Saturday, August 07, 2004
Comment on reviewers
I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and will just put it down as written.
As I sit here waiting for 'Coffee & Cigarettes' I am thinking about Jim Schembri's piece in last weeks EG. Like Adrian Martin last year he dis's the presence of films that already have a cinema release organised. Given that represents about 5% of the program, it reeks of pretension. Are they suggesting a return to the days when the festival was shown in 2 small cinemas (instead of the 5 large ones of recent years)? Given the presence of so many films and the impossibility of seeing them all I would suggest they both go and see the other films which will not get a release and get over it. Yes it is possibly not the place of a film festival to give screen time to films already scheduled for release, but if the presence of these films helps bring more people to the festival and makes it more viable I see that a a good thing. Also it may give those who would not otherwise see harder to find movies a reason to expand their horizons, an excellent result. On the balance as long as those already scheduled or even likely to get scheduling do not take over the festival can survive their presence.
As I sit here waiting for 'Coffee & Cigarettes' I am thinking about Jim Schembri's piece in last weeks EG. Like Adrian Martin last year he dis's the presence of films that already have a cinema release organised. Given that represents about 5% of the program, it reeks of pretension. Are they suggesting a return to the days when the festival was shown in 2 small cinemas (instead of the 5 large ones of recent years)? Given the presence of so many films and the impossibility of seeing them all I would suggest they both go and see the other films which will not get a release and get over it. Yes it is possibly not the place of a film festival to give screen time to films already scheduled for release, but if the presence of these films helps bring more people to the festival and makes it more viable I see that a a good thing. Also it may give those who would not otherwise see harder to find movies a reason to expand their horizons, an excellent result. On the balance as long as those already scheduled or even likely to get scheduling do not take over the festival can survive their presence.
# posted by Dave @ 15:36 
