Post 1
In the first class of the semester, we had a special guest lecture from Richard Sowada who founded and directed the Perth International Film Festival, He also got involved with different film festivals and dedicated himself to the industries. He specifically talked about some of the key factors of Australian film festivals by rewinding his past experience, and it gave me a comprehensive understanding of the entire industry.
First, Richard talked about the geographical factor for Australia. Due to its unique location, Australia has been culturally isolated from other areas such as Europe and North America for decades. It seemed like a disadvantage for Australia, however, it was somehow a driving force for the development of Australian film festivals. As Stevens (2016, p.45) states, “Australian festivals developed their own structures and ideologies”. To be specific, compared with film festivals in Europe, Australian film festivals built their unique structures which mainly focus on the development of local culture, and provide opportunities to people who truly love film festivals, rather than be anxious to expand the international markets. In my opinion, the local market is more important than the international market. A good film festival should be more grounded for ordinary people, it is essential to create a sense of community where everyone is able to participate in and enjoy the festival experience rather than only inviting celebrities from overseas.
Moreover, As Stevens (2016, p.33) illustrates, Australian film festivals have a long history with universities, and the Melbourne Film Festival would be a perfect example. As a university-based society, the Melbourne University Film Society (MUFS) offered MFF to used university facilities such as lecture rooms for running events. It was a golden opportunity for university students to get involved with the film festival, and within this atmosphere, it also encouraged local enthusiasts to contribute and produced more local content based on their expectations of the film festival. In addition, Volunteer plays a vital role in the staging of a film festival. With this cooperation between film festivals and universities, many students are able to participate as volunteers, so they are able to insight into a film festival. As a media student, I am glad to see that RMIT still keeps this tradition. RMIT always supports local film festivals and provides opportunities for students who are interested in it. Also, RMIT has its own venue “Capitol”, which allows us to present our ideas upon the stage.
In terms of staging a film festival, first of all, a good film festival has to be coherent. Every single element for staging the film festival should be relative to its theme. For example, we went to the queer film festival last Friday, and the ceiling of the venue is decorated with iridescent color, which gives a straight impression to the audience. Second, a film festival should be open-minded to any form of film. Last year, I went to the MIFF, and I was surprised by the VR section, which was full of technologies. The section was so amazing, due to the fact that VR is still a new technology in the film industry, so it was more attractive and I spent most of the time on VR rather than traditional screenings. Using advanced equipment such as goggle to watch a film was such a precious experience, and I hope VR technology is able to embrace the development of film industries in the next few decades.
Post Two
Last Thursday, we watched a documentary called Film Spa in the class, which introduces the history of KVIFF (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival) and the Czechoslovak film industry behind it. It was a great experience of viewing this documentary in terms of understanding how the entire industry worked during a different period of time.
Even though KVIFF has already become a famous film festival in the world, it still went through some tough times in the past. In the late 1940s, some enthusiastic filmmakers were materialized by a non-competition festival of films from seven countries, which was the predecessor of the KVIFF. The aim of holding KVIFF was to capture reality, so it attracted many filmmakers to dedicate themselves to the festival. With support from the industries, In 1956, KVIFF had already classified as category A festival. However, it turned out that there was only one “A” festival allowed in socialist countries, so KVIFF had to alternate with MFF (Moscow Film Festival). This policy extremely limited the development of KVIFF. In 1957, the whole country started to get rid of Stalinism, and national cinema had replaced Soviet cinema. In my opinion, the film festival should not be controlled under strict censorship, the ultimate goal of holding a film festival is creating a community where everyone can find connections between films and themselves. Also, people can share their experiences with others in this atmosphere. This can be proven by the popularity of open-air cinema in the 1960s. The reason why watching a film in an open-air cinema was popular is that it did not rely on the film, in fact, it was a special moment to share viewing experiences with families or friends. Therefore, A film festival is more likely to be defined as a sort of lifestyle instead of a common event.
In the 1980s, non-competition films boosted the Czechoslovak film festival culture. However, those competition films were still under control due to Soviet censorship in terms of the genre and content. There is no doubt that the standard of a good film should not be judged by politicians, it limited the creativeness of those filmmakers, so it was so hard to have something impressive when every single film had the same conception towards the Soviet Union.
Fortunately, it came to the turning point in the 1990s that the KVIFF was set up with the support from the government after nearly 40-year alternating with MFF, and the set of higher prize attracted more candidates internationally. From my perspective, it showed the inclusiveness of the film festival, and the festival itself went beyond nations and geography. To be specific, The transition of KVIFF refers to two models of film festivals. As Peranson (2008, p.28) states, the concept of the film festival is divided into the business festival and the audience festival. KVIFF was held as an audience festival at first with low budgets and limited films. It turned out that the city of Karlovy Vary and the Ministry of Culture strongly supported KVIF. Also, KVIFF was not only supported by the government, but the Grand Hotel Pupp also co-created and solved the financial problems for KVIFF. Therefore, KVIFF started to expand the international market, and sales agents arouse as the “defining actor in the current political economy of the film festival”. Without a doubt, the history of KVIFF represents the film industry in Eastern Europe, and it reflects the fact that the film festival comes from life but more spiritual than life.
Reference:
Kirsten Stevens, Australian Film Festivals: Audience, Place, and Exhibition Culture, Palgrave Macmillan US, New York, 2016 pp. 17-46.
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.
