How Many Movies Can One Person See In A Weekend?

Movie Musing, Links & Ponders 10/27/23

Are you a film festival goer? Do you like to see multiple movies in a day? What is your preferred intake?  I love attending festivals and over a three-day period to see at least twelve films: five one day, four the next, and perhaps finish off with three. Or the other way around. Maybe make it four days and start the first midway through and just see two. Did I mention ideally do all this in a beautiful town loaded with good restaurants? That’s ideal.

We’ve been travelling with INVISIBLE NATION, and I got to do this sort of deep festival indulgence last week at the Middleburg Film Festival, which some are now calling Telluride of the East. We had a fantastic time. It is a beautiful place, with a great vibe. Ultimately it is far more accessible than Telluride, as Middleburg is only 30+ minutes from Washington, DC, making it a quicker and more affordable journey, even from LA. Many of the award contenders are there. They put on a wonderful full orchestra concert of a film composer’s work, something I have not experienced elsewhere. Of the selection there were about five films (including ours) that are still seeking distribution. We had a full house for our screening, so the lack of corporate support or overall awareness was not hindered at all – and speaks well of the festival’s focus on audience development. Although it is difficult to build a regional film festival without deep pockets of wealth, and as Middleburg is horse country, that certainly applies to it too, but I met several groups of college students dipping in, due to its proximity to DC.  Middleburg also has as an incredibly diverse audience base, which was really refreshing. And did I mention we won the audience award for documentaries? Yup, we did. I was already falling in love though, even before they bestowed that sweet surprise.

It’s been really challenging to get the mainstream press to review our film out of regional film festivals though. But just like it is lovely to find you won a festival before the plane takes off for home, it is lovely to find those that write their own blogs respond so well to our work. Like this review for INVISIBLE NATION in Unseen Films. What if all festivals had to guarantee three reviews minimum for each film? Why can’t they?

If you are keeping track of our festival adventure, I am super thrilled to be headed to IDFA for the first time with INVISIBLE NATION. Looks like a great curation of truly meaningful films!

Festivals these days need to question both how to make their programming accessible to all as well as keep a low carbon footprint. Personally, I suspect the hard-to-reach festival locations of Park City and Telluride are going to become a greater detriment in the years to come as they render such festivals elitist and environmentally unsound. I’d love to see a festival rating system on carbon footprint and audience diversity. Maybe add in revenue sharing for filmmakers and overall transparency of data and selection criteria, and bingo, we’d have a new festival hierarchy blooming.

Yeah, so we’ve been on the road a lot, living out of suitcases. You get to form new bonds with the filmmakers that are fellow travelers on the circuit. And so far, it seems