Attack of the Remote Virtual Film Festival!
My wife and I are volunteers with the 14th annual Alexandria Film Festival in Alexandria, Virginia. This takes place in 2020 from Nov. 12-15.
She has been helping with fundraising. I am moderating — in advance — some Q&A sessions with participating filmmakers.
In years past Q&A sessions were conducted after live film screenings. Audience members commented and asked questions of the attending actors, producers, directors, and crew members. Some pictures from past Festival Q&A sessions are displayed in the gallery below this article.
Whether the films are 10 minute locally produced student comedies, or serious feature length documentaries, what always comes across is how enthusiastic filmmakers are to engage directly with a live audience in a real full-size theater setting with a big screen and a professional sound system. You always sense how proud the filmmakers are of their “baby.”
Things are different in this year of COVID-19. There will be no screenings in a “real” theater. Audience members will purchase tickets online and then watch films online. Q&A sessions are being recorded in advance using Zoom by volunteers asking prepared questions. Each recorded session is then available online following the film.
This approach has both disadvantages and advantages.
The disadvantage is that both the audience and the filmmaker miss the experience of a live screening in a real theater followed by the immediacy and intimacy of face to face engagement. For filmmakers who have spent many months writing, casting, rehearsing, shooting, re-shooting, and laboriously editing in front of computers and home televisions, the reality of a live theater experience and a large screen can be cathartic. This is missing from online-only viewing.
On the other hand, the reach of the virtual film festival, if all the publicity, promotion, and organizing labor go according to plan, can extend far beyond local physical theaters and the city where the festival is hosted. Anyone anywhere can purchase a ticket — and filmmakers can be located anywhere to participate.
Based on what the filmmakers are saying, what’s happening with the Alexandria Film Festival during this time of the pandemic is typical of what’s happening with nearly all in the “film festival circuit.” The necessary move to virtual screenings is universal. Live screenings — and live audiences — are few and far between.
All of us involved with these volunteer-dependent endeavors are wondering what this means for the future of local and independent film festivals. That’s hard to say.
It is obvious that “going virtual” has definitely impacted how film festivals are planned, organized, and managed. At least in our case, dependence on collaborative file sharing via tools like Google Drive and remote video conferencing systems like Zoom have augmented or even substituted for live physical meetings. Regardless, people must collaborate and share information to get stuff done. And as we are seeing, stuff is definitely getting done!
My guess is that we’ll have live screenings again — eventually. I also think the practice of intelligently integrating “live“ with “virtual“ when it comes to film festivals will be permanent, as has been the case with the work of many organizations such as NASA that have found they can keep working effectively despite the need to work and collaborate remotely. If NASA can do it, we can do it, right?
See you at the movies!
Copyright (c) 2020 by Dennis D. McDonald