One of the articles for this week illustrates how Vision du reel switched to online mode in response to cancellations of film festivals globally. There is no doubt that cancelling events are hard decisions for the industries, especially for those filmmakers who have their films ready for premieres, this kind of decision definitely affected them both financially and mentally. Therefore, switching to an online film festival is an essential way to minimize loss. From my perspective, Emilie Bujes who is the artistic director of Vision du Reel raised a couple of interesting points in the article. Firstly, effective communications outreach plays a vital role in embracing the promoting process. Emilie talked about some practical ways of increasing outreach such as interviews or short introduction videos, and I do see the possibility of these methods being applied for NNIFF. Secondly, Emilie mentioned that all films will be delivered to attendees with French subtitles in order to add more local flavour. I think it is important to empathize the sense of community, with the outbreak of Covid-19 in particular. For NNIFF, even though it is an online film festival which means it is not limited geographically, it is still necessary for us to connect with local, which is also a sort of support for local industries like venues being closed down due to the pandemic.
The other article from the Guardian introduces an online isolation festival held by Brigid Delaney. Brigid came up with an idea of holding a festival online just for a few people during the self-quarantined period and I was surprised by the diversity of this online festival. Also, I noticed the fact that having a cohesive timeline/calendar is the key to a successful online festival. To be specific, for the production team, a well-constructed timeline embraces the efficiency of the process of production. For attendees, it elevates the viewing experience because it is more attractive to have a timeline which allows attendees to participate based on their tastes.
Reference:
Ben Croll’s article in Variety, “Visions du Reel Artistic Director on Reimagining the Festival as a Virtual Event”.
Brigid Delaney in The Guardian, “Arts in lockdown: I curated my own three-day online festival. Now it’s over, and I am wrecked“.
