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Film Festivals: Where they stand in the digital climate

Every year dozens of new film festivals pop up around the world, and Australia is no exception. Miguel Gonzalez asked Australia’s festival directors what the proliferation of these events mean to screen culture and the local film industry.

As the screen industry migrates to the digital world, there’s one experience that cannot yet be replicated online: the excitement of a film festival.

Festivals are not only major community events, but essential to the survival of film culture; they provide audiences with alternative visions of the world and content that not only differs from the standards established by Hollywood blockbusters, but also goes beyond the release limitations of the local art house distribution system. They can provide the film industry with a space for the exchange of ideas and cooperation.

For Adelaide Film Festival director Katrina Sedgwick, the ultimate goal is to create a critical mass of energy that mobilises an audience to take risks and see things they wouldn’t normally see, and then provide a context for them to talk about.

“Fifty years ago festivals were about bringing films that were rare and unattainable to a country that wouldn’t ever see them otherwise. Now we’ve got such an absolute frenzy of content at our disposal that you don’t know where to start, so what festivals do is find content for you. We curate, refine and select content for an audience,” she said.

Civic Pride
According to the head of Brisbane’s festival – and former director of Melbourne – Richard Moore, Australia’s major festivals are inextricably linked to notions of civic pride, and have therefore become part of their cities’ cultural calendar.

“If you were trying to run these festivals as a commercial proposition you’d be out of business pretty quickly. If they weren’t connected into those notions of civic pride they wouldn’t exist, because we couldn’t afford to run them. They’re never going to make a profit, and they’re all highly subsidised. You could keep on pouring money into them and you’d build bigger events that wouldn’t necessarily be more successful. There’d be a lot of smoke and mirrors around it, which goes back to the notion ‘how big is my festival?’ But is big necessarily good?”

Outgoing Sydney Film Festival director Clare Stewart says the overarching consideration for all the festivals in Australia is to deliver the best films from around the world to their local audience, but finding a point of difference is key to building a profile.

“It’s important for the film industry and for international and media profile,” she explained. “Our strategy for the last four years has been to implement an awards program that creates high profile international and local exposure for Australian feature, documentary and short films that participate, as well as the filmmakers who participate with their international peers on juries or with films in competition.”

Tasmania recently faced the challenge of finding a personality of its own. The state had smaller festivals over the years as part of larger artistic events, but not a major event until the 2010 launch of its Breath of Fresh Air Festival, under the direction of Owen Tilbury and with the support of the Launceston Film Society.

“The challenge of mounting a major festival in a state with less than 500,000 in population was the major reason for not starting one before, but last year’s success gave the Tasmanian Government confidence to offer three years of funding support to grow it to become a significant player in the Australian circuit. The point of difference had to go beyond just about the city that the festival was in, or the type of film – short, digital, etc. – to be shown. We felt it important to build on the state’s reputation for a strong environmental movement, hence the ‘fresh’ approach to our festival,” explained Tilbury.

A festival that has certainly found its place in the market is Melbourne, which will celebrate its 60th anniversary this year – the first under the direction of Michelle Carey.

MIFF is one of the few times that all aspects of the local film industry come together,” said Carey. “Distributors and exhibitors come to see the films with view to their potential for a release; filmmakers come to launch their films to an eagerly awaiting audience; investors, funding agencies and producers come to listen or be listened to around a new project; emerging filmmakers take part in our Accelerator workshop or generally just take in what is happening around the globe, cinematically-speaking; and audiences come to see films and meet the filmmakers.”

Carey’s predecessor Richard Moore believes that, in terms of Australian film festivals, the points of difference have been pretty clear with the introduction of film funds, markets and prizes. Brisbane is joining the party with a new $25,000 documentary prize for its 20th edition – the second he has put together.

“Brisbane doesn’t want to do what Melbourne does, or Sydney or Adelaide. We couldn’t compete like that; each festival has carved out its own little niche and things like MIFF’S 37° South Market don’t come cheaply.

“We’re all in the same business and the points of difference can sometimes be really artificial. In many ways we’re all dinosaurs in terms of our model; getting people in a room to watch films together and generate a sense of excitement. It doesn’t matter if you put a prize on top of it; in the end it’s about different ways of framing or contextualising film and creating a communal experience.”

If traditional festivals are “dinosaurs”, the problem is that nobody has found a business model for the festival of the future: “We’re holding on to the idea that people want to go and see movies, but there are indications to show that they want their movie experiences in new ways.”

Moore says there’s a trend for film festivals to become more event-driven: “These events make the simple framing of a film more and more complicated by turning them into galas, into some form of performance, and I was reasonably guilty of doing that in Melbourne. In the end, it’s just about getting people into a single space to watch something and share it together.”

Friends and Rivals
In Moore’s words, Australian festival directors compete viciously behind the scenes, but at a deeper level there’s plenty of room for cooperation.

“We’re all trying to outdo each other by getting the first screening of a film in Australia, but having said that, there’s actually a lot of collaboration that also goes on,” he said.

“We are all in the business of promoting films and enhancing the culture around them; that is reason for collaboration not competition,” added Stewart.

One of the first joint programming efforts took place in March 2011, when Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne film festivals co-presented a screening of the Jafar Panahi film Offside, to raise awareness for human rights issues. Other less visible common efforts include sharing information and infrastructure around the business aspects, particularly the development of ticketing and database systems.

Festival organisers are so passionate about their work that they could potentially contribute to a wider industry understanding of niche audiences. After all, successful festivals are all about niche audiences.

“The ability to create ‘destination film events’ is an art, so collectively it would be very interesting to hear from a pool of festival directors about their experiences,” said Tilbury. “After all, a festival has to be a success year on year, with the perfect mix of great films, audience insight, finance and sustainable commercial viability.”

Sedgwick agrees that there is room for further partnerships between the major festivals.

“We are in a preliminary stage of discussions around whether we can leverage our core audience to support Australian cinema a little bit more. We find that Australian film does pretty well in the context of the festival and yet often no one comes when those same films get a theatrical release. Perhaps there’s a way we can create something to get our audience into the cinemas for Australian film outside the context of our dates; people want local content yet somehow it just gets buried in the exhibition environment we currently have,” she explained.

“We need to think cleverly and radically as a nation, and festivals need to be part of that alongside funding agencies, to look at how other arts models achieve long-term audience development,” said Sedgwick.

The Future Festival
Australian festivals have adopted online booking and their iPhone applications have been embraced by audiences. Technology has not only made it easier for people to book tickets; it’s also allowed organisers to gather valuable information about them.

“Ticketing technology has advanced considerably and our capabilities to gather data about our audience and to be more targeted in our marketing as a consequence has also advanced,” explained Stewart.

While most festival directors will always love 35mm, they are well aware that digital formats are becoming the norm and represent savings – even if the abundance of formats is currently complicating their operations.

“It has made it more complex because not every digital format is compatible with every playback device, nor every projector,” said Stewart. “The programs team has to do a lot more work to ensure that we can screen the formats provided.”

Social networks have become one of the main elements of the promotional mix, allowing festivals to keep in touch with their database throughout the year, generate high levels of discussion and awareness, and reach new audiences. Facebook and Twitter disseminate word-of-mouth at a much faster rate, which is vital for festivals screening a large volume of films in a tight window of time.

Stewart believes the future will see festivals work even more closely with distributors and filmmakers: “Our marketing team already works to ensure our campaigns are aligned with their release strategy, and we also work with our e-news and social media outlets to help promote films in release year around. Festivals will take an increasingly vital role in the year-round promotion of Australian films in particular, which always find truly appreciative and responsive audiences when they screen in the festival context.”

Big or small, all festivals have an important role to play; the more people they are able to reach, the more appreciative audiences Australia is likely to have, guaranteeing the survival of film culture beyond Hollywood.

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