Festivals
by claire
Iris is an experimental short I completed while studying at UTS. It’s just been accepted to WOW Film Festival and will be playing at the Chauvel in Sydney next week. This is great – I’m absolutely thrilled that my little experimental short is getting out there. However, what I’m interested in is an aside to the WOW film festival - IndieFest.
IndieFest is the online festival of IndieFlix. From its website: “IndieFlix promises to build a fair and open market to empower filmmakers to be the engine of their achievement and audiences to be a vital part of a movie’s success. IndieFlix is committed to encourage public opinion and power of choice while reinvesting in the independence of film, the people that craft them, and the organizations that support them. We believe that every movie has an audience, every filmmaker has a story to tell and each story has the right to be shared.”
Interesting…
When you first start entering your work into festivals, online is the big no-no. It’s tainted with impression of short, I-don’t-care-really-about-this festivals. The value of the film is completely lost the moment you hit “Upload”, and automatically you have been vetoed from entering a plethora of festivals. Yes, its probably a little snobby, seeing as the whole idea of festivals is to give voice to your work. Heres a secret – its not really what filmmakers care about! And its not about the prizes. Its about being seen at the right festivals. It’s like being a debutante.
It will be interesting to see as we move deeper into the twenty first century what happens to online festivals. DVD’s are surely on their last legs – Its so quick, easy and cheap to download from iTunes. Not to mention the actual physical space they occupy in the lounge room… So will this replicate to online festivals? Will we all sit in our living rooms, with our own popcorn, noone munching loudly in our ear, nostalgic for the days of phones ringing and being ssshhed.
Perhaps it is the nostalgia, and the atmosphere that keeps as at festivals. After all, you can potentially view every consenting film in WOW’s program on Indie Fest, so why even leave your house?
Just food for thought…
Oh – and don’t forget to vote for Iris at Indie-Fest: http://wow.indie-fest.com/?p=103