Unfortunately, I was absent from this class and missed the chance to work on a preliminary budget. In retrospect, this is something I would have really liked to be a part of as it is such an integral element to building a film festival, and my role as a programmer would be linked to obtaining funds. Alas, there is always next time.

Looking at last year’s film festival – NNIFF – I have chosen to reflect on Chloe’s role, who by the looks of it was working as a programmer as well. From the outset, they look like they’ve taken a similar strategy to what our team is planning on doing in terms of collating films and colour coding them on to a google spreadsheet. This definitely seems like the most straight forward approach – keep everything together, accessible for every team member, and easy to identify even if someone is just perusing.

A good point to take note of is Chloe and the NNIFF team’s choice to look for external public film festivals, and source potential material from there. We hadn’t planned on doing this – outside of sourcing more established director’s with feature films – however this seems like a great approach to take!

Having perused the rest of the roles from NNIFF, I believe there are some great take away that MOFF should consider. For instance, there is a great list of publications that have been contacted, which would take some of the pressure off of us contacting them. Ie, places like Triple R, Eventfinda, Film Ink all spoke about NNIFF, so what would stop them from publicising MOFF as a new festival as well?

Definitely a great source of inspo – I only wish I was able to attend the festival, it sounds like it was fantastic for all involved!

References:
New Normal International Film Festival

R1 W3

A Pleasurable Experience

MOFF

Finally, it has come time for us to knuckle down on our ideas and actually begin creating a film festival. Admittedly, I was hesitant about the actual doing part of this process/class, mainly because I thought it would be a “too many cooks” situation. Instead, in just one class, we managed to settle on a pretty great idea – our first and only pitched idea. I’m sure this may have been a fluke, though whatever the case I am grateful it worked out this way.

In the Bright Young Screens chapter titled Festival Programming (etc), the authors mention early in the importance of establishing the dramaturgy of the event, and how closely linked to the subject this is. This notion featured in the programming teams conception of MOFF – with Jacob mentioning a film he would like to have screened, and Henry mentioning the theme he would like to go with. It’s hard to distinguish which conversation took place first – very much a chicken or the egg scenario – but nevertheless, we are extremely fortunate that both ideas could coincide with each other seamlessly.

What proved to be slightly more difficult, however, was coming up with a concise yet to the point mission statement of what the Melbourne Overlooked Film Festival stands for. It’s easy to have conceptualised an idea, but communicating that to the public in just a few words is something that is difficult, in large part due to the sheer importance of it. The mission statement is a huge drawing card for many features of the festival, including submissions, sponsorships, venue hire; honing in on just a few words without coming across as insincere or tokenistic is a huge task. Admittedly, we are still working on the final public-facing version, so stay tuned!

Another takeaway from this week is the thought of what a film festival can be or do. Are we limited to screening films in a cinema, or can we explore what Cerise coined Cinema Plus? In Kirsten Stevens Australian Film Festivals (etc), they mention that “as audiences seek out more dynamic viewing experiences, the event programming structure of the festival stands to unsurp the role of traditional theatres” (p 198). Given the theme of our festival, this is extremely reassuring and encouraging. As a previous festival goer, I understand the cries for more. Why limit ourselves to seats and four walls, when the world is quite literally at our doorstep (COVID allowing)?

References:

“A Festival for Every Occasion: Niche Programming, Event Culture, and Vertically Integrated Film Festivals (Links to an external site.)” in Kirsten Stevens, Australian Film Festivals: Audience, Place, and Exhibition Culture, Palgrave Macmillan US, New York, 2016, pp. 171-199.

Participants of the Bright Young Screens Workshop, “Festival Programming and the Ways Young Festivals and Youth NGOs See it” in Michaela Pnacekova, Mirona Nicola & Melissa Pritchard (eds), Bright Young Screens: Developing Intercultural Dialogue and Non-Formal Education Through Youth Film Festivals, NISI MASA and FEST, Espinho, 2012, pp. 6-9.

(Side note #1 to begin with – very pleased with the AnniVARYsary pun, Cerise)
(Side note #2 – I WISH the Senses of Cinema site read in a more user friendly manner… or maybe my eyesight is just failing me.)

University classes is an interesting thing in the way tutors point you in the direction of information without always explicitly explaining why you are at that point. Now, writing this reflection, these articles point to the ways in which film festivals can succeed – beyond the scope of just screenings and A-list celebrities.

In Cerise Howard’s Local and/or General (etc), she made mention of Karlovy Vary’s Festival Daily paper that accompanies the festivities. While this is not a main feature of the festival, in the sense that it may not be the selling point for viewers, its interesting to see how much of an impact the inclusion of this has. Moreover, Cerise mentions the festival trailers and the fact that they have retained some of their charm, indicating that they are also a feature in themselves. While this point within the scale of the article may seem insignificant, it spoke volumes to me about the importance of establishing not only a tone of specific add ons, but of the add ons as a whole. There are few A-list festivals that pay this much attention to giving a daily run down and adding humour in to the promotion package, so Karlovy Vary should definitely serve as inspiration for the film festival we create.

Similarly, in Jessica Kian’s A Dirty Winner (etc), we can draw inspiration for our festival from the author’s longing for the “dirty”, interference-heavy festival screenings that they are most used to, and most enjoy. While this was not the main focus of the article, again it was the thing that I was most drawn to. Having experienced film festivals online and behind my computer screen, I can understand Kiang’s longing to be in amongst a crowd, laughing/crying/reacting with the people around you. Though Berlin’s move to online was completely out of their control, it is still something that we should pay attention to. At the moment, we have the luxury of being able to host a festival on site and in person (touch wood…). However, if we were to move to a hybrid or entirely online setting, how could we recreate the “dirty” moments that the author was referring to?

The question is open ended, and something worthy of a discussion with my peers because, like Kiang and so many others, I too find the act of sitting in a dark theatre with strangers *almost* irreplaceable.

References:

Cerise Howard, “Local and/or General… Of Time and Place at the 50th Karlovy Vary and 6th Odessa International Film Festival”, Senses of Cinema, no. 76 (Sep. 2015)

Jessica Kiang, “A Dirty Winner at a Lonely Berlin Film Festival (Links to an external site.)”, New York Times, March 5, 2021

From what we’ve encountered thus far, the variety of skills needed to set up, run, and keep afloat a film festival is vast (to say the least). Up until this point, I’ve only ever been an attendee, and while I have appreciated the enormity of the events I have been to, learning first hand what is actually required has been an eye opener.

So much is required to run a successful film festival. Beyond that, each role requires the success of each of the other roles to truly fulfil its potential; it is called a team for a reason. It has been particularly interesting seeing just how many hats people can wear back of house. A programmer will undoubtedly link in with the marketing team, the marketing team will link in with artistic director, who will link in with the venue scouts, and so on.

My key takeaway from Andrea Kuhn’s chapter in Setting Up A Human Rights Film Festival: Who Is Organising It? was that beyond the scope of the actually films and their screenings, so much more goes into building a festival. Events need to be organised that don’t rely solely on the viewing experience, guests need to be liased with to speak about the films and awards should be organised. It’s more than just accepting a films entrance and going from there.

From the beginning of this semester, I had an inkling that I wanted to be on the programming team. I don’t know if I possess much experience for the role, other than a pure love of film and the ability to watch hours on end of content, however it’s a role that I have always been interested in. I’m keen to get stuck in to this side of things, and collaborate with everyone else along the way.

References:
Andrea Kuhn, “Who Is Organising It? Importance of Production and Team Members” in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp. 71-83.