(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