What exactly will Scott Foundas‘s appointment as associate program director of the NY Film Festival mean? He’ll be handling series and event programs, and good for that — Foundas is a very bright and knowledgable and plugged-in guy. I’ve seen him interview several distinguished filmmakers in various venues, and few are better at it than he.

On the other hand Foundas did trash A Serious Man in Film Comment and was one of those NYFF programmers who stood in the way of screening it at last month’s festival. So as Anthony Quinn‘s Auda Abu Tayi said of Peter O’Toole‘s T.E. Lawrence, “He is not…perfect.”

And I don’t know to what extent, if any, Foundas’s appointment will influence the general programming choices of the NYFF, which is currently regarded as the most elitist (i.e., indifferent to popular tastes), Trappist monk-minded, granola-and-goat’s-milk flavored of all the prominent second-tier festivals. The only way the NYFF could truly be transformed…naah, forget it. It can’t happen. The NYFF has carved out a rep as one of the dweebiest operations in the world, and why should they give up that handle? It’s been hard won.

Foundas will move to New York, which means unless he’s being paid a huge salary that he’s probably going to have to suffer for many weeks as he looks for a decent place to live, and at the end of the process he’ll choose a place that’s much smaller than the one he had/has in Los Angeles.