Week 1-'Festivals of their Own'

This article was, in any case, informative for the average film festival aficionado, like most of us here in Visions. In response to this piece, it was an interesting read as it did include not only insight from some of the most well known writers and directors of the underground scene, but also a little bit of history surrounding the topic. More importantly, the fact that it superbly presented several aspects of the film festival scene. For example, the spawning of smaller festival conglomerates, in response to the wider known Sundance or Slamdance festivals, marked the start of a new era in indie cinema. These smaller festivals served (or serve) as 'roots' for smaller films to sometimes climb their way up the 'tree', while gaining worldwide exposure for themselves and their works. A filmmaker who found good fortune after the U.S. release of his first film, Josh Koury, received so much attention at Slamdance (NY Film etc.) for his incredible work titled Standing by Yourself. Shortly afterwards, the film began sweeping other festivals, and continued to be highly acclaimed by critics and audiences within the festival circuit. After his swift success, he would then go on to making his own indie company. Another example of an aspect this piece broadens upon is the history behind the foundation of Sundance. Before it was called the latter, the United States Film Festival, as the writer suggests, arose via the contemporary decline of independent films in; this was due to the high volume of companies that simply ignored non-blockbuster films. Probably, the most interesting thing regarding Sundance is that the festival eventually became so huge, that the acceptance rate of smaller films dropped significantly as they were forced to compete with titles like sex, lies and videotape.