Two weeks back we had asked our readers to send us write-ups on the relevance of film festivals in the times of Net-driven consumption of cinema. The responses are still pouring in. We especially liked Moureena Khokhar and Phani Sharavan’s submissions. But this piece by Carol D’Souza won the day by a very narrow margin
Cinema was declared dead in 1996. In her famed essay in The New York Times , Susan Sontag wrote, “The sheer ubiquity of moving images has steadily undermined the standards people once had...the love of cinema has waned... If cinephilia is dead, then movies are dead too...” But was cinema really dead? It had changed, no doubt, and as Marijke de Valckand MalteHagener point out in their work, cinema and cinephilia had both adapted to the changing times.
Existential threats to existing ways have always been issued by overly cautious sceptics from time to time. Jack Valenti, the former President of the Motion Picture Association of America when the Videocassette recorder (VCR) technology was just picking up in the 1980s, said, “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” And here we are, in the 21st century, when film producers and cinema are still around, but the VCRs are nowhere to be seen.
Film festivals are almost as old as films. Beginning in the early 20th century, their number has only grown. The film festival circuit today includes everything from big names such as Venice, Cannes, Berlin, and Toronto to something as esoteric as the Bicycle Film Festival or the International Film Festival of Insects.
Film festivals bring together works of art, artists, and audience — all stake holders in a sense — under a single roof, to share the wonder of good cinema and also to brave through the attempts of not-so-good cinema. They provide a unique platform to unknown artists to showcase their work. Popular media landscape may be changing, but film festivals remain much more than just entertainment that can be downloaded.
