Festivals of Their Own

I am so excited for what this upcoming academic year will bring. Being a part of the Visions staff is going to be one of the most enriching and worthwhile experiences of my twenties and of my life. If you told freshman Jillian she would have two jobs and be running a film festival as a junior in college, I would say "you're insane," have a panic attack and drop out of college. But that is the crazy thing about college, I learned so quickly that to be successful I would need to adapt and handle anything that was thrown my way.

What I hope to learn from this experience with Visions would be skills that I can take with me after graduation that will prepare me for not only volunteering with another potential film festival, but assist me in my long-term career. I know I will learn--and it will be stressed--that time-management is essential to success and contribution to group life will make working as a team fun but also productive. I am so lucky to be a part of this amazing college experience!

In the reading for this week, Festivals of Their Own, I learned about the evolution of the film festival and how the Cannes Film Festival evolved from the first stand-alone film festival held in Italy. The French knew that they could evolve the film festival from what they saw and make it better. Eventually many countries wanted to get on board with the film festival scene, trying to one-up everybody else. As independent cinema started to gain a larger audience, the Sundance Film Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah became one of the most pivotal film festivals in the world and put independent filmmakers on the map. However, mainstream films started appearing at the Sundance Film Festival, making it harder for independent films to compete with, or even be accepted into the festival. In the article, the quote "Success breeds imitation, at least in the film world..." really resonated with me. The prominent competition between festivals internationally, shows that imitation in film or festivals isn't a bad thing. Festivals will pull ideas from other festivals and try to make their festival better and more memorable to the public, creating more success for them and future festivals to come. This is very relevant to being a staff member for the Visions Film Festival and Conference because we will be attending the Cucalorus Film Festival in November. We will take notes on how the festival runs and "imitate" some aspects of the festival that makes the overall experience memorable for both the staff and the audience. In conclusion, I believe that festivals strive for the success and publicity that festivals like Sundance receive; however, each individual festival still desires to remain unique and bring something new to the festival world that others do not.