We had a chat with Neil Jeram-Croft, Manchester’s Director of Operations, about why it was about time the Northern powerhouse had an international film festival and why you shouldn’t miss out on submitting to their second edition with your film. ‘As former filmmakers it was startling to realise that there had never been a fully-fledged international film […]
Film Festivals | Focus
GREEN ME Film Festival, an interview on eco issues
Launched nearly a decade ago, the GreenMe Film Festival is aiming to make a real change in the world. You guessed it – it’s ecological issues that these guys are interested in. And it’s based in our home city of Berlin. So, we felt it was high-time for us to go and chat with the Festival Director Nic Niemann and […]
FLICKERFEST, Sensational Shorts, Surfing and A Unique Vibe
Filmmakers dream of seeing their films screened in OMG-I-CAN’T-BELIEVE-I’M-HERE settings. And settings don’t get much cooler than Flickerfest. Situated smack-bang on the Bondi Beach in the middle of the Australian Summer, Flickerfest really offers up that dreamy Summer in Oz vibe. Particularly for us Europeans in the middle of rainy January. The Academy-qualifying festival has gone […]
Small But Fascinating: Why You Should Submit To Lake Champlain International Film Festival
Looking for a niche film festival? Part of the beauty of FilmFestivalLife is the fact our community can interact with festivals both big and small, emerging and established. Here’s an emerging one for you: the Lake Champlain International Film Festival. It’s a great small U.S. festival that has excellent filmmaking at its core and is proof that the […]
TAOS SHORTZ on Drones, LGBT Filmmaking and the Hunt for the Extraordinary
We had a chat with their Festival Director Anna Cosentine about the festival, finding out about their Drones section, the current trends in filmmaking and why you should make your film as out-of-the-ordinary as possible… It’s an easy mistake categorising New Mexico as a sparsely populated land of UFO’s, hispanic culture and sweeping desert. Because there’s more […]
THESS International Short Film Festival, Five Teasers!
Thessaloniki has it all. Great gastronomy, sultry weather and a dynamic history spanning the Hellenic, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. And Greece’s second city also has the THESS International Short Film Festival every October. An annual event devoted to the most cutting edge of cinema, it’s a festival not to miss out on. We spoke with their Festival Director Yiannis Zachopoulos about what […]
LIFF and The Challenge of Defining ‘American Independent Film’
We met Leiden Film Festival Alexander Moure and Managing Director Evert de Vries in Cannes Film Festival and talked about the films they are looking for and why it’s so hard to define what real American independent films are. ‘We’re interested in ‘crossover’ films, not too commercial and not too art-house.’ Alexander Mouret, Artistic Director […]
Doclisboa in Cannes, New ways of Looking at Documentaries
We met with the documentary film festival Co-Director Davide Oberto and Managing Director Vanessa Alvarez at the bustling International Village, finding time to discuss the status of documentary films in Cannes, the kind of films they are looking for and the importance of film festivals. For many a festival programmer, the Cannes Film Festival marks […]
The ‘Wild East’ and ‘Westerners’ – Building Bridges with CinEast
One of the mantras of the CinEast – Central and Eastern European Film Festival is to make the ‘wild east’ just a little bit more familiar by showcasing the cinema of the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Every year the festival screens around 50-60 features and short films. Now in its 8th edition, CinEast is […]
Amanda Duthie About Cannes, Indigenous Filmmakers and The Adelaide Film Festival
Big news for the Adelaide Film Festival. The FilmFestivalLife submission partner has just announced that Cannes Film Festival’s Christian Jeune will lead the international jury at this year’s festival. Since 2002 the festival in South Australia has relished its status as a premiere film event, one celebrating contemporary on-screen culture from both Australia and the wider world. […]
Axe Throwing, Rocky Horror and All-Round Quirkiness with Portland Film Festival
Coolest city in the world? Portland, Oregon, is a bona-fide candidate, known for being a craft-beer swigging, alternative culture pioneer. And it’s also the home of the Portland Film Festival. Launched in 2013 by Josh Leake and Jay Cornelius, it’s still a relative newbie but it’s pioneering approach to film programming has seen them create a […]
How To Be Fantastic with TOHorror
La Dolce Vita – or in the case of TOHorror, it’s less about the good life, and more about the supernatural life. Indeed, the Turin-based festival is focused on the fantastic genre, the old literary genre defined by an ambiguous presence of supernatural forces. It’s a genre which is constantly posing questions – most notably what’s real, and what’s not. […]
The Progression of LGBT Cinema and Challenging the Mainstream – Pushing Boundaries with Queer Lisboa
As the only film festival dedicated exclusively to Queer Cinema in the country, the 19th Queer Lisboa – International Queer Film Festival is undoubtedly a gateway for Portuguese audiences to discover more. Queer Cinema encompasses all gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and transsexual themed films, but Queer Lisboa doesn’t stop here: „we search for films that […]
Australia has a strong culture of cinema going’ Sydney Film Festival on Australian cinema, Documentary Filmmaking and the Importance of Festivals
With the Dendy Award and the Yoram Gross Animation Award, the 62th Sydney Film Festival has two awards that can bring your short film to the Oscar party. As an Academy-qualifying festival with an 156,000-strong audience, the Australian festival is a FFL partner festival you shouldn’t miss out on. Last year we met Festival Director […]
The Women Kick Ass Project: Artemis Women In Action Film Festival
Watch out ladies; The first film festival devoted exclusively to female action films is rolling out this year. The Artemis Women In Action Film Festival aims to celebrating action films and furthering social change through showing off images of empowered women. From female superheroes to super stuntwomen, the festival in Los Angeles wants to spotlight women in film […]