Who are Film Festivals For?

A snapshot from the Cannes International Film Festival red carpet.

In September, just one month from now, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and Venice International Film Festival will begin, signaling the close of the international film festival circuit for the year. Hundreds of thousands of non-film-industry audiences will desperately refresh their computer screens in the hopes of getting movie tickets at these major film festivals. But unfortunately, these non-industry people will likely be disappointed; they’ll either have no tickets or tickets to the only events the public can enter. Public audiences won’t be the only ones disappointed either, as up-and-coming filmmakers will likely not see their own films screened. The major film festivals like Toronto and Venice aren’t created for everyone; major film festivals are designed for successful, connected, film industry professionals (primarily who support the economic interests of their country) and neglect those who don’t fall into that category.

The curation of films that make it into a festival is a great example of how film festivals neglect up-and-coming filmmakers. In a conversation with Mark Adams, the artistic director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), he noted three ways that films are selected for the festival. These ways are submission, through international sales agents and other Film Festival referrals, and networking. In the submission process, any filmmaker can select a work to submit to the festival committee, regardless of their credentials or their film’s previous successes/failures. Once submitted, two viewers on the committee will rate the films in order to determine whether or not the film will make it into the festival. Adams stated that approximately 20% of the film selections are from submissions, and these submissions were mostly shorts, documentaries, and animation. This means that 80% of the films shown (and more than 80% of traditional feature films) at the Edinburgh International Film Festival are either chosen due to success at other film festivals or by the filmmaker’s connections with the organizers of the festival. New filmmakers who do not possess previous successes or the networking contacts necessary are incredibly unlikely to have their films chosen for a festival and are thus disadvantaged. However, Edinburgh International Film Festival is not unique in this aspect. For instance, the Cannes film festival is notorious for curating their selection so that only films they deem follow auteur theory can make it into their festival. According to American film critic Kenneth Turan, in his book Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made, “Cannes overwhelmingly favors films by critically respectable auteurs who’ve been there before.”[1] Therefore, a filmmaker would need previous successes and artistic renown to make it into this festival, something that new filmmakers would not possess.

Curation of films also neglects the public and those not familiar with film history, theory, and artistry. With Cannes’ focus on films that follow auteur theory, a concept unfamiliar to the general public, Cannes intentionally avoids anything that the general film-going public would find entertaining. [1] Turan explains that as a result, Cannes attendees have lists of films they find terrible, ridiculous, and even “unreleasable.” He further states, “If films with any kind of crowd-pleasing potential do get into the festival, they are often relegated to meaningless out-of-competition slots… the uncomfortable truth is that for a film festival that is the cynosure of all eyes, Cannes’s taste, at least as far as the competition goes, is surprisingly narrow.”[1]

Furthermore, curation of films focuses on the best of the festival host country’s cinema and sometimes attempts to exclude other country’s cinema despite “International” being a part of their name. The Toronto International Film Festival has Canada’s Top Ten, a portion of the festival dedicated to Canadian cinema. TIFF gives monetary awards to the Canadian films it deems best and helps market them by putting them “on tour” in different Canadian cities. For Sundance International Film Festival (held in Utah), of the six competitive programs they offer, three are solely for American films. It also allots slots for films that must be American and some that must be Native American. Cannes takes nationalism a step farther, excluding rival countries’ cinemas. In his book, Turan states, “As with any big, glamorous party, that the people who are most upset about Cannes are those who can’t get in. In recent years that has meant filmmakers from both Germany and Italy, two major film-producing nations that have had enormous trouble getting their pictures accepted into the official competition, the most prestigious part of Cannes.”[1] During the Cannes festival in 2000, a German director remarked that over the past seven years, countries like Iran and Taiwan had films shown at the festival, but “Germany, which has the world’s second-largest media industry and which has a newly booming feature film sector, has had none.”[1] Italian producer Dino DeLaurentiis also remarked, “These snotty Frenchman make me laugh. In an international festival, it’s ridiculous to exclude our cinema.”[1] But Germany and Italy are not the only countries to be ignored by Cannes. American films are largely ignored by Cannes because of Cannes’ focus on cultural and political agendas, which Hollywood films don’t always address.[1]

Furthermore, many of the events are exclusive to industry professionals and journalists if not completely exclusive. In the case of the Toronto International Film Festival, public access to screenings is considered almost impossible to obtain; only the biggest cinephiles who dedicate a lot of time and live close to the festival can manage to get tickets. In his article, “Tussle in Toronto: Get Your Hands on the Hottest Festival Tickets in Town,” David Cox explains just how challenging it is to get a ticket. Cox states that any non-industry person must compete against 250,000 others for only a few tickets. The only way to come close to a guarantee for a ticket is to become a patron by spending £6,000, which leaves even fewer tickets for those who can’t spend that much money. Otherwise, potential movie viewers for the Toronto International Film Festival need to spend at least £100 (only on a Visa credit card due to sponsorship) to have a chance of getting tickets and be able to physically submit an order book with your possible choices to the Toronto box office within six days (or spend an additional £90 to FedEx it from the rest of North America; forget about submitting from outside North America). The process and the money necessary just escalates from here, proving how unfriendly the Toronto International Film Festival is to the general public. Like TIFF, the Venice International Film Festival public tickets are competitive and some screenings are exclusive. For Venice, tickets go on sale for the public only a week before the festival, meaning that those who are able to snag these tickets must make last minute, pricey travel arrangements. However, people who wish to see screenings in the Perla, Volpi, Casinò, and Pasinetti theaters won’t be able to since these theaters are invitation only. The Venice International Film Festival also has their ticket booth hidden away and does almost no promotion for the festival. Moreover, the festival is located on a completely separate island (Lido) than mainland Venice, tucked away from the city. Daily Mail writer Frank Mannion writes, “It is as if the city fathers have taken a vow of omerta, to allow the Italian cognoscenti to enjoy the pleasures of the festival to the exclusion of sweaty foreigners.” While one might believe that TIFF and Venice are unfriendly, these venues pale in comparison to Cannes, which doesn’t even allow the public into its events. Cannes is completely invitation only and requires an exorbitant expenditure from its guests. It seems that of the major international film festivals, the only one that is friendly to the public in regards to attendance is the Berlin International Film Festival, which sells over 335,000 tickets and shows around 400 films to the public.

Evidently, it appears that the major film festivals are just an opportunity for the best and most famous people of the film industry to gather, celebrate, network, and “Gatsby” the days away. The major film festivals are not concerned with the creativity of new and upcoming filmmakers, the general public that pays to watch films, and the non-industry cinephiles who worship film art. Luckily, there are about 1238 film festivals according to the British Council, the majority of which are on the smaller end and value those who are not at the top of the industry. LGBT film festivals, handicapped film festivals, and even a film festival for fake films, there is a film festival that values everyone and every type of film.

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1. Turan, Kenneth. Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made. Berkeley, CA: U of California, 2002.