My Media Journey | Blog by Katia Borisova

Last Friday, during the MIYFF opening night at the Backlot Studios, I was in utter disbelief and profound shock. I kept thinking to myself: Katia, there is no way that we, a bunch of uni students, did all of THAT. It seemed surreal, impossible even. However, shame on me and my doubts because the MIYFF actually happened and it was absolutely amazing. And now, welcome to the final reflection where I can finally write a thousand words and not feel guilty! Let’s go.

Who’s a good festival organiser? Who’s a good festival organiser?

Let”s be honest for a second- we did a killer job at staging MIYFF! Just think about it for a second, we had no experience, no funding and basically no time to develop, organise and run an entire film festival from scratch. Screw DC, that’s the real suicide squad right there! And yet, here we are 3 months later- we received almost 700 submissions, our opening night sold out and the Saturday screenings were a massive success. So, let’s give ourselves a pat on the back and see what we did well!

Positioning in the market. This one is on me and I’m actually really proud. We chose a place on the market that both differentiated us from the competitors and got us a lot of submissions. By deciding to target young filmmakers, we became different from most film festivals who work with professional directors, and we also got the audience that was as interested in us as we were in them, if not more.
Marketing campaign. Damn, that’s me again. According to the industry panel and, again, the number of submissions, “just the beginning” campaign was a complete success. It created value and demand, appealed to the target audience’s pain points and got an emotional response from the filmmakers that urged them to submit.
Design. All of our visuals, the logo, the posters, the instagram feed,- they were all absolutely beautiful. All the images weren’t only beautifully made, they were also consistent with MIYFF visual identity, communicated the “just the beginning” idea perfectly and enhanced the message.
Venues. There was a lot of headache with permissions, costs, locations, etc. when it came to choosing the venue for our festival. However, they were all sorted and both the Backlot Studios and RMIT were a great choice and we made the best out of it. Our venues added to the professionalism of the festival and fitted the event perfectly.
Sponsorship. We, literally just a class of uni students working on an assignment, got several big companies to sponsor our event. That’s a huge milestone that proves that we took it to the next level and positioned MIYFF as a legitimate film festival.
Programming. Hats off to our programming team who had to go through nearly 700 submissions and choose what to show at our festival. I think that the chosen pieces were truly in the spirit of what MIYFF stands for- independent filmmaking, talented youth, and passion for the art of cinema.
Professionalism. Our conduct of work was fully professional and, I think, on par with many official events and organisations. Yes, we lacked experience, but we carried ourselves and ran the festival in such a manner that you wouldn’t normally expect from uni students.
Teamwork. Several of my blogposts were dedicated to teamwork. I think we worked efficiently as a team, and that MIYFF wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the people in our amazing team.
Overall organisation. From spreadsheets to communication channels to budgeting- MIYFF was very well organised. All aspects of the festival were under control and people generally knew what they were doing. It didn’t feel like everything was a mess and we had no clue what was happening. Yes, it was challenging and intimidating, but still excellently organised.

Bad, bad festival organiser!

Okay, now that I made it clear that we are awesome, I also need to acknowledge our mistakes and shortcomings. There is always room for growth and improvement.

Stronger branding. This one is on me. As discussed in one of my previous articles, I could have spend more time developing MIYFF brand and its attributes. Even though we had a visual identity, the brand lacked personality and distinct voice. That’s something I will put more time and effort into in the future.
Better PR. We could have done a better job communicating to the public. I don’t know much about PR at all and I’m not sure how we would have gone about it, but just generally educating the public better and reaching out to people would be a great improvement. In the future, I would always want to have a PR person on the team.
More successful fundraiser. The fundraiser is about, you guessed it, raising funds and we only made around $70. I think we could have done something more interesting or appealing to general public to generate a higher income for the primary event. I think it didn’t go as well because we chose a very niche theme for the event, but also because we only had a few weeks and 0 funding to put it on. A good fundraiser is an event as difficult to put on as a film festival, so, in the future, I’ll make sure to put just as much time and effort in it to achieve better results.

Excellent wine, exquisite dining and a horrendous film festival culture

I learned a lot about film festivals from my traumatising experience with the French Film Festival back in the beginning of the semester. I am still haunted by its dull, utterly unfestive environment- it was an ordinary cinema screening and nothing would have even indicated that there was a festival going on in the first place. I remember asking myself back then: what’s a point of setting up a film festival if it’s not going to be different from your everyday cinema? I made a promise then that I’d do my best to ensure that MIYFF is an exciting and a festive event that offers its audience a new, different experience.

Well, mission accomplished! Both on the opening night and during the Saturday screenings, it was nothing like an ordinary trip to the cinema! The atmosphere, the structure, the movies, the entire experience was different and refreshing. It was heartfelt, genuine and festive- just like a festival should be.

Even though I will not be pursuing a career in film festival industry, I can transfer that learning to many other aspects of both professional and personal life. I learnt to stage a special celebratory event that offers a new experience and a festive atmosphere to the public. Maybe our class can give advice to French Film Festival next time…

Morals still matter in the 21st century *rules and conditions apply

I found most of this course’s readings to be highly informative and very helpful. Unfortunately, for many uni courses the readings are strictly academic and offer little to no practical insight, so it was a nice change! One of the most important insights I got out of this course was from week 6 reading: Knowing Yourself & Your Audience. The idea that film festival programmers have to be very mindful of showing materials that might be disturbing or traumatizing is one of these revelations that you kinda new, but didn’t fully realize. Personally, I love horror movies and enjoy extreme violence in movies, so for me it’s not obvious that for some people it might be difficult or even traumatizing to be exposed to such images. This reading reminded me to be thoughtful and tolerant when it comes to other people’s mentality and personal experiences. And once again, this is a universal learning that I will take with me to both professional and personal life! Both marketing and branding are communication fields and it is incredibly important to stay aware of any sensitive and controversial topics that might upset someone.

Generally it is best to keep in mind that it is not just a single film that you are introducing to the audience but an entire topic or issue. Although you are not responsible for the film’s content, be prepared to face and deal with any questions, disputes, or negative reactions after the screening from the audience or in the media.

Actually, I already had a chance to implement this new learning in real life! In my digital marketing internship with a startup called TRIBULAR, my co-intern who handled design came up with a logo that featured a native American man to accent the word ‘tribe’ in the company’s name. Being aware of possible offense it could bring to some people, I brought it to her attention and the logo was changed. Fascinating how an insight about a film festival can be transferrable to a completely different field!

The only models that don’t do cocaine- film festival models

Because my interest lies within commercial and organisational sides of a film festival, it was really interesting for me to read about the 2 models of a film festival: a business orientated one and an audience orientated one. Normally, I would be much more interested in the business one since it has more funding and better opportunities for marketing and branding work, and, generally, I am more drawn to big-scale corporate projects than to independent community works. However, this semester I got a chance to diversify my preference and work on an audience orientated film festival, and it was actually awesome! It was challenging to come up with marketing strategies with no time or budget, but the overall result was more heartfelt and atmospheric than a business event could ever be. So, from this reading I actually learnt two important lessons:

A basic understanding of the two models and its differences. If I ever need to stage an event (not even necessarily a film festival, its applicable to different types of event) I will be aware of these two options and the implications that come with it and will know which one to chose and what to expect from it.
I learnt both on theory and practice how to stage an audience orientated film festival. MIYFF was an audience model from A to Z: it hits every condition from the table on page 38 (Peranson 2008). I am actually glad I got to work on something that I normally wouldn’t- it was priceless experience and a chance for me to diversify and try new things.

Again, both these learnings and the experience that came with it can be used in so many aspects of life! From organising a low-budget event to deciding on a business model for an event- the possible applications are very broad.

Con te partirò

Overall, it was an incredible semester. It was probably one of the most stressful and difficult studious I’ve done, but it was also the one I learnt the most from. Both the theoretical and the practical skills and learnings I took away from the Festival Experience are impossible to overestimate and I know I will use them in my life, would it be for work or personal. Huge thanks to everyone on our amazing team and let’s see where life takes us next.

After all, it’s just the beginning.

Word count: 1872

Cited:

Mark Peranson, “First You Get the Power, Then You Get the Money: Two Models of Film Festivals “, Cinéaste, 1 July 2008, Vol.33(3), pp. 37-43.

Kateřina Bartošová, Hana Kulhánková & Zuzana Raušová, “Knowing Yourself and Your Audience: Programming a Human Rights Film Festival (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp. 27-46.

30
May
2019

Assignment 3: Part 2

categories: Uncategorized

These last two weeks leading up to MIYFF opening night have been completely hectic. Between the anxiety about selling enough tickets, the fear of failing the guests and the good old university induced existential crisis, my mental state is comparable to Poland in 1942, which, in case you didn’t know, was screwed. But, hey, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and we are almost there! So let’s buckle up and reflect on what is actually happening.

Crippling stress is a great teamwork exercise

One fascinating thing about staging MIYFF was establishing workflows and communication between a group of people who barely know each other at all. I feel like we managed that very well as a class and were continuing to do it successfully throughout the semester. Since the very beginning, spreadsheets and google docs were created to keep track of everyone’s roles and responsibilities, and we even set up our own private MIYFF Facebook group to communicate with the class. It was a bit funny, we did all of that in weeks 1 and 2 and then I found those instructions in week 4 reading:

Establish clear communication structures. You have to create a structure that can be used to pass information on to each other. The more informed everyone on the team is, the less errors will be made and the better prepared you will be to react if something does go wrong (and something always does!). While no single person can know everything, everyone should know who will have what information, and how they can be contacted if necessary (via a list of phone numbers, names, etc.)

So, as a class, we understood and executed all of that before ever reading the academic guidelines! Don’t think I’ve ever been in a class where students were so eager to be accessible by the classmates:) In all seriousness, teamwork and division of labour is one of my key intakes from this course. I have learnt how to properly organise an efficient communication system across various social media platforms and keep track of everyone’s input and workload. This skill is transferable to any job and is incredibly useful in personal life too, and I’m very grateful to have acquired it.

A clear evidence that our team worked as a clock in these past two weeks, was that people didn’t always know what others were doing. Everyone were carrying out their roles responsibly and effectively, so there was no need for designers to control management and vice- versa. The job was just done – and you didn’t even notice it because it was well done and on time! In my experience, that is rarely the case.

No one owes you sh*t

The most important and time-consuming part of my job took place at the earlier stages of the festival planning, so for the past 2 weeks I have been trying to get people to talk or post about us on social media. And one learning that I noticed straight away is that people don’t care. It happened several times that people simply wouldn’t get back to me or stop answering for good all of a sudden or simply go back on their promises. And I’m not talking some random kids, no, I’m talking big social media groups, radio stations and even RMIT themselves. RESA (RMIT Entrepreneurship & Start-up Association) for instance, promised to post about us on their page and then just didn’t. I emailed them several times to remind and haven’t heard back. Wow. RMIT social media accounts kept referring me to a certain email address but, them too, never gave me an answer even after several follow-ups. I, and other team members, have followed pretty much all the guidelines from week 5 reading that focued on promoting a film festival, and the only other thing that was suggested to get people to promote your festival was paying people:

Once you establish yourself, you might look for more professional help with public relations. For example, after three editions, Human Rights Arts & Film Festival in Australia paid for services from a PR agency who had experience working in film; they found this additional help with PR made a significant difference in the amount of press they received as well as their audience numbers.

Look for influential personalities from different social backgrounds, introduce them your festival and ask them to spread the news in their own circles. Remember that a personal recommendation can be much more valuable than any official content published in the media

So, another very important takeaway from the chaos that has been the past two weeks- people don’t owe you anything. Just because I am interested in MIYFF and because it is important for me, doesn’t mean that anyone else have to feel the same way. Sad, but true.

In my future projects, I hope I will have more time for preparation and planning to strengthen a brand I’m working on and get more people on board. Even if not, I will now know to turn my expectation down a bit and reach out to more people for a higher chance of a successful negotiation.

All in all, it’s been exhausting and nerve-wrecking, but also exciting and incredibly educational. Hopefully, tomorrow it will all be worth it!

Word count: 872 (sorry)

Cited:

Andrea Kuhn, “Who Is Organising It? Importance of Production and Team Members (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp. 71-83.

Matthea de Jong and María Carrión, “Adding Water to the Soup Pot: Finding Resources for Your Festival (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp. 115-129.

30
May
2019

Assignment 3: Part 1

categories: Uncategorized

The industry panel with Rohan Spong and Erin Rosenberg was an incredibly insightful experience and the value of getting such detailed feedback from such experts is priceless. In this reflection, I’ll dissect their feedback on my particular input in the festival- positioning and marketing strategy.

Both Rohan and Erin said that they were very impressed with the way we positioned the festival as en event for younger and inexperienced filmmakers as opposed to almost any other festival that only accepts highly professional work of already established directors. It was interesting to hear the same feedback on that matter from both a filmmaker and a film festival organizer and it means a lot that they both gave a positive review to that decision. It was also great to hear that they approved of my baby- «Just The Beginning Campaign». Both panelists mentioned that it hit the pinpoints of our target audience really well and, I believe, Erin even mentioned that that was a big reason why we got such a major response and over 650 submissions. The feedback was mostly positive and it means a lot to get validation from such experienced veterans of the industry like Rohan and Erin.

Some of the comments that suggested room for improvement revolved around visual identity of MIYFF as a brand. It’s true, I didn’t really focus on developing a brand identity and its brand personality, brand voice or brand attributes. I guess I can say in my defense that we only had 3 months to stage the festival and there was simply no time to develop any of that, but I will definitely try to accommodate that in my future work. As Erin noted, a film festival has to have a very distinct image and voice to appeal to its audience and to stand out from the competitors.

Another learning that I will take with me into my professional life, is that I should have worked closer with the designers, social media managers and other roles. As the marketing strategy developer, I should have worked with them constantly as one team in order to maximize the outcome and strengthen the message of our comms. Unfortunately, back then I took more of a “it’s just a uni project” approach and stepped aside after having finished my part. I now realize that this is not the right attitude, but I’m actually very glad to have made that mistake- that’s how we learn and how we grow.

As I aspire to build my career around marketing and branding, this feedback session was both an incredible confidence boost and an eye opener. It felt amazing to receive such validation on my work, and it was also helpful to see where I went wrong and work on it in the future.

Huge thanks to Rohan and Erin for their detailed feedback and professional insights!

Word count: 474

16
May
2019

Assignment 2: Submission

categories: Uncategorized

Assignment 2: Week 4

Assignment 2: Week 5

Assignment 2: Week 6

Assignment 2: Week 7

Assignment 2: Week 8

Assignment 2: Week 10

16
May
2019

Assignment 2: Week 10

categories: Uncategorized

Oh, boi.

Do I have a lot to talk about.

This Thursday was a complete rollercoaster and I’m sorry @Cerise but there’s no way I can stay anywhere near the word limit. Too much to say, too much to discuss. I’m a bit overwhelmed and I know I can get lost in the tornado of thoughts in my head right now, so I’ll turn to subheadings. Here we go.

Industry panel or sweet sweet validation

I know I’m not supposed to talk about the panel in this assignment, but I just can’t hold back. I’ll just briefly go through it and then do a detailed analysis in assignment 3.

Let’s start with the industry panel. Just for the record, I love Rohan Spong and I’ve had him as a teacher in 3 separate courses during my first year at RMIT, so it was great to see a familiar face. More importantly, it was priceless to get detailed face-to-face feedback from experts of the industry, especially because we are all students and we live off validation.

First of all, I was beyond happy with the positive feedback on my marketing strategies and MIYFF positioning. I know no one remembers it, but I proposed to base our festival around young aspiring filmmakers to maximise the response on day 1. Almost 700 submissions and now Rohan and Erin confirmed it. Felt amazing. And just overall, I love marketing and I put a lot of time and research into coming up with the “Just the beginning campaign” and justifying the target audience and positioning choice, so it meant the world to see that it was actually a good call. Nothing motivates me as much as validation.

Secondly, and I’ll stop obsessing over myself at this point, it was incredible to see that most of the feedback for every aspect of our festival was positive. Just to think about it, we are a bunch of students who have no clue about organizing a film festival. Hell, a couple of months ago some of us have never even been to a film festival. And now we are actually on track and are apparently getting a bunch of sponsorships and job offers. Mindblowing.

Of course, there are some things we need to work on and do better, like enhancing our visuals and making the poster text more readable. But all in all… I’m proud of us.

Love, death + teamwork

I am not used to working in such large teams, so throughout the semester I really wasn’t sure if we are working well as a team or not. Sometimes it seemed like everyone knew their place and worked as a clock together, and sometimes it felt like utter chaos and reminded me of the absolute mayhem of the Battle of Bastards. In case you are not a nerd, it’s a Game of Thrones reference.

However, seeing how the Fundraiser turned out, it’s clear evidence that our team kick a**. We chose a topic, contacted the filmmakers and obtained their permission to screen their films, programmed the movies, made beautiful posters and Instagram visuals, launched a Facebook ad, organised all the necessary equipment and the food and set it all up in a matter of hours. Brilliant. The best thing is that the work was divided more or less evenly: someone handled the organisation, someone executed the design, someone made MIYFF branded shirts. It didn’t feel like 2 people were doing 90% of the work while others laid back and sucked on Margaritas with cute little umbrellas in them. It felt fair.

I was particularly blown away by the fact that we attracted quite an audience, considering our program. If we can screen what is probably THE worst movies that humanity has ever seen, charge people money for it and still get people to come, there’s nothing we can’t do. That’s it. That’s the proof of our absolute, universal, pervasive power and Jesus can suck it.

Lessons and takeaways

The main thing I learnt, apart from our collective almightiness, is that Facebook ads don’t work as well. I was very surprised and incredibly disappointed that we didn’t sell any tickets with the ad we launched. I understand that it’s an extremely niche interest and that our budget was virtually non-existent, but still. I had far more trust in it. For the future, I will find time and money to test first and maybe use other channels for advertising.

Another great insight came from Rohan. We should have absolutely tested all the equipment a week before the event. We got very lucky that everything worked, but it might not have been the case and we’d all be screwed. Whatever I find myself working on in the future, testing the equipment will be a very high priority.

And another important lesson is that everything doesn’t have to be perfect to work out eventually. We had a few setbacks and my ad failed tremendously, yet we still had a good turn out and, overall, I’d say the event was a success. It was yet another reminder that you don’t despair and give up at the sight of difficulties, but learn from them and keep on moving.

Pain is the weakness leaving your body

I just wanted to briefly explain my nearly dead condition on the day of the event. I feel horrible for leaving the fundraiser and I tried to hold off for as long as I could, but by the end of the day, I could barely stand straight. I’m not going into details, but to put it in two words, I have endometriosis. If you don’t know what it is, you are a lucky bastard and I envy you more than Bill Gate’s wealth. In a nutshell, it’s incredibly painful and the pain is so intense that it can sometimes cause fainting and throwing up. Let me just say… I left on time.

Overall, go us! I think that we did an incredible job considering our limited time, resources, funding and experience. If we keep up the good work and learn from all the feedback and our own mistakes, we will absolutely kill it at MIYFF. I am proud of our team and I look forward to our festival.

Word count: you don’t want to know.

04
May
2019

Assignment 2: Week 8

categories: Uncategorized

Even though, as you might have noticed, I am very fond of wandering off to reflect on theoretical concepts and do some independent research, this week I’m going to come back to Earth and talk about what’s actually happening in class. The Fundraiser. We’ve had a lot of different ideas as to what the fundraiser might be and most of them revolved around films, which makes sense considering we are setting up a film festival. It seems we finally settled with the Canned Film Screening, which is great news. Now, let’s talk marketing.

Not going to lie, this is probably the most different product/service/event that I ever had to market so far. It’s an incredibly niche audience and the movies we chose for screening, Ben & Arthur and Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, are well… Not exactly the epiphany of cinematic art to say the least. I’ve done a lot of research trying to figure out the best way to promote it. I started with re-reading the week 5 reading by Bohdana Rambousková: “How to Successfully Promote Your Festival“. Since this fundraiser was just a sort of a side-gig on our way to MIYFF, we had no time to create a campaign or develop a brand identity, which made half the article irrelevant. Something, however, caught my attention: Online Promotion.

Launch your festival’s Facebook profile and you can update people on your programme, guests, behind-the-scenes developments, etc. for free (or for a low price when using advertising tools). Create a Facebook event for the festival’s opening 106 and/or closing ceremony and invite as many Facebook friends as possible.

I am currently doing a digital marketing ~~slave~~ intern and I was just working with Facebook ads, so that was a nice coincidence to see them mentioned in a course reading. The great thing about Facebook ads is that it really lets you narrow down your target audience to a very specific range of people. Apart from choosing a preferred age, gender and geographical location, you can also choose interests and behaviours that people display in their Internet searches and target these people specifically. I know, it’s creepy and invasive and I’m 95% sure that Zuckerberg is an alien lizard, but when it works out in my favour, I really don’t mind a bit of 1984. So, as per my proposal in class, I think it’s a great idea to spend $20 on Facebook and launch an ad that will reach specific people who are actually into that kind of staff. I don’t expect large sales at all, because, well… It’s only $3 per day. But we don’t need many people so it still works.

I wish we had more time to launch an A/B testing first and really nail the visuals, but we gotta work with what we have. With the ad launch and Ben inviting every single person he’s ever known, I think we’ll do okay!

Word count: 516 (I’m sorry I always go over the limit, I try my best not to)

Cited:
Bohdana Rambousková, “How to Successfully Promote Your Festival (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp. 97-114.

21
Apr
2019

Assignment 2: Week 7

categories: Uncategorized

As the fundraiser seems to be right on track and all the team is hard at work, I want to take a step back and dedicate this blog post to the readings. Even though I enjoy the rush and the buzz of real-life events, I think it’s important to stop and reflect on things from time to time. And after such a busy week, some mindfulness and reflection are just what I need.

Last week’s readings and the guest lecture were all focused around programming, which, at first sight, I found quite discouraging, considering that my role at this festival has nothing to do with this, and my personal interests are not aligned with this topic say the least. After sulking for a little bit, however, I came to a realization that it’s, in fact, a chance for me to learn something that I would have never otherwise research on. So, in today’s blog post I’ll talk about my brand new insights about programming a film festival, especially the issue of taboos.

It never occurred to me that every film festival might have certain topics that they won’t tolerate for one reason or another, and it was interesting too read about such topics for a human rights festival. There’s something that really caught my attention in the article:

The programmer should select films that will help the viewer to better deal with his or her trauma, rather than deepen it.

Indeed, it’s incredibly important for everyone involved in a film festival to be sensitive and mindful of the viewer’s emotional and mental state. It can be difficult to relate to someone with a completely different background and life journey, but we must try our best to do so. This reading got me thinking about a controversial yet viral Netflix show ’13 Reasons Why’. The series showed scenes of extreme violence and disturbing topics very graphically, which caused a lot of discontent among the audience. I think the producers should’ve read Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival before approving the script, particularly:

Films that depict high levels of suffering can deepen traumas, so be sure that the films also have an empowering effect…

And that’s where they went wrong. Instead of showing an empowering struggle and promoting hope for teenagers suffering from depression, bullying, or those who were sexually harassed and abused, ’13 Reasons Why’ simply explicitly showed it on TV. Some even argued that apart from being traumatising even for mentally stable people, this show was suicuide-inclining with its darkness and gruesomeness.

So, even though I don’t think I will ever find myself doing programming, this is an insight that’s applicable to everyday life and generally makes you a better, more sensible person. That’s why I enjoy writing blog posts on the readings: it gives me a chance to reflect on new topics, make connections with my own experiences and learn something new.

Word count:

Cited: 484

12
Apr
2019

Assignment 2: Week 6

categories: Uncategorized

Today, I want to talk about the guest lecture by Mia Falstein-Rush, which I thought was incredibly helpful and insightful. There were quite a few things that I could take away from her talk, and I’m eager to discuss some of them

For instance, her tips on conducting business and presenting your festival were just on point. The way you communicate through phone calls and emails creates a certain image for your entire festival and it’s certainly something to be mindful of. I came across an article the other day, and I think it speaks about a very similar thing. It’s about you being a brand of your own, and all of your actions and ongoing communications being ‘advertisements’, so to say. A sloppy and disrespectful email, as Mia was saying, is just like a really bad PR and can damage yours and your festival’s reputation. This article really ties with what Mia was saying and goes a little deeper into branding, marketing and business perspectives, so I would highly recommend giving it a read. It’s obviously very useful for a professional career, but also for personal life as well.

https://www.fastcompany.com/28905/brand-called-you

One topic that Mia briefly raised during her speech spoke to me in particular. I’ll attempt to summarise and paraphrase it from memory: even though it’s important to stay diverse and inclusive, you can’t base your choices on political correctness only, e.g. the submission has to be actually good for you to screen it. The issue of diversity and political correctness both fascinate and terrify me, especially since I am quite new to this Western world debate. In Mother Russia things are easier: you say what you have to say and you do what you need to do, and if it happens to offend someone… well, that’s just unfortunate. I am not a strongly opinionated person at all, and I try to keep my mind open at all times, so this question Mia raised really interested me. Should we, first of all, strive for quality or for inclusiveness? Should we include someone whose work doesn’t deserve to be included just to stay politically sensitive, or should we let good old natural selection work? Because these two contradict each other more often than not. Even the promotional video Mia showed for her Seen&Heard festival, all those statistics on how there are very few women in the industry… Any chance it’s because women are simply not that good at filmmaking? In the world of capitalism and the free market, the invisible hand always brings the skilled ones to success. In simpler words, a good filmmaker, whose films make good money, won’t ever have a problem of finding a job. I am in no way claiming that that’s the case and I am just trying to explore the topic and its different opinions. But because I am a strong believer in the modern capitalist ‘natural selection’, this question does seem elusive to me.

My initial question “what do we prioritise when choosing films for screening” won’t be answered today. Probably not tomorrow either, and the chances are, it’s not gonna be answered any time soon. And it’s not a bad thing, because that’s how we learn and how we grow.

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