Sheffield DocFest, the UK’s largest documentary festival, returned this year for its first predominantly in-person edition following two years of pared back, online, and hybrid editions in 2020 and 2021. Returning in June 2022 as a six-day event comparable in size and scale to the 2019 festival, this year’s edition was framed in part as […]
AKS International Minorities Festival is a film festival that seeks to showcase films and art projects, as well as to create a dialog around the representation of minorities, particularly immigrants, sexual minorities, trans people, and people of colour. Since 2014, the festival has been held annually both in Pakistan and Denmark, establishing itself as an […]
Audience research has become an increasingly significant aspect of film festivals. The development of hybrid and online film festivals has enabled opportunities to generate more knowledge about the festival audience. That resembles broader developments in today’s culture and society, which relies on online data to take audience knowledge to a higher level. Indeed, industry observers […]
In 2020, a lot of film festivals were cancelled or postponed to 2021. Others were organised in person (following the security measures imposed in each country regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, reducing the number of people in a closed space). Most festivals opted for online or hybrid options. Some festivals chose to use online platforms, turning […]
Amidst violent police killings of people of colour, a global health pandemic, and a grassroots surge in activism calling for social justice in the US and abroad, the Boston Latino International Film Festival (BLIFF) was more crucial than ever in 2020. Launching virtually from 23-27 September 2020, the community festival continued with its nearly twenty-year […]
Le Festival international de cinéma Vues d’Afrique is North America’s largest and longest-running African film festival. Established in Montreal in 1984, it has been held annually ever since. Its 36th edition was set to open on 17 April and run until 26 April, when, just a few weeks before the opening, festival organisers had to […]
Since March 2020 Covid-19 has led to a wave of cancellations in the event industry.[1] The Mobile World Congress of Barcelona, the world tourism exhibitions in Berlin and Shanghai, and the International Trade Fair for Wire and Cable in Dusseldorf, for example, were cancelled. The impact on tourism worldwide is far-reaching and has been a […]
In Turkey Covid-19 poses a particularly significant threat to the fragile existence of alternative exhibition networks, such as arthouse cinemas, film collectives, and small-size film festivals. The future of film exhibition and production has been among the hot topics in the wake of the lockdown.[1] The role of film festivals in the public sphere, as […]
In the wake of Covid-19, watch parties and watch-alongs have become increasingly popular forms of audience engagement, providing communal viewing experiences. As singular events or film series they have made use of streaming platforms such as Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter, or Instagram. For film festivals, which are currently facing the challenge to go hybrid […]
When a major festival such as South by Southwest (SXSW) is postponed, cancelled, or otherwise altered, the effects are widespread and impact upon those connected with the event in various ways. Given the speed at which the COVID-19 pandemic spread in early March 2020, and how close that was to the planned dates for SXSW, […]
Film festivals cannot always claim to practice what they preach. Even some of the best-intentioned festivals often hit a wall: while attempting to exhibit politically subversive films, organisers also have to respond to diverse – and even conflicting – voices. Responding to the demands of local communities, audiences, filmmakers, and sponsors leads to compromises and […]
In this review I discuss the recent embracement of VR by film festivals. In less than a half a decade VR emerged as a central phenomenon in the global film festival circuit, turning from a technological gadget in its initial development stages to a prominent visual exhibition form. In 2014, only few film festivals were […]
Regina is a relatively small Canadian city with around 215,000 inhabitants in the province of Saskatchewan. It is also home to one of the most experimental LGBTQ+ film festivals in Canada. Queer City Cinema was founded in 1996 by multimedia artist and executive artistic director Gary Varro. In 2001, the festival started going on tour […]
As film events are currently being cancelled, postponed or moved online, we are specifically inviting “festival reviews” that deal with film festivals in the context of COVID-19 for the film festival review section of our upcoming Autumn 2020 issue. What tactics and strategies are employed to face the current crisis in the festival world? Possible […]
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Martine Beugnet
University of Paris 7 Diderot
Greg de Cuir Jr
University of Arts Belgrade
Judith Keilbach
Universiteit Utrecht
Skadi Loist
Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf
Toni Pape
University of Amsterdam
Belén Vidal
King’s College London
Andrea Virginás
Babeș-Bolyai University