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.