As the Melbourne Women in Film Festival (mwff.org.au) reaches its ninth year,[1] we have achieved the position of Australia’s longest running women’s film festival currently in operation.[2] From a two-day festival of retrospective screenings and experimental shorts held in 2017, the festival has grown to an annual five-day event that showcases films by Australian, Aotearoa […]
[W]hat would be able… to contain and counter the pressure neoliberal social and political transformations have put upon communal and artistic life – capture it and turn it into a form of aesthetic activism? If such an activity – such a form of activism in the face of capital-induced ecological catastrophe and social disintegration – […]
Introduction Since the 2000s the number of environmental film festivals around the globe has increased significantly; we have witnessed a diversification within eco-themed film festivals, including events focusing on wildlife and environment protection, sustainable food cultivation, animal ethics, and human/animal relations. Among these is Animal Nature Future Film Festival (ANFFF), which was established in 2023 […]
Argentina is usually known for two leading film festivals: BAFICI (Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival), known for its attraction to cinephiles, and Mar del Plata International Film Festival, the only A-list festival in Latin America. However, the country has a rich circuit of film events that are little known outside its boundaries, mainly due […]
Dutch artist Nemo Vos discusses his approach to VR and his vision of the role played by film festivals in making VR available. Reflecting on the premiere of his work 8 Billion Selves at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2024, Vos addresses both the challenges and advantages of exhibiting VR at festivals. Looking to the future, Vos outlines his vision for a series of co-created VR works, each featuring a different artist and aiming for distribution in theatres to achieve economic sustainability for the medium. The artist emphasises the responsibility VR artists themselves have in creating awareness and cultivating audiences, and details how he uses co-creation and collaboration with other art forms to elevate VR from a niche technology to a mainstream artistic form.
It was in October 2015 at Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (FNC) that I first encountered virtual reality (VR) as we know it today. Since then, I have attended every edition of the festival’s Explore section, anxious to discover what immersive and interactive experiences it had in store. Although I could never afford to attend any […]
At the center of Lazzaretto Vecchio, the immersive island of the Venice Film Festival, there is an open social space where directors, producers, press, volunteers, and festival visitors can gather together to grab quick drinks, meet old and new friends, and sit down for interviews and/or business talks. The community space offers a relief from […]
Within the Venice Film Festival, a dedicated section for immersive works was introduced in 2016, quickly gaining competitive status alongside traditional cinematic works. Venice Immersive serves as both an exhibition and promotion venue for XR and a forum for discussing pivotal market issues. This interview with the Venice Immersive creators and curators, Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac, delves into the early stages of the section, its objectives, the challenges faced, and the major issues within the immersive works market.
An established and beloved aspect of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is standing in ‘queues winding their way around city blocks in the depths of winter’, meeting like-minded cinephiles.[1] This is not something I can participate in. My disability makes it difficult to stand for long periods of time. For many years, MIFF did […]
The Big Three film festivals (Cannes, Venice, and Berlin) may be of venerable age, but we do not have much by way of detailed and authoritative scholarship on their history. In 2000 there was Wolfgang Jacobsen’s 550-page volume 50 Years Berlinale: International Filmfestspiele Berlin, published by Nicolai in collaboration with the festival and Filmmuseum Berlin-Deutsche […]
An established and beloved aspect of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is standing in ‘queues winding their way around city blocks in the depths of winter’, meeting like-minded cinephiles.[1] This is not something I can participate in. My disability makes it difficult to stand for long periods of time. For many years, MIFF did […]
Accreditations typically determine how people access a film festival: they determine whether someone acts, for instance, as a journalist, a producer, a creator, a researcher, or as a regular member of the audience. The fact that a festival does not consider any accreditation system also conditions how attendees behave during the event. The spaces one […]
Proudly announcing on its website ‘thirty-seven years of emotions’, the 37th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato promised a gargantuan feast to those prepared to disengage themselves from the demands of everyday life during nine packed days. This year, the festival’s program boasted ‘470 films including 35mm, 16mm, restored masterpieces and hidden gems from all over […]
The Havana Film Festival New York (HFFNY) is the city’s longest continuously running Latin American/US-Latino festival. In this review I examine the nuances of the festival’s 22nd offering from 3-10 November 2022, as well as its unique premise, making it a key space for over two decades of cultural encounter and negotiation. Additionally, I highlight […]
In person events, human contact, direct encounters with the protagonists are the keys to a film festival. We are still in a pandemic, let’s not forget, but we are already returning to theaters, to that dark but bright place that makes us feel so comfortable.[1] The introductory text for the 17th International Documentary Film Festival […]
Martine Beugnet
University of Paris 7 Diderot
Greg de Cuir Jr
University of Arts Belgrade
Ilona Hongisto
University of Helsinki
Judith Keilbach
Universiteit Utrecht
Skadi Loist
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Toni Pape
University of Amsterdam
Maria A. Velez-Serna
University of Stirling
Andrea Virginás
Babeș-Bolyai University
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