In the weeks leading up to the 40th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, VIFF’s Board of Directors met with Executive Director Kyle Fostner, and a handful of senior programming administrators at the Festival, to map out a business plan for the upcoming hybrid Festival, and the return to in person, in-cinema screenings.
Arising from those series of meetings, the VIFF Board and senior staff drafted and agreed on a business plan which calculated full in-person, in-cinema attendance at all VIFF 2021 screenings. The only possible way that VIFF could be successful as an organization in 2021 — and maintain its integrity, sense of purpose and the Festival’s ability to survive into the future — was if the Festival was to sell every available ticket for each venue screening during the 11-day run of the Festival.
Those senior VIFF administrators not included, those lower down the ladder, in the decision-making process only rolled their eyes when the VIFF’s business plan was published. Never in the entire history of the Festival has every VIFF screening sold out, nor come close to achieving that goal. In fact, this fiction of full attendance has been borne out at VIFF 2021 as in-cinema attendance, although good, has proved below projection, with attendance at screenings at this year’s truncated film festival anywhere from half to two-thirds, and on rare occasion, fully sold out.
Which begs the question, “Whither now the Vancouver International Film Festival?”
The pandemic has changed a lot of things around the world. In times of stress, sadness, and world upturning events, nothing beats going to the movies. Unfortunately, pandemics and crowded movie theatres don’t mix, either at Cineplex or Landmark Cinemas, or the Vancouver International Film Festival.
Film festivals have long been an exploration of art through storytelling, best experienced in a darkened movie theatre surrounded by fellow cinephiles. But for a great while now that has not been possible. A recent survey of film festival directors and creators across the globe told those who organized the research study that they see the future of film festivals as more of a place to express art and storytelling, and less about the medium itself — although nothing quite beats the in-person experience, and the anticipation of sitting in a Festival movie theatre.
Truth to tell, most film festivals were already facing an identity crisis, even before the pandemic. An impenetrably dense media landscape, the proliferation of on-demand content, and market instability created a mounting sense of uncertainty: What should festivals be doing — and how can they possibly persevere?
Last year, Nicole Guillaumet — who worked as Sundance’s co-director from its early days in 1985 all the way through 2002 — told IndieWire’s Eric Kohn …
“Film festivals are accessible only to those who can afford them. Attending in person has become an exclusive experience. It is very expensive and excludes many young people who cannot afford to pay often exorbitant rates for access, or passes,” says Guillaumet.
Over the past 19 months, as we have continued to live through history in the making, it was only a matter of time — and survival — that moved film festival administrators to adapt to unprecedented circumstances by going online for the very first time. Guillaumet sees the move toward hybrid film festivals as a needed shift toward democratized access. “The impact on future audiences and future filmmakers will be enormous,” she said. “We need both virtual and in-person festivals.”
Existential questions about the future of cinema-going are nothing new for Festival administrators. Over the past number of years, the rise of streaming services and the accompanying decline in ticket sales have prompted much hand-wringing over the relevance of the in-cinema experience, with the coronavirus pandemic amplifying those anxieties as Festivals faced an apocalyptic reality: with theatres darkened across across the globe, and with previous film festival fare bypassing theatres almost entirely — in favour of streaming services such as MUBI, Festival Scope, Docsville, IndiePix and BFI Player, among other festival streaming services, what does the future hold for film festivals like our beloved homegrown VIFF?
Director Christopher Nolan, long a champion of the theatre experience, wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post underlining the human toll of closed theatres and diminished film festivals, urging distributors to re-consider their release plans.
“The theatrical and the festival exhibition community needs strategic and forward-thinking partnership from the studios and distributors,” Nolan wrote. “Much of the current short-term loss is recoverable. When this crisis passes, the need for collective human engagement, the need to live and love and laugh and cry together, will be more powerful than ever. The combination of that pent-up demand and the promise of great new movies will boost local and national economies, and allow film festivals to thrive into the future.”
Perhaps Nolan is right to sound the alarm. The future of the blockbuster Hollywood movie and independent film festivals alike may not be lost, but theatres, festival administrators and independent film studios must prepare for the possibility — and perhaps even, probability — of a grim post-pandemic reality.
