Film Festivals as a unique experience for film buffs and industry professionals
Why I love and recommend going to Film Festivals
8.30h The alarm clock goes off. Quick shower. Coffee to go. Queueing. Arguing for an uncomfortable seat in an old theatre. 9.00h. Film. 11.00h. Queue. Film. 13.00h. Making a run for the press room. Arguing for a seat from which you can see something. Press conference. Put up with the monologue-questions of journalists. Leave the room in a rush. 14.00h. Film. You’ll catch a bite to eat later; whenever. 16.30h. Film. A pause (but without stopping moving). Dinner. Film. Sleeping. 8.30h. The alarm clock goes off.
The tough life of a film festival goer. And my month of happiness.
When I talk about my happy month of film festivals, the frequent feedback I receive is a slight raise of the eyebrows; many don’t achieve to comprehend how I manage to spend 8 days in a row seeing an average of four movies per day, and enjoy it from start to finish. After more than 10 years attending these festivals, it keeps being an enriching experience, personally as professionally, and, taking advantage of the fact that between the end of September and mid October the festivals of Sitges and San Sebastián are being held, I would like to share with you why I believe it is very interesting to go to one of them (or both) if you work in the industry.
They are a window to other ways of filmmaking
During the year, the most accessible, non- Hollywood films in cinemas are, usually, from english speaking countries (especially from America and Great Britain). In a lesser amount, we can find french film and some titles that stand out from countries like Germany, Japan, Argentina or Sweden. Small productions with limited budgets and from other countries, tend to have a limited distribution out of their own territories, in terms of number of copies (the amount of screening rooms a film is released in, in a certain country) and in terms of time at the box office.
Nevertheless, at festivals, the variety of nations, origins and levels of production of the titles shown tends to be very ample. For instance, the “new directors” section at San Sebastián Film Festival is one of my favorites, as it programs first and second feature films of directors yet to be known. That’s why it is frequent to find young directors who, with little to almost no means, tell us how’s life where they come from, opening up a window, not only to the story they’re telling, but to other universes, other ways of life, other realities and other ways of perceiving and narrating stories. But, this isn’t exclusive to this section. The richness of nationalities, of languages, of different approaches to evergreen arguments or of stories that shine because of how exceptional they are, are at the order of day at any film festival.
The Portuguese “The eyes of my mother”, “Raw”, the Russian “Tesnota”, “Apostasy”, the Swedish “Granny’s Dancing on the Table”, the french “Les Demons” or the filmography of Michel Franco (“After Lucía”, “Chronic”) or Nadine Labaki (“Now where do we go?”, “Caramel”), “Buda exploded of shame”, “Coherence”, “Corn Island”, the Ucranian “The Tribe” or the Belgian “Silent City” are some titles I wouldn’t have discovered or would’ve been very difficult to find without the festival.
In fact, the international approach of festivals I count as enriching on a personal level, as it is a unique way of getting in touch with other cultures, idiosyncrasies, other dynamics and ways of seeing and living life. People of the world decide how they want to tell their story, and they do it from their own experience, values, education and the life they’ve had in their own country. It fascinates me to see film in other languages and to get to know how they express themselves in other places; by seeing films from a certain country, we can extrapolate certain characteristics they might share and understand better, from afar, other territories.
Little budget, great talent
These productions, coming from countries or production companies that are less prominent than the more commercial circuit, frequently demonstrate that a high budget doesn’t equal talent, and show a collection of ideas and creativity that solve those kinds of obstacles. In the case of Sitges film festival, it shows and gets over the conception that sci-fi and fantasy are genres that need a high investment in VFX. “Coherence” (shot on an iPhone with 50.000 $), “Another Earth”, “Man from Earth”, “Thelma” or “Les Affamés” are some examples. In fact, Sitges Film Festival tends to surprise us every year with a few titles which use genre (thriller, fantasy, sci-fi, action…) to tell human stories which gift us with plots that refute the idea that these are minor genres, as some might think.
After seven years of attending Sitges Film Festival I have verified, for example, how good they are in South Korea doing social cinema through violent thrillers and bloody horror films. It can be to talk about the work insecurity or the culture of excessive work, like in “Office”; about the real estate bubble like in “Dream House”; or the social and institutional abuse in “Silence”; about corruption and selfishness of people with power in “Train to Busan” or about loneliness and ostracism lived by someone who’s different in “Castaway on the Moon”. The possibility to pear into all this cinema, inaccesible any other way, allows us to get to know better filmographies and idiosyncrasies of other countries, as I was saying earlier.
Out with the prejudices and expectations
The era we’re living now, where we find ourselves saturated with information and immediacy, brings upon us certain disadvantages with our relation to the cinema we watch. With social media, potent marketing and press coverage every minute of the day, it is frequent we arrive to a film that has been the critic’s reception of it, if there has been problems during production and other information which add up to the expectation, starting from our relationship with other work by certain directors, actors, screenwriters etc. It is difficult to go into a movie like a blank paper and to value the film how it exactly wants to offer itself to the audience.
In a festival, the experience tends to be very different to this. Further from the synopsis, and that in some cases you might know the previous work of some directors presenting their film, generally, the information we get to have is very little. The rest is films that are premiering, that haven’t been seen anywhere else, or haven’t had much of a repercussion, so, it is easy to sit down and simply open up to whatever the filmmaker wants to tell you, without any preconceived notions. To find yourself with a pleasant surprise in this case, produces a double satisfaction.
An environment of film buffs and Industry
The queues, the dinners, the waiting in the press room and, in general, the festival atmosphere is a place where, even though it might sound tacky, you breath cinema. It’s moments full of conversations about the films that are being seen, about other titles which were available to see in other editions or in similar festivals and, in general, talks about film where you can always learn something new or someone interesting to meet. It’s a pleasure to talk to other cinephiles who enjoy tearing films apart, who analyze and live reflecting on the message, structure, narrative language or its discourse, in a profound and detailed way. Don’t know about you, but I know there are certain circles in which it’s not appropriate to talk about, for instance, “the psychological deconstruction of the characters”, but film festivals aren’t one of those places.
But not only this, but festivals are usually places where technical and artistical crew are present, presenting the film, and, apart from the most well known and solicited names, it is relatively easy to get an interview with directors or producers.Plus, there’s usually screenings with FAQ’s or presentation parties where it’s very easy to get to talk to the crew (as the Bataplan party at the Concha beach in San Sebastián).
On the more official and industry grounds, chances to meet other creators and professionals, aren’t few. Frequently there are events, round tables, interviews and press conferences that allow these types of connections. Zinemaldia organizes a breakfast every morning of the festival and there’s a “in construction” section, a platform to get funding, a part from all the networking events and talks about the state of affairs in the film industry. At Sitges you can find all kinds of presentations, where it also offers opportunities, like the short film sections or the Pitchbox events.
In terms of industry, the most potent places to establish connections are the film markets, and even though you might not have anything to show yet or you’re not an agent looking for content to acquire, the positive aspects we’ve been talking about in this article, could be applied to assisting to a film market as a spectator. Therefore, and even though the focus of this article is on film festivals, I’ll add here a few relevant markets as well, together with the film festivals I recommend you could go to:
- IBC (13 to 18 September)
- Amsterdam Independent Film Festival (18 to 20 September)
- Nordisk Panorama Market (22 to 25 September)
- San Sebastián International Film Festival(21 to 29 September)
- Zurich International Film Festival (27 September to 7 October)
- Sitges Fantastic Film Festival (5 to 14 October)
- BFI London Film Festival (4 to 15 October)
- MIPCOM (15 to 18 October)
- Seminci, Valladolid (20 to 27 October)
- Medientage, Munich (24 to 26 October)
- American Film Market (31 October to 7 November)
- Gijón Film Festival (16 to 24 November)
These are some of the Festivals and Markets you can find throughout the Autumn period, but the list could be much longer. I hope I’ve convinced you about how much fun it is and how interesting is to attend one of these film events.
