Discuss: Are There Too Many Film Festivals?
Filed under: Critical Thought, Fandom, Exhibition, Movie Marketing
It all started in Venice in 1932 – the world's first film festival. Then other festivals began popping up for a variety of reasons, some political, given the growingly fascist government in Italy: Cannes in 1946, Edinburgh in 1947, Berlin in 1951, and so on, until the present day, when a journalist can spend a decent portion of the year (and salary) covering Sundance, the Toronto Film Festival, Telluride, South by Southwest, Fantastic Fest, New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, CineVegas, and, more recently, San Diego Comic-Con, just to name as a few, as well as the aforementioned international festivals if they're really lucky.
As time has passed, the fests have become more than venues for movie buyers and sellers to haggle over movies or arbiters of taste in the finest of arthouse flicks. Along the way, critics and journalists have gotten into the festival circuit, which is a win-win for the movies and the writers; small films get the buzz that's sometimes a good push for them to get picked up by distributors, and the writers get access to films before they get hot, making them tastemakers and generally ahead of the curve when it comes to Oscar season, film trends, and insider-y scoops that can only occur when you find yourself sharing an elevator with a Weinstein. Festivals can be great litmus tests for movies that take forever to get picked up – you can pretty much guarantee they're gonna be a stinker by the time they arrive in theaters for a weekend and disappear after that.
Plus, they're fun. Really fun. Fun and exhausting and exhilarating for the writers and the publicists, who get to reunite with colleagues and buddies, check out great movies, make new connections, and all that good stuff. By the end, you're running on no sleep, nothing makes sense, you've seen 20 films in five days and done half as many interviews, and hopefully you'll be able to pay off the trip by the end of the year. And it was worth it.
But as the media churn speeds up and bigger movies like Jennifer's Body and Up in the Air (which both have distributors attached and plenty of star power to attract regular movie-goers) become showpieces and plenty of journalists are vying for five minutes with the biggest stars and the hottest directors, part of me is overwhelmed with the overexposure, especially since most of the same people are going to be doing more press for their movies once the release date looms closer. And let's be frank – a tired director or star who has already done a day or two of press does not give good interview. In fact, I've interviewed people who were damn sick of talking about the movie they were there to promote, and that was months before the film came out. And then there's Sundance, which has become more of a carnival of see-and-be-seen people like Paris Hilton and other people who could give half a crap about film.
I know that's only a small part of the process and the allure and the usefulness of festivals – they can be crucial for building up word of mouth for indie films. But how much is too much? And which parts, if any, make a difference to anyone outside the business?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-16-2009 @ 8:57AM
Angel said...
Yes there is to many film festivals but that's not a bad thing.
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9-15-2009 @ 10:31PM
Scott Nye said...
There's a balance. I live for coverage of the Cannes Film Festival because it alerts me to the quality, if not the very existence, of a great many films that I either wouldn't have know about or wouldn't have thought anything of when they rolled through.
The rest...I could take 'em or leave 'em. NYFF is another good window, but it's usually relying on films that have already played in Cannes. Toronto is increasingly just a series of premieres for films that already have distribution, but I guess I'm glad when it gives more films a chance to be picked up.
Mainly, I guess I'm just really jealous of all the people who get to go. Damn you all.
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9-15-2009 @ 10:34PM
Jay Seaver said...
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: As a film fan, I really don't care much how hard covering a bunch of festivals may be on journalists. Each individual festival is a great way for movie-lovers to see films that either might not come to their area at all, or get a chance to interact with the filmmakers that they otherwise wouldn't have. That's a good thing, and I hope more movie-lovers get a chance to experience it.
I'm not completely unsympathetic to what a journalist has to do; I traveled to and blogged SXSW and Fantasia this year, and it was exhausting. I can't imagine what it would be like if I were to do interviews on top of that. But if that's too much, cut back and/or refocus the coverage.
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9-16-2009 @ 10:35AM
Jenni Miller said...
I think you're maybe focusing on one small part of the entire article -- the point isn't that it's soooo tiring for journalists to cover (that's our jobs, after all). The point is, like I wrote above, that some of the festivals are focusing on big films that don't really need more press -- that's why we end up with Jerry Seinfeld in a bee suit dangling over La Croisette. However, it's a different story altogether for very small films that count on festivals to get distributors and/or build up word of mouth.
9-16-2009 @ 11:00AM
Jenni Miller said...
Also, Matt Damon talks about junkets on the Daily Show, starting around 17:09
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/248914/tue-september-15-2009-matt-damon
9-16-2009 @ 11:16AM
Jay Seaver said...
Perhaps, but very few festivals exclusively focus on the big films - most of the time, there's something else to see. When I go to a festival, I generally tend to ignore the film that seems likely to get a release if there's something else I'm interested in playing at the same time unless there's a guest. You don't have to treat them as hype machines.
The question that the title poses is almost a ridiculous one - for the vast majority of people attending, there can't be too many festivals until the point where talent is spread too thin that the festivals themselves become weak. As an example, here in Boston, we don't need to have three general-interest festivals; it just leaves two of them very underwhelming. But that's not the scale discussed in the article.
Thinking about it, I think it's probably a good situation - those big movies probably bring the festival a bunch of money which they use to do things like fly in the people who make smaller films. If the reporting on big festivals like Toronto chooses to focus on the one studio film that is showing and not the half-dozen independent films that need the attention, well, that's not the fault of the festival, but of the people covering it.
9-15-2009 @ 11:25PM
NP said...
Too many? No, but maybe some have lost sight of what they once were..as you point out, sometimes big movies that already have distribution deals are screening at film festivals, and that is kind of a head scratcher.
"And which parts, if any, make a difference to anyone outside the business?"
I like being able to see movies early because I just get that excited about movies, and I have to assume that other people in big cities with film festivals attend for the same reason. Also: even though many of the films screening at the festival will get distribution or already have it lined up, there is sometimes a loooong delay from when they screen at the festival and when they finally get a theatrical release.
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