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Film Festivals: Five Things I've Learned So Far

Writer's picture: Desoni CooperDesoni Cooper

Desoni Cooper, Documentary Studies and Production with a minor in Finance, FLEFF blogging intern, Brentwood, New York


Before I became a FLEFF blogger, I thought film festivals were opportunities to see innovative films. Although this is partly true, I realized it's much more than that.


Governments are heavily involved. One thing I didn't know before I became a FLEEF blogger is how much governments play a role in the film festivals in production. The very first film festival was actually created during the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. The Venice Film Festival established itself as a vessel to promote fascism and Nazi propaganda.


Festivals like Sundance also receive federal funding from federal, state, and local grants. There were times where governments gave grants to films that supported their agenda. Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong addressed this in her book, “Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen,” where she stated,

While cinephiles often opposed censorship, the Fascists formed the Direzione Generale per la Cinematografia to control foreign film exhibition in Italy, censoring Jean Renoir’s 1937 Grand Illusion while funding other more militaristic films… (Wong 38). I would have never thought that governments would take part in film festivals besides granting permits to occupy a certain location. From bestowing grants to film coercion, various types of governments are more engaged in film festivals than I originally expected.

Film Festivals are interdisciplinary. Worldwide film festivals have incorporated inclusive content that goes beyond film. In particular, throughout its years FLEEF has fostered diverse content by joining all five of Ithaca College's schools. Through this project, FLEFF was able to cultivate deeper sustainability-related conversations.

FLEFF’s heterogeneous program allows students, faculty and the community of Ithaca to come together from all backgrounds to share ideas. In her essay, "Fostering a Different Climate," Dr. Tanya Sauders, FLEFF's executive producer and head administrator, explains this by saying,

No FLEFF experience is ever the same… We return each year with a new lens through which to see and interpret different ideas, a different set of multi-media events, and a different deliberative experience. As mentioned in my previous blogs, I simply thought that movie festivals were all about gathering like-minded filmmakers to celebrate the essence of cinema. Film festivals such as FLEFF, however, shatter this assumption because, as Dr. Saunders has said, FLEFF is an ever-changing event.

Film Festivals are more than films. Though I haven’t attended a film festival, I know that it means more than just watching movies. Kyra Nicole, 21, a Penn State undergraduate, shared her experience while interning at the Cannes Film Festival. “As students, we got the opportunity to participate in panels and roundtables.” She goes on to say, “For me as an actor, I found it so valuable to hear the experiences of other actors and how they got started.”


I can see through Nicole's perspective how film festivals are also about interacting with industry professionals and watching movies.


One of the first things Dr. Patricia Zimmermann said on my first day of class for my FLEFF blogging course was that the festivals are for socializing. Dr. Zimmermann is a professor and a co-director of FLEFF. She has taught the students and I that film festivals are for contentious conversations and innovative ideas being debated.


Film Festivals are about the audience. At a film festival, the audience includes both domestic groups and international groups. As I mentioned earlier, inclusive film festivals attract content that surpasses Hollywood in America which is mostly white males.


As I am learning more about the film festival operations, I find it difficult to believe that the films being presented are intended for specific audiences. FLEFF, for example, has films ranging from experimental, comedy, documentary, indie, etc.


That goes to show that there are multiple genres with different groups of people coming from different backgrounds at these festivals. That's the magic of film festivals. It is diverse and multifaceted.


In film festivals, tourism is a key factor. The location in which the festival is held is included in the name of each film festival. Just like Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Finger Lakes (FLEFF), etc. This is a way a country is marketing its town and attracting tourists during seasons when tourists are not really there.

In her book, Wong had explained that,

It is not surprising that venues such as Venice... are all resorts, heavily dependent on tourism. Archival images of these festivals are full of images of beaches, or other forms of friendly water... Indeed, aquatic attractions sold the festivals for local organizers. (Wong 57).

Being a blogger of FLEFF has broadened my perception of how film festivals work and what to expect as I continue to embark on this journey.

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©2019 by Desoni Cooper.

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