What Exactly is a Film Festival and Why Do We Go?

In the days leading up to a film festival, I am generally reading as many stories as possible that have been written on the fest I'm going to attend, trying really hard to equate titles I've never heard of posted on the festival site with a multi-colored grid that plots our days and nights. Ok, I admit it, the first thing I look at is the cast list. Ok, I admit it, I grew up in LA. I used to buy maps to the stars homes (once) and read movie star bios inside my text books. While I love an intellectual film that expands my senses, I'd just as soon do it while watching a film star I like. Shallow? Yeah, sure.

What is a film festival? That question has no answer. There are hundred of festivals and they are all different. The ones we go to afford us the opportunity to see 4-5 movies a day in controlled circumstances, designed for folks in the industry.
And why do we go to film festivals? It's the most fabulous opportunity imaginable to see films in advance of distribution and in fact, sometimes, in fact of being attached to a distributor. How amazing is it to see a movie in September and say - oh, yeah, it's perfect for our audience - we have to play it - what can we do to get it? Our patrons are the very best. They love movies. They write to us religiously to ask us to play films.

This year my grid is a mess. For whatever reason, the festival plays 3 movies at 9 am that we need to see, 4 movies at noon that we have to see and nothing in the evening. Maybe they presume we are all so hip and cool that we have a plethora of parties and minions to meet with. I don't - I want to see films at night. So we're going to huddle and split up the must-sees. Again this year, I'm dreaming of chicken dogs. The consumption count will be an integral part of this blog. Oh yeah, as will a thorough review of the films.