We had an online guest lecture presented by Mia Flastein-Rush who is a specialist from the industries. She was a really good lecturer in terms of specifying the process of holding a film festival. She started with some graphs to illustrate the current landscapes in film industries so that we can dive into the industries from different aspects. One of the facts that I noticed was the issue of gender inequality in the industry, the majority of filmmakers are males. In my opinion, it is kind of a social norm that females are not as competitive as males at some stages, but I am glad to see that there are some film festivals specifically for females such as Melbourne Women Film Festival, which encourages females to contribute to the film industries.
One of the important factors during the process of sketching a film festival is fundraising. Mia talked about different kinds of potential financial supporters, which reminds me of one of the readings from Setting up a Human Rights Film Festival. Jong and Carrion (p.116) state that having “a clear, realistic and detailed budget” plays a significant role in fundraising, and I think a well-prepared budget would definitely elevate the efficiency. Also, we need to consider suitable financial supporters for our film festival. Mia talks about the importance of youth-led or youth-focused organizations such as SYN FM. These organizations are willing to support university students so that we can cooperate with them and make sure we are able to create more opportunities for students who are interested in films.
In addition, promoting is the key to a successful film festival. If we do not have any proper promoting strategies, then we are not able to attract people to attend our film festival. Therefore, cooperating with the media is a driving force for promoting. Rambouskova (p.97) claims that people will not look for a new festival themselves, which means we need to be more active during the promoting process. Rambouskova also states that it is much easier to work with media partners such as radios or TV. There is a possibility of working with SYN FM as it is both youth-based and uni-based radio station, so their target audience might be interested in our film festival. Radio is a medium which has an advantage on accessbility， so it has the potential of being a major media partner for film festivals.
References:
Bohdana Rambouskova, “How to Successfully Promote Your Festival” in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp. 97-114.
Matthea de Jong & Maria Carrion, “Adding Water to the Soup Pot: Finding Resources for Your Festival” in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp. 115-130.
