out his other websites, including BillionaireTrainingAcademy.com, kmillsdevelopment.com and guaranteedmillionaireblueprint.com. Some no longer exist.
But while relaxed and glib on his own videos, Mills wasn’t willing to appear on camera when a New York City filmmaker approached him at The Square last month to question him about why the film festival went awry. He became particularly uncomfortable when filmmaker Andy Bowles politely, but firmly, pressed him for specifics about why Regal Royal Palm Beach didn’t host the festival as planned.
“If we're going to have a conversation, turn the camera off,” Mills said when Bowles continued to press him. “I’m not going to have a discussion on camera.”
Regal theater says it was never paid
Before he waved Bowles and his camera away, Mills repeatedly blamed Regal for destroying the festival. He insisted it demanded an additional $10,000 hours before the festival was to begin on April 21. Mills told Bowles he had to get approval from his 12-member board and was only given six hours notice.
“I can’t write a check for $10,000 myself because I’m not a board member,” he said. He insisted the board quickly signed off on the expense “We had it all set up the next day, but they wouldn’t take it,” he said.
However, a spokesperson for Regal told filmmakers a different story. While Regal didn’t respond to Stet’s request for comment, its vice president of marketing told filmmaker Pamela French that the reason it wouldn’t host the festival was simple: Mills never signed the contract or paid the bill.
In an email to French, Regal Vice President Robbie Arrington said the company on Feb. 7 lowered the rental fee from $18,000 to $10,000 and never changed the price. The deadline for payment was April 18, three days before the festival was to begin, Arrington said in the email.
“He was scrambling, saying he is calling on people to find a new sponsor, so we gave him until 8 am on April 19th, and at that time we had to release the hold on the screens to get films programmed for the weekend,” Arrington wrote.
Mills told Bowles and French that Regal pulled out because its parent company, Cineworld, is in bankruptcy. He claimed he negotiated the deal before it filed for bankruptcy in September.
”They told us that the bankruptcy court wasn’t okay with the discount they provided to us and we have to pay more,” Mills wrote in a text message to French. He described the company’s demand as “extortion.”
Arrington disputed Mills’ claims. He said Mills didn’t initially contact Regal until Feb. 2. Further, Arrington said, the bankruptcy wasn’t a factor in the rental price.
“At one point he asked me if we could cover the $10,000 at that time,” Arrington wrote. “I explained to him (that) we have some hard costs here and cannot fully donate our services.”
While Arrington said he mentioned the bankruptcy, it was only to emphasize that no further discount would be possible. “I told him each business unit within Regal cannot make the decisions to give away company assets. That is not how business runs,” Arrington wrote.
He added that the theater company hosts more than 4,000 film festivals a year and has standard contracts it uses.
In the wake of the debacle, some filmmakers said they are thinking about taking legal action against Mills.
‘Wouldn’t have applied if we knew’
Goce Cvetanovski, a filmmaker from Macedonia, said he and others are trying to figure out what happened and where the money went. He estimated he paid more than $4,000 to bring himself, his producer and several guests to West Palm Beach for what was supposed to be the world premiere of his latest movie, “The Business of Pleasure.”
“We wouldn’t have applied if we knew the festival was only one-year-old and all of the screenings would be online only,” he said.
Not surprisingly, few people watched the movies online. Further, in a situation that added insult to injury, filmmakers were forced to pay to watch their own movies, McNeice said.
Despite the hardship for filmmakers, including some who borrowed money to attend the festival, there were no apologies, filmmakers said.
‘Crybabies’ and a legal threat
During WhatsApp chats that were shared with Stet, a person who was identified in the chat as Mills but who claimed to be Chris Haim or simply Kim, attacked the filmmakers. The person or persons, who said Mills had given them his cellphone for the discussion, bemoaned how much time and money Mills and a team of “volunteers” spent organizing the festival. At one point, the person called the filmmakers “crybabies.”
“They were first evasive and then arrogant,” said Cvetanovski. He said the attitude further inflamed him and his fellow filmmakers. “If you had been polite we would not have arrived at the point where we want to take legal action against you,” he said.
The possibility that Mills could have raked in large amounts of money is concerning, said Michelle Hillery, head of the Palm Beach County Film and Television Commission. A key sponsor and promoter of the former international film festival, the tax-funded commission can no longer do so because of the proliferation of such events.
But, she said, given her position, she tried to help sort out the mess. Rochelle Walters, whose family owns cinemas in Delray Beach and west of Lake Worth Beach, offered to make her theaters available for screenings. But, Walters said, the problem was there had been no publicity and no way to generate it at such late notice.
Filmmakers wanted to show their films to an audience, not empty theaters, she said.
Ultimately, French rented one of Walters’ theaters for $400, and about 40 friends and family members saw her documentary, “A Feminist Lens,” which tells the story of ground-breaking photographer Joan Roth. French made the short film with Roth’s daughter.
But French alone had a real movie screening. Walters said no one else took her up on her offer.
VIP passes at $5,000 each?
Hillery said it is unclear how much money Mills raised.
On the festival website, Mills said he had sold 100 VIP all-access passes at $5,000 a pop, Hillery said. McNeice said at one point Mills claimed on his website that thousands of tickets had been sold. Mills may have received at least some of the money filmmakers paid to have their movies considered for the festival.
While talking to Bowles, Mills insisted he only made “a couple of thousand dollars” from the fees. Earlier, in the WhatsApp chat, the person identified as Mills claimed the fees totaled $6,000.
However, in response to the uproar from filmmakers, the online company that serves as the go-between filmmakers and festivals said it had “placed on hold” any payouts to Mills while it investigates what happened.
In an email, a spokesperson for FilmFreeway said, “The aggregate, in this case, is less than $5,000.” However, it declined to say whether Mills had received any of the money it collected from filmmakers who applied to participate in the festival.
“Sorry, we can't share any specifics outside of what we've already conveyed,” the spokesperson wrote.
But, the spokesperson said, it has buried information about the festival from its website at least until it can determine what happened. On his website, Mills is already making plans for a redux in 2024.
‘We are not there to make trouble’
As for Mills himself, he’s not talking. According to his website, the board asked him to resign “for his own safety.”
Over the weekend, a new corporate board was installed, according to state records. The address they gave is a PakMail on PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens. None of the new directors — David Cook, Bill Barnett or Chris Parker — work there, according to an employee. While post office boxes can be rented at the shop, the employee said they had no record of one rented to Cook, Barnett or Parker.
During the WhatsApp chat, the person identified as Mills said Mills had been asked to step aside to protect him. He said some filmmakers had threatened Mills and that police advised them not to share the locations of any of the events.
McNeice scoffed at the notion that Mills was in danger. “Who's going to think a bunch of filmmakers are gangsters who are going to start terrorizing the locals?” he asked.
Cvetanovski agreed. “We are filmmakers and artists. We are not there to make trouble,” he said.
A man who answered the phone at the festival headquarters declined to comment on the controversy. He also declined to give his name. Neither he nor Mills wanted the media “dragging his name through the mud,” he said.
‘Out of the kindness and generosity of his own heart’
The festival’s only comment would be a statement it posted on the website, praising Mills and accusing disgruntled filmmakers of not recognizing his hard work.
“Mr. Mills volunteered his time and money at great detriment to himself out of the kindness and generosity of his own heart,” according to the statement. “To blame Mr. Mills or any other volunteer individual for anything that has happened shows a shallow understanding of the processes that are in place at every nonprofit organization and demonstrates a complete lack of character.”
But even if the filmmakers don’t sue Mills, he may have unwittingly stepped into a long-running legal battle.
Randi Emerman, the executive director of the former international film festival, sued the organization in 2017, claiming it owed her $137,000 in back wages. Attorneys for the festival agreed and she won a judgment for $138,000, which included her attorney fees.
In recent weeks, her attorney, Daniel Levine, has reopened the case, going after people who are doing business as Palm Beach International Film Festival.
Levine declined to say whether the timing was linked to the launch of Mills’ recently failed film festival or whether Mills would be sued.
‘Good … can easily be subverted’
To filmmakers, the entire frustrating episode is inexplicable.
Myra Paci, a San Francisco-based filmmaker and screenwriter, said she has participated in film festivals for decades and never experienced anything like what happened — or failed to happen — at last month’s festival.
She worries that it exemplifies how twisted the film festival world and the industry, in general, has become: where people feed off the ambition of others.
“Intentions may have been, and I like to believe usually are, good but can easily be subverted,” she said.
Still, Paci said, during the week she felt like she was trapped in one of director and writer Christopher Haden-Guest’s mockumentary movies. Think “This is Spinal Tap,” “The Princess Bride” or “Best in Show.”
“It was both funny and tragic,” she said.
Joe Capozzi, of ByJoeCapozzi.com, contributed to this story.
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