Are Film Festivals Dead? No!

Are Film Festivals Dead? Absolutely Not: Why Festivals Are Essential to Cinema's Heartbeat.

I read so much about whether film festivals are dying or dead or whether or not the are important and relevant.  While they may not be en vogue to attend to some, or frustrating because they didn’t launch someone into superstardom,  I believe they are essential to the heartbeat of cinema worldwide.

Some, in our industry question the value of any film festival, measured by a stepping stone in a career and missing its real value.    In an age where algorithms curate our viewing experiences and streaming platforms promise instant gratification, one might wonder if the ancient ritual of gathering in darkened rooms to witness cinema has become a relic of the past. Yet, film festivals continue to illuminate us as human beings, our collective loves, our collective aspirations, and our collective fears, as well as the the soul of the craft of film making.

The question isn't whether film festivals are useful or dead; rather, it's whether we still possess the alive enough  to recognize their vital importance in nurturing and participating cinema’s, as well as our own, beating heart, or have we been deadened by the convenience of our mobile screens, big televisions and couches?

To go out to see a film requires effort, which requires energy and desire to walk or drive and park, to spend money, which is more and more an issue these days.  It

requires concentration and commitment to what we as audiences have been promised through many kinds of advertising.  And a film festival is even more that that because we don’t know what we have come to see.  We don’t know what will be presented to us.  They are the ‘Box of Chocolates’ from Forest Gump, which makes it an even more intimate, artistic connection between Festival Director, film maker and audience.  Plus you can very often meet the filmmakers and talk with them.

Ars gratia artis, art for art's sake and The Temple of Uncommercialized Vision

This Latin phrase, immortalized by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, is still important.  It takes on profound meaning within the darkened chambers of film festivals. Here, removed from the insatiable machinery of commercial calculation, filmmakers present their work in its most authentic form. No focus groups have diluted the message, no marketing executives have demanded safer choices, no algorithms have predetermined what audiences "want" to see.

This makes film festivals serve as modern agoras for filmmakers and film lovers, where over 10,000 events annually worldwide create spaces for voices that might otherwise never be heard.  Where you can meet an emerging Truffaut, Fellini or Orson Wells.   These gatherings champion the experimental, the provocative, the quietly profound, works that emerge not from boardroom decisions but from the artist's urgent need to speak from their hearts.

Consider the filmmaker who spends years crafting a deeply personal documentary, like , “Vivre, un nouveau jour”, by Pierre Aragou, or  “Everywhere” by Catherine Kolomyjec and the Periscope Crew, that I just saw at the Love and Hope International Film Festival in Barcelona.   Putting their time and talents to make extraordinary films, these filmmakers made pieces that might make some studios too nervous to produce, but make you better for seeing them.  You find these at film festivals.

Treasures in the Audience.

There are treasures in the audiences as well, at film festivals. These are not the casual observers who drift in for a single screening and disappear into the night. Rather, film lovers who sit through films that challenge their preconceptions.  They encourage and support emerging filmmakers with just being there.  And seeing films from different parts of the world, different cultures make us see and feel our commonality as humans.  It breaks down the cultural walls we are so encouraged to have these days.

Our Eternal Reward

Films change us, as all art does.  And as we change, we change those around we love in our world.   The question, then, is not whether film festivals will survive, but whether we will continue to nurture the qualities they represent: patience over instant gratification, depth over surface appeal, community over isolation. As long as humans feel compelled to tell stories through moving images, film festivals will endure as essential gathering places for this ancient and ever-evolving art form. They remind us that cinema is not merely content to be consumed but experience to be cherished, shared, and discussed.