Film Festival Directors Discuss Their Future at Cannes

One advantage of attending the biggest film festival in the world? You might run into the leaders of just about any other festival you can think of. American Pavilion members were treated to a meeting of the minds when Sundance director Eugene Hernandez, Berlin festival director Tricia Tuttle, Telluride Film Festival executive director Julie Huntsinger, and Film at Lincoln Center president Daniel Battsek (who oversees the New York Film Festival) convened for a panel on the future of film festivals moderated by IndieWire’s Anne Thompson.

The conversation covered the evolving role that festivals play in the indie film ecosystem. While the economics of independent film are constantly in flux, the importance of festivals as curators who can connect quality films with passionate audiences is as important as ever.

“It’s one of those topics that’s constantly discussed. It’s always been difficult, but never impossible,” Battsek said when asked how festivals can continue to support independent film in a changing cultural landscape. “I feel that film festivals right now have reached a priority level. People really look to festivals because they curate films and audiences. Younger audiences are more aware of cinema than they’ve been in the past ten years, in my opinion, and we see it because we see them coming in.”

That sentiment was echoed by the other panelists, who agreed that film festival attendance is up even amid larger concerns about the cultural impact of movies. Today’s audiences look for a more personalized movie experience that festivals can provide, which also steers them in the direction of repertory cinema.

“We have gone up seven and a half percent in the last two years,” Tuttle said. “It’s a young audience coming to see the films. But it’s not just film festivals, it’s also rep cinemas having the same growth trajectory. We’re failing audiences because we have an infrastructure problem, not a desire problem.”

You can watch the complete panel in the video above.

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