Film festival

A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon the festival's focus, can include international and domestic releases. Some festivals focus on a specific film-maker or genre (e.g., film noir) or subject matter (e.g., horror film festivals). A number of film festivals specialise in short films of a defined maximum length. Film festivals are typically annual events. Some film historians do not consider Film Festivals as official releases of film, like Jerry Beck. The best known film festivals are the Venice Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and the Berlin International Film Festival, the latter being the largest film festival worldwide, based on attendance. The Venice Film Festival is the oldest major festival. The Melbourne International Film Festival is the largest film festival in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the oldest in the world.

History

Venice held the first major film festival in 1932. Other major and older film festivals of the world include:

•         Moscow International Film Festival (1935)

•         Cannes Film Festival (1946)

•         Festival del film Locarno (1946)

•         Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (1946)

•         Festival del Cinema di Salerno (it) (1946)

•         Edinburgh International Film Festival (1947)

•         Yorkton Film Festival (1950)

•         Berlin International Film Festival (1951)

•         Melbourne International Film Festival (1952)

•         International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg (IFFMH) (1952)

•         International Film Festival of India (IFFI) (1952)

•         San Sebastián International Film Festival (1953)

•         Sydney Film Festival (1954)

•         Mar del Plata International Film Festival Argentina (1954)

•         Taormina Film Fest (1955)

•         Seminci, Valladolid, Spain (1956)

•         London Film Festival (1956)

•         San Francisco International Film Festival (1957)

•         Kraków Film Festival (1960)

•         International Film Festival for Children and Youth in Zlín (1961)

•         Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival (1963)

•         Chicago International Film Festival (1965)

•         Tashkent International Film Festival of countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America (1968)

•         Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival (1970)

•         International Film Festival Rotterdam (1972)

•         Telluride Film Festival (1974)

•         Atlanta Film Festival (1976)

•         Cairo International Film Festival (1976)

•         Toronto International Film Festival (1976)

•         Cambridge Film Festival (1977)

•         Cleveland International Film Festival (1977)

•         Montreal World Film Festival (1977).

•         Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) (1977)

•         Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) (1978)

•         Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) (1979)

•         Montreal International Festival on Films on Art (FIFA) (1981)

•         Torino Film Festival (1982)

•         Fantasporto, Portugal (1982)

•         Istanbul International Film Festival (1982)

•         Filmfest München (1983)

•         Tokyo International Film Festival (1985)

•         Warsaw International Film Festival (1985)

•         Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (1986)

•         Guadalajara International Film Festival (1986)

•         Santa Barbara International Film Festival (1986)

•         Prix Europa 1987

•         Melbourne Queer Film Festival (1991)

•         Shanghai International Film Festival (1993)

•         Atlantic Film Festival (1980)

•         Busan International Film Festival (1996)

•         Milano Film Festival (1996)

•         International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) 1996

•         Rome Film Festival (1996)

•         Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) 1997

•         SEOUL International Women's Film Festival (SIWFF) 1997

•         Sofia International Film Festival (SIFF) 1997

•         Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (2000)

•         Transilvania International Film Festival (2002)

•         Chennai International film festival (2003)

•         CinemadaMare Film Festival (2003)

•         Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) 2004

•         Jalari in corto (2004)

•         Vail Film Festival (VFF) 2004

•         Jecheon International Music and Film Festival (JIMFF) (2005)

•         Lucca Film Festival (LFF) 2005

•         Io Isabella International Film Week (2005)

•         Biografilm Festival (2005)

•         Beloit International Film Festival (2006)

•         Filmsaaz (Short film festival) 2008

•         Los Cabos International Film Festival (CIFF) 2012

•         Regina International Film Festival and Awards (RIFFA) 2014

•         Valletta Film Festival, Malta (2015)

•         All Lights India International Film Festival (ALIIFF) 2015

•         Great Indian Film and Literature Festival (2015) (GIFLIF)

•         United International Film Festival (UIFF) 2016

•         Covellite International Film Festival (CIFF) 2016

•         Falmouth Film Festival (2016)

•         International Film Festival and Awards‧Macao (IFFAM) (2016)

The Venice Film Festival in Italy began in 1932, and is the oldest film festival still running. Raindance Film Festival is the UK's largest celebration of independent film-making, and takes place in London in October.

Australia's first and longest running film festival is the Melbourne International Film Festival (1952), followed by the Sydney Film Festival (1954). Edinburgh International Film Festival is the longest running festival in Great Britain.

North America's first and longest running short film festival is the Yorkton Film Festival, established in 1947. The first film festival in the United States was the Columbus International Film & Video Festival, also known as The Chris Awards, held in 1953. According to the Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco, "The Chris Awards (is) one of the most prestigious documentary, educational, business and informational competitions in the U.S; (it is) the oldest of its kind in North America and celebrating its 54th year." It was followed four years later by the San Francisco International Film Festival, held in March 1957, which emphasized feature-length dramatic films. The festival played a major role in introducing foreign films to American audiences. Films in the first year included Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood and Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali.

2016 study shows Regina international film festival and awards (RIFFA) the latest trend and promising event of western Canada (Regina, Saskatchewan) attract international film industries, students, enthusiast and fashionista to the prairies.

Today, thousands of film festivals take place around the world—from high-profile festivals such as Sundance Film Festival and Slamdance Film Festival (Park City, Utah), to horror festivals such as Terror Film Festival (Philadelphia), and the Park City Film Music Festival, the first U.S. film festival dedicated to honoring music in film.

Digital feature film distribution began in 2005, along with the world's first online film festival the Green Cine Online Film Festival, sponsored by DivX.

Film funding competitions such as Writers and Filmmakers were introduced when the cost of production could be lowered significantly and internet technology allowed for the collaboration of film production.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_festival

Alfred Hitchcock filmography

Alfred Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English director and filmmaker. Dubbed the "Master of Suspense" for his use of innovative film techniques in thrillers, Hitchcock started his career in the British film industry as a title designer, and art director for a number of silent films during the early 1920s. His directorial debut was the 1925 release The Pleasure Garden. Hitchcock followed this with The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, his first commercial and critical success. It featured many of the thematic elements his films would be known for such as an innocent man on the run. It also featured the first of his famous cameo appearances. Two years later he directed the thriller Blackmail (1929) which was his first sound film.  In 1935 Hitchcock directed spy thriller The 39 Steps. Three years later he directed the comic thriller The Lady Vanishes starring Margaret Lockwood, and Michael Redgrave.

In 1940 Hitchcock transitioned to Hollywood productions, the first of which was the psychological thriller Rebecca starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. He received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director, and the film won Best Picture. Hitchcock worked with Fontaine again the following year on the romantic psychological thriller Suspicion which also starred Cary Grant. In 1943 Hitchcock directed another psychological thriller Shadow of a Doubt which starred Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. Three years later he reunited with Grant on the spy thriller Notorious which also starred Ingrid Bergman. In 1948 Hitchcock directed Rope which starred James Stewart. The film was his first in Technicolor and is remembered for its use of long takes to make the film appear to be a single continuous shot.  Three years later he directed Strangers on a Train (1951).

He collaborated with Grace Kelly on three films: Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954) and To Catch a Thief (1955). For Rear Window, Hitchcock received a nomination for Best Director at the Academy Awards.  1955 marked his debut on television as the host of the anthology television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents which he also produced. The show made him a household name. In 1958 Hitchcock directed the psychological thriller Vertigo starring Stewart and Kim Novak. The film topped the 2012 poll of the British film magazine Sight & Sound of the 50 Greatest Films of All Time and also topped the American Film Institute's Top Ten in the mystery genre. He followed this with the spy thriller North by Northwest (1959) which starred Grant and Eva Marie Saint. In 1960 he directed Psycho the biggest commercial success of his career and for which he received his fifth nomination for Best Director at the Academy Awards. Three years later he directed horror film The Birds starring Tippi Hedren. The following year he reunited with Hedren on psychological thriller Marnie which also starred Sean Connery.

In recognition of his career, Hitchcock garnered the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Fellowship Award, the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Directors Guild of America's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award. He received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to acknowledge his film and television achievements. In 1980 Hitchcock received a knighthood.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock_filmography

Woody Allen filmography

Woody Allen is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, author, jazz musician, comedian and playwright. He contributed to many films as either actor, director, writer or sometimes both. Allen wrote four plays for the stage, and has written sketches for the Broadway revue From A to Z, and the Broadway productions Don't Drink the Water (1966) and Play It Again, Sam (1969).

His first film was the 1965 comedy What's New Pussycat?, which featured him as both writer and performer. His directorial debut was the 1966 film What's Up, Tiger Lily?, in which a dramatic Japanese spy movie was re-dubbed in English with completely new, comic dialog. He continued to write, direct, and star in comedic slapstick films, such as Bananas (1971) and Sleeper (1973), before he found widespread critical acclaim for his romantic comedies Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979); he won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for the former.

Allen is influenced by European art cinema and ventured into more dramatic territory, with Interiors (1978) and Another Woman (1988) being prime examples of this transition. Despite this, he continued to direct several comedies.

In addition to works of fiction, Allen appeared as himself in many documentaries and other works of non-fiction, including Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Wild Man Blues and The Concert for New York City. He has also been the subject of and appeared in three documentaries about himself, including To Woody Allen, From Europe with Love in 1980, Woody Allen: A Life in Film in 2001 and the 2011 PBS American Masters documentary, Woody Allen: a Documentary (directed by Robert B. Weide). He also wrote for and contributed to a number of television series early in his career, including The Tonight Show as guest host.

According to Box Office Mojo, Allen's films have grossed a total of more than $575 million, with an average of $14 million per film (domestic gross figures as a director.) Currently, all of the films he directed for American International Pictures, United Artists and Orion Pictures between 1965 and 1992 are owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which acquired all the studios in separate transactions. The films he directed by ABC Pictures are now property of American Broadcasting Company, who in turn licensed their home video rights to MGM.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Allen_filmography

Auteur Theory in detail

Very simply the basis of auteur theory is that instead being a co-operative, industrial product, a film becomes identified with its director, who is seen as the ultimate creative impetus or force behind the film. It is actually more complex than this in theory but it does attempt to insert an author into the film. Of course not all directors are ‘auteurs’ and we will go into this a bit more lately and what actually constitutes an auteur. Auteur theory is also very pervasive and has entered the popular discourse on films with critical opinion and reviews often articulated from this point of view eg the latest Tarantino release etc. My local DVD store even has a section dedicated to ‘great directors.’ In terms of film scholarship debates about authorship occupied a privileged position in film studies from the 1950’s until the early 1980’s when audience studies became a more central focus – although I would argue that it is still quite persistent and often hovers in the background in a lot of critical writing. It must be emphasised that auteur theory is less a coherent theory than a variable set of critical practices and over time it has been appropriated, attacked and reformulated in many different ways.

Prior to auteur theory ‘serious’ European film criticism had been established in the 1940s with the work of its principal figures such Andre Bazin in France and Siegfred Kracauer in Germany mainly driven by the relationship between film aesthetics and reality to which the concerns of the director were secondary.

First articulation of a politique des auteurs (auteur theory) came from the critics (and later filmmakers) who wrote for the French film magazine, Cahiers du Cinéma, in the 1950s:

François Truffaut

Jacques Rivette

Claude Chabrol

Eric Rohmer

André Bazin (not a filmmaker)

For examples of French auteurist criticism see Cahiers du Cinéma: Neo-Realism, Hollywood, new wave, ed. Jim Hillier and Theories of Authorship: A Reader, ed. John Caughie

The Cahier critics primarily developed their understanding of what makes a director an auteur in relation to the American cinema. In fact as Graham Turner writes “a polemical article by French film-maker Francois Truffaut, published in Cahiers du Cinema in 1954 signals the beginning of ‘auteur theory’. Although its specific points were almost entirely enclosed within industrial and political conflicts in the French film industry at the time it essentially argued for the necessity of a personal vision or style in a director’s film and cited some films that were reflective of this in even the most industrialised conditions of Hollywood. As such the theory evoked the more romantic concept of the artist and what constitutes artistic standards, while paradoxically rescuing a large body of popular films (Jerry Lewis comedies for example) from the cultural junk heap where they had been assigned by critics and theorists alike. Genre films – in particular –westerns, musicals, thrillers, gangster films – were now deemed interesting. Film theory therefore became a critical practice which paralleled dominant modes of literary criticism complete with a ‘canon’ of great films which very simply were the particular directors’ best and most representative works.

• Some American auteurs: John Ford, Howard Hawks, Sam Fuller, Alfred Hitchcock (films made in America considered to be American films).

• Evidence of the primary, creative authority of the auteur director to be found in the articulation of a consistent, personal vision found throughout a body of work.

Personal vision articulated through:

– Distinctive visual style – which included an emphasis on mis-en-scene.

– Repetition of narrative themes and motifs (including personal obsessions)

– self-consciousness (of convention) – idea that once the auteur realises his particular ‘signature’ conventions that these are then deployed in over a number of films in a self-aware manner – will discuss this later in regard to Tim Burton eg I am Tim Burton the auteur therefore I must include those elements in my films which are said to be a part of a Tim Burton film.

– Originality (of generic interpretation)

André Bazin, “On the politique des auteurs” (1957):

• A critique of auteur theory but not a rejection of it.

• Emphasizes role of tradition and convention.

“The cinema is an art which is both popular and industrial… What makes Hollywood so much better than anything else in the world is not only the quality of certain directors, but also the vitality and, in a certain sense, the excellence of a tradition.”

“The American cinema is a classical art, but why not then admire in it what is most admirable, i.e. not only the talent of this or that film-maker, but the genius of the system…”Andrew Sarris: American critic who popularised auteur theory for American critics and audiences (writing in the Village Voice and Film Culture). Created a pantheon or canon of what he considered to be ‘best directors’ which is still effective in much film criticism today – the notion of ‘the great director’ is still important in much film criticism today and in film courses it can become an important aspect of the way cinema is learnt and understood. In fact I often find myself discussing film in this way, although I am aware of the theoretical complexities of auteur theory. Organising a significant component of my viewing practices in this way eg catching the latest release by Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers) maybe – somewhat sadly – makes me excited. When I am watching it making sense of the film by my prior knowledge of his other films and evaluating this one alongside that also makes me feel excited. So there is a very practical and pleasurable aspect to the adoption of auteur theory for the cinephile like myself or even the more casual film-goer – and for arguments sake I don’t think this should be overlooked.

“Notes on the Theory of Auteur Theory in 1962”:

“After years of tortured revaluation, I am now prepared to stake my critical reputation, such as it is, on the proposition that Alfred Hitchcock is artistically superior to Robert Bresson by every criterion of excellence and, further that, film for film director for director, the American cinema has been consistently superior to that of the rest of the world from 1915 to 1962.”

Re: Sarris: an auteur’s body of work is characterised by:

• Technical flair

• Recurring characteristics of style, which serve as the filmmaker’s signature.

• conveys the filmmaker’s personal vision of the world (what Sarris calls ‘interior meaning’).

Also see “Toward a Theory of Film History” (in Theories of Authorship, ed. Caughie)

“To look at a film as the expression of a director’s vision is not to credit the director with total creativity.”

As time went on auteur theory began to appropriate concepts form structural linguistics, semiology, and psychoanalysis and began to question the underlying assumptions of auteur theory such as ‘coherence’, ‘self-expression’, ‘creativity’ – did not destroy the theory but rather transformed it.

Eg Peter Wollen and British auteur structuralism, Robin Wood.

Beginnings of a shift away from the notion of the auteur as originating source of the work towards the idea of the work as a set of contradictory relationships between structural elements which interact to produce the author’s world view rather than express it. Accepts that films are produced by film-makers, but also reminds us that film-makers themselves are produced by culture, therefore reconnecting the film with the culture it represents and also presents less of a totality or coherent world-view. Interested in ways of looking at film as a set of languages, as system for making meaning.

Source: https://brianair.wordpress.com/film-theory/auteur-theory/

Auteur theory

Auteur theory, theory of filmmaking in which the director is viewed as the major creative force in a motion picture. Arising in France in the late 1940s, the auteur theory—as it was dubbed by the American film critic Andrew Sarris—was an outgrowth of the cinematic theories of André Bazin and Alexandre Astruc. A foundation stone of the French cinematic movement known as the nouvelle vague, or new wave, the theory of director-as-author was principally advanced in Bazin’s periodical Cahiers du cinéma (founded in 1951). Two of its theoreticians—François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard—later became major directors of the French New Wave.

The auteur theory, which was derived largely from Astruc’s elucidation of the concept of caméra-stylo (“camera-pen”), holds that the director, who oversees all audio and visual elements of the motion picture, is more to be considered the “author” of the movie than is the writer of the screenplay. In other words, such fundamental visual elements as camera placement, blocking, lighting, and scene length, rather than plot line, convey the message of the film. Supporters of the auteur theory further contend that the most cinematically successful films will bear the unmistakable personal stamp of the director.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/art/auteur-theory

The auteur theory is a way of reading and appraising films through the imprint of an auteur (author), usually meant to be the director.”

Andre Bazin was the founder, in 1951, of Cahiers du cinema and is often seen as the father of auteurism because of his appreciation of the world-view and style of such artists as Charlie Chaplin and Jean Renoir. It was younger critics at the magazine who developed the idea further, drawing attention to significant directors from the Hollywood studio era as well as European directors.

François Truffaut, possibly the most polemic Cahiers critic, coined the phrase ‘politique des auteurs’ (referring to the aesthetic policy of venerating directors). The French critics were responding to the belated influx of American films in France after World War Two (they had been held back by import restrictions for a number of years). Thus, directors like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford were hailed, often extravagantly, as major artists of the cinema.

Critics like Truffaut knew that American filmmakers were working within the restrictions of the Hollywood system and that the types of films and their scripts were often decided for them. But they believed that such artists could nonetheless achieve a personal style in the way they shot a film – the formal aspects of it and the themes that they might seek to emphasise (eg. Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol wrote a book on Hitchcock in which they highlighted recurrent themes in his films, including the transfer of guilt). With other, often European directors, the stamp of the auteur often involved them scripting and fashioning their own material.

With their auteurist approach, the French critics justified their appreciation of the Hollywood films they loved and to criticise the respectable French mainstream, which they viewed as having gone stale and uncinematic. It was an idealist declaration which provided something of a blueprint for their ensuing careers as film directors in their own rights, distinctive artists with a discernable personal styles and preoccupations.

The idea of the auteur gained currency in America in the 1960s through Andrew Sarris. He devised the notion of auteur theory (the French critics had never claimed the concept to be a ‘theory’). He used it to tell the history of American filmmaking through the careers and work of individuals, classifying them according to their respective talents.

“Over a group of films a director must exhibit certain recurrent characteristics of style, which serve as his signature.” Andrew Sarris

Sarris’s approach led to the formation of a canon of great directors. But Hollywood was wary of the idea that it produced art rather than entertainment. Biographer Donald Spoto says that Hitchcock’s book of interviews with Truffaut “hurt and disappointed just about everybody who had ever worked with Alfred Hitchcock, for the interviews reduced the writers, the designers, the photographers, the composers, and the actors to little other than elves in the master carpenter’s workshop. The book is a valuable testimony to Truffaut’s sensibilities, and to Hitchcock’s brilliantly lean cinematic style. It is also a masterpiece of Hitchcockian self-promotion.” Many other Hollywood directors rejected the idea of themselves as serious artists: they just made movies. Many directors in the studio system would see themselves as un-self-conscious craftsmen. Others, like Hitchcock, cultivated their persona (he revelled in the guise of ‘the master of suspense’, introduced his own TV series and appeared in cameo form in many of his films.

Today, the notion of the individual as auteur is less theoretically constrained, so that we might consider actors as auteurs as well as directors and producers. The key thing is that a recognisable imprint is left on a body of films, and this may involve varying levels of creative input. For example, in the Laurel and Hardy partnership, Stan Laurel made the significant decisions about their act whilst Oliver Hardy did little more than turn up and get on with his job. But on screen we are only aware of the combined and instantly recognisable effect of the two performing together. When considering an actor, the important question to address is the kind of identity he/she projects and how this identity is created through their performances. Is their persona stable, or does it vary? Sometimes, actors are cast against type or give a markedly different performance to that with which they are associated – what is the effect of this?

Source: https://brianair.wordpress.com/film-theory/auteur-theory/