In January, I attended the Slamdance / Sundance extravaganza in Park City, Utah, helping produce the Slamdance, WorkBook Project & Open Video Alliance Filmmaker Summit. While there, I participated in and listened to a lot of conversations about the shifting role of film festivals, particularly as those shifts apply to a mid to high level independent festival such as Slamdance. What follows here is the second of five four thoughts that came to me about the functionality of film festivals (and in no particular discursive order).
2. Money-making should not a successful small festival make. Culture-defining should.
When I was co-directing the Silver Lake Film Festival in Los Angeles with Greg Ptacek and Kate Marciniak, we didn’t invite host any distributors at the screenings. Those that did attend never cut a deal with any of the festival’s filmmakers. I’m pretty sure that the Cucalorus Film Festival in North Carolina has never immediately helped filmmakers pay off their credit card debts.
In these two instances, there is no commerce involved, and no one’s making any money to speak of. Are these festivals then to be seen as failures?
The answer, of course, lies in how one defines the purpose of a cultural event. I believe that if we put aside commercial functionalities for a minute, we see that though the utility (and success) of smaller festivals becomes inherently value-based, it is nonetheless inherently of value.
Here are some points, then, on the value and purpose of film festivals, above and beyond commerce:
- To curate, provide imprimatur and thus help shape culture;
- To create access to independent voices and new stories within specific, underserved geographic communities;
- To educate filmmakers;
- To grow independent film communities and foster creative collaboration;
- To help create de facto four-wall releases for filmmakers through festival-run programs and partnerships above and beyond the event itself;
- To assist with DIY distribution by offering access to distribution tools through festival-run partnerships with emerging content platforms
These last two functionalities are becoming more important as filmmakers and festivals realize that the old system – the permission-based system – is falling apart. So, to reitirate: Festivals should increasingly focus on helping filmmakers sustain and exhibit their work through various non-traditional methods such as digital distribution deals (see Slamdance’s recent deal with Microsoft Xbox), DIY distribution education, and, of course, festival run four-wall programs and partnerships that allow greater visibility for the participating films.
From experience I know that acknowledging an alienation from the mainstream film industry implies owning up to a radical shift away from ‘the system’, and has big repercussions for festivals and filmmakers alike. Silver Lake FF, for instance, with all its focus on working outside the system was unable to harness the sponsorships that festivals so drastically need for survival, and died a fiery financial death in 2007 (the results of which I am feeling to this day).
With that all said, it still feels successful in that it spoke to several of the points I believe to the inherent in a fruitful arts organization- points that have nothing at all to do with (immediate) economic exchange. The organization focused- largely- on what we thought should be the primary goals: Empowering a community and its artists through coherent promotion; leveraging its name to garner publicity and opportunity for our participants; facilitating radness in general– Art for art’s sake, as it were. The efforts were mostly spent on promoting and advocating for micro-communities through programming decisions, and fostering creativity and creative collaboration in our neighborhood and beyond. Mainly, though, Silver Lake FF focused on curating a very cool and forward-thinking festival (under the benevolent expertise of programming director Roger Mayer, as well as a plethora of special guest curators), the results of which are still bearing fruit in the continued existence of some of its former programs in the form of special screenings and ongoing collaborative output.
So do these artsy, community-driven, low-budget, no-commerce festivals like the still-thriving Cucalorus, Nevada City or Slamdance still have value? My conclusion would be that yes, they do. These festivals’ value (and purpose) lies in providing an imprimatur – an edge – for its filmmakers, and a strong platform for community-empowerment. This value, to me, supercedes the worth of some crappy distribution deal.
At the end of the day, sometimes being part of something amazing and cultural is worth more than being paid a grand to have your documentary air once or twice on TV.
** NB: Kate Marciniak, one of the co-directors at SLFF, makes this note: “[We] slogged many long and arduous hours for SLFF’s festivals trying to reel in distributors to attend and trying to get films with name stars to entice them. It was not through a lack of our wanting or trying [that they didn't attend].” So, I guess the rebellious stance was assigned post-fest, by me. I still think it’s cooler without the distributors.
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I will address the inevitable next question (the ‘how the hell do we avoid the Silver Lake debacle and sustain our arts organizations?’ question) in subsequent posts.
Next installments:
- #3: What festivals should do to better serve their communities: An exercise in managing filmmaker expectations.
- #4: How to sustain without selling out: An exercise in ego management.
Great series, thanks! Art and commerce have always had an unusual relationship. The age of the internet has put a strange spotlight on that.