19/12/2006

Do films need festivals, or do festivals need films? Are they a useful showcase for film products or themselves producers of content? Why are they proliferating significantly yet struggling to survive increasingly more and more?

These were some of the questions put forth at the conference organised by AFIC (Italian Film Festival Association) on the cultural role of festivals as part of the film industry promotion system, held yesterday at the Casa del Cinema.

Participants who attempted to provide answers at the discussion, moderated by Giovanni Spagnoletti and Steve della Casa, included university professor and Cinecittà Holding advisor Severino Salvemini; Jonathan Davis of the UK Film Council; Alain Modot of the Media Consulting Group; director and Istituto Luce advisor Maurizio Sciarra; press agent Flavia Schiavi; Piero Colussi of Cinemazero; and Giuseppe Massaro of Media Desk/ANICA.

While everyone may agree that they are indispensable, the doubt remains as to whether film festivals, and their selections and prizes, have a concrete effect on the fate of the works they promote.

"Film-related festival events offer a doubtlessly positive series of outcomes, such as pay-offs at the box office, tourism and the generation of work and income within the industry; increasing audiences’ aesthetic tastes; and their appeal to creative talent,” explained Salvemini “However, it is difficult to establish a direction correlation between the prizes bestowed upon film and their theatrical success".

Taking as examples five of the biggest international events (Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Toronto and Locarno) from 2000-5, contradictory results that are and difficult to interpret emerge from Salvemini’s research. While the Cannes Film Festival seems to be the most efficient overall, with 12 out of 14 award-winning films that did exceedingly well at the box office, of the six main prize-winners at Toronto, only three obtained good box office results, and the remaining three – released by the same distributor – recorded insignificant results.

Is the distributor, thus, the deciding factor in that which becomes a war to snag the best premieres? According to analysis by Jonathan Davis, the sales agent plays the most seminal role, even with respect to larger producers, commonly held to be highly influential. "From cross analysis of European films and their circulation," emphasised Davis, "we can that festivals, although often favouring domestic films, are an important instrument for getting their works sold and seen abroad".

Small to medium size events, on the other hand, to reinforce their cultural role must stress their individual identities and ritual natures, besides joining forces in a network that renders them more competitive overall.