LIDF

At 21.15 on the 6th August 1932 the first Venice Film Festival opened with a screening of Rouben Mamoulian’s ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ and with it the era of the film festival began along with an abiding template of red carpets and glitz. The choice of film both prescient and appropriate.

All festivals, whether large or small, are Jekyll and Hyde and attempt in some way to emulate the model of indulgent exclusivity, parties, awards and screenings, while at the same time a more sober approach towards art and thought and its consequences. But, most festivals are not like Venice or Cannes or Berlin. The majority of festivals are small precarious affairs that last maybe a few days and if they are lucky more than the average festival lifespan of three years.

According to the recent study by Stephen Fellows there are roughly 3,000 recognised active film festivals, of which almost 2000 take place annually. This seems a lot and of these 3,000 only a handful will be backed by serious money or covered in any depth by print or other media. More remarkably the number of films screened at these festivals is relatively small when compared to the total number of films produced each year. The same films pass from festival to festival, programmers study other programmes.

Does all of this become stagnant? The power of a festival it has been assumed for many decades was the shine and esteem bestowed by participation and hopefully prizes at a event clearly defined by geography and duration. You had to be there. Today the situation has changed and the possibilities for distribution, for exposure of a film are no longer limited by the duration of a festival or the size of its screening rooms. Social media, Vimeo, Youtube and other platforms (new on-line platforms are being developed each day) present possibilities for ongoing exposure to vast audiences. Exposure through festivals is now dwarfed by on-line potential. This being the case what do festivals in their present form offer filmmakers?

There has been much talk recently of film festivals undergoing a crisis of identity. What in the present moment of on-line ubiquity do festivals contribute to the distribution, visibility, financing and engagement with films? What do they do for audiences, for filmmakers, for themselves? If films are made to tell a story, then what is the purpose of story-telling and how best to maximise the impact of any given tale? What can festivals offer that goes beyond the standard model?’

To return to Venice and its festival of today. Paolo Baratta, President of the Biennale di Venezia, said in a speech at this year’s Venice Film Festival: ‘We are aware of the growing competition among many festivals and of the growing competition between these festivals and other forms of promotion on the film market. We are equally aware that, as the competition grows, it becomes increasingly important for a festival to systematically pursue its own pathway in the medium-term, with its own formula and its mission clearly in mind. Steadfastly, we have kept true to the principle that a festival must provide a counterbalance to the market maelstrom with a vision that is autonomous, free of the banners at marketing’s disposal; banners which, alone, can lead to passivity and conformism.’

A festival should be a fertile ground for encounter and exchange. However, that ground changes over the years. The Venice Film Festival itself has since its inception in 1932 evolved and changed direction often under the weight of historical events. It has been competitive and non-competitive, there were three non-consecutive years during the 1970s when it did not even take place.

Just as, according to the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, society is being transformed by the passage from the “solid” to the “liquid” phases of modernity, where the ‘solid’ structures of modernity are no longer adequate and instead ‘liquid modernity’ captures succinctly the changing nature of knowledge in our society, so a festival, which is a form of knowledge provider must evolve into a form that coincide with changes of knowledge acquisition and production within the wider society, taking account of new technologies and lived experience and the possibilities of a global interaction no longer tied to a specific place or a time.

The festival form that sufficed for so long now seems inadequate for the challenge of not only reflecting the work but actively increasing dialogue and exchange. The ‘static’ form of a festival, a few days in which a few people gather in a single place, does not reflect the fluidity of liquid modernity.

So, what sort of form can the LIDF take? A form that would create a festival more relevant and efficacious, more engaging and dialogic, more in tune with its original aims as opposed to being dominated by the demands of the peripheral? How can it editorialise content better, contribute new distribution models, prolong engagement with content and filmmakers, stimulate in-depth dialogue, educational possibilities and social activism? And finally, how can it replace a hierarchical model of ownership and participation with a cooperative one in which the festival does not merely try and represent many voices but is constituted by many voices?

The festival came about because a small group of people decided that a pocket was a pocket of resistance.

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