Has the trade press passed on indie and international film coverage?
Robert Koehler, film critic and programmer: Nice pic Sydney! A few of my past colleagues from Variety (Todd), Sundance (Eugene) and IndieWire (Eric and Anne)…
Mark Rabinowitz, public relations and journalist, co-founder of Indiewire: Long time ago. If there aren't clicks, it's not worth them covering it.
Robert Koehler: True that Sydney. When I'm at these festivals, and I ask them what they've watched, I try to control myself from rolling my eyes…
Dan Mirvish, Indiefilm DGA director and author: FWIW, I think statistically Variety covers the most number of festivals (especially international ones) of the Penske trades. Way more than IndieWire.
Sydney: Good to know. Do you have numbers? What about Screen?
Dan Mirvish: Sydney - no I don't have numbers (I've thought about doing a quickie spreadsheet but haven't gotten around to it). I suspect Screen is better at international fest coverage, but not so much on US regional fests. I think Variety probably has the best mix of international coverage by virtue of their network of stringers (I've met Variety reporters in fests from Gijon, Spain to Belize to Whistler), but also their embrace of some US regional festivals where they're sometimes also a sponsor or are doing various Top 10 honorees (cinematographers or screenwriters). I also know from personal experience Variety is more open to freelance first-person pieces from filmmakers/ journalists attending regional fests (see my dispatch from Woodstock a couple of years ago).
Sydney: Do you think festivals might become a more viable form of distribution for indies?
Dan: I do think there's an unreported trend that (particularly since Covid), there's more of a blurring of lines between "festival" and "art house". More fests are paying revenue share with filmmakers, but also more fests are doing year-round programming, often in their own theaters (i.e., Seattle, Baltimore, Orlando). Meanwhile, I think more art houses can and are doing more to "festivalize" exhibition, by doing live or zoom Q&As with filmmakers.
Vera Mijojlic, Founder and festival director at South East European Film Festival: Festivals are the last outpost for indies still standing, but the pressure to attract audiences will only increase. Our grant makers push for that too. Everyone is looking for numbers.
Sydney: How do you go about attracting new audiences?
Vera: It takes tremendous and relentless outreach. Plus making each event, each screening, special and packed with additional "content" - special guests, food, parties, booze, etc. Films are almost an afterthought.
Sydney: What about The Film Verdict, the latest trade paper on the circuit? It is doing more than its share in putting international film criticism and festivals into the spotlight again. It is present as a partner at many festivals, though more in Europe than in USA and it covers indie and international film in the way that made its senior critics, Deborah Young, Jay Weissberg and Boyd Van Hoej, top critics in the business.
Robert: I'm actually pretty close to The Film Verdict, since it's now affiliated with ScreenDollars, for which I write as a contributor. I've also done some festival director profiles for TFV, but not as a contributing critic.
TFV can best be viewed as counter-programming to the other trades, which are mainly focused on commercial movies and only a small slice of the titles premiering at the major festivals. I agree with Dan that Variety does far more coverage of the world festival scene than the other trades - -except for The Film Verdict, which is almost entirely trained on non-US festivals. Eric just recently hired Alonso Duralde to cover a single Hollywood release weekly. So 99% of TFV is about international festivals.
Sydney: Thank you for this impromptu online conversation!
Almost two years old, The Film Verdict also hosts Spanish language (Cine Verdict), Middle Eastern and Shorts components that are good enough to stand alone. The Film Verdict's Short Films column by Ben Nicholson is a unique feature that recognizes the growing influence of shorts on the film industry and the role they play in the careers of young filmmakers in particular.
These are only part of the larger vision held by its founders, Eric Mika, Deborah Young and Jay Weissberg.
Presided over and published by Eric Mika who as Publisher of The Hollywood Reporter and Vice President of Nielsen's Entertainment Group, led these companies through transformational expansion, redesign and globalization and launched multiple digital products. Prior to Nielsen, Eric served as Vice President and Managing Director for Reed Elsevier's entertainment business magazine group, overseeing Variety magazine's European, Middle East and Asian operations. He published the Variety Cannes Dailies and several other festival dailies. He was Publisher of Variety China and its Beijing- based domestic market strategy.
The Editor and Senior Critic Deborah Young is an American writer, film critic and festival director based in Rome. In 2008 she became The Hollywood Reporter's international film editor; formerly, she served as Variety's bureau chief in Rome. She directed the Taormina Film Festival for five years and has been a programming consultant for the Tribeca Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival, among others. As a screenwriter and adapter, Deborah has contributed to key Italian films including Ermanno Olmi's The Legend of the Holy Drinker, the Taviani brothers' Good Morning, Babylon and Valerio Zurlini's Across the River and Into the Trees. Her first novel, Pirates in Black Tie, is published by Europe Books.
Senior Critic Jay Weissberg is a native New Yorker living in Rome. A film historian and critic, he began writing for Variety in 2003. His work on contemporary cinema has appeared in international publications and he's contributed essays in numerous festival and retrospective catalogues, with a particular focus on Arab and Romanian film. He was appointed director of the Giornate del Cinema Muto/Pordenone Silent Film Festival in 2015, writes widely about silent film, and is a co-curator of the Ottoman Film Project. A frequent participant of festival juries, he often takes part in panel discussions on the current state of cinema and film criticism, regularly moderates Masterclasses with filmmakers, and has mentored programs for young film critics worldwide. His discussion on Romanian cinema appears as an extra on Criterion's Blu-ray/DVD release of Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. He also has a blog, "The Silent Cat," which delves into forgotten stories of the silent film era.
Senior Critic Boyd Van Hoej is a film writer based in Luxembourg and Paris. He started as a trade critic for Variety and moved to The Hollywood Reporter in 2013, where he worked until he joined The Film Verdict in 2021. Boyd also regularly writes for De Filmkrant (Netherlands) and has contributed to Indiewire and The Atlantic. He was awarded the 2020 Plume d'Or for his work as a critic by the French Union des journalistes de cinéma. Van Hoeij is also the Curator at Large of the Luxembourg City Film Festival, President of the Selection Committee of the Luxembourg Film Fund and has been part of juries and panels at festivals including Cannes, Venice, Hong Kong, Jerusalem, Sydney, Palm Springs and Mar del Plata. He has taught film criticism workshops and conducted shot-by-shot analyses of film classics around the world and moderated masterclasses with talents including Quentin Tarantino and Todd Haynes.
Stephen Dalton, Senior Critic, has been writing professionally about cinema and music for over 30 years, including for The Hollywood Reporter as a regular film/theater reviewer and occasional columnist. He has written extensively for The Times of London, where he was a daily TV film columnist for 12 years, Sight and Sound, the BFI (British Film Institute), and the UK film and music monthly Uncut. His work has also appeared in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, the Evening Standard (London), Wallpaper, New Musical Express, The Quietus, Electronic Sound, Classic Rock, The National (UAE) and other publications. He is based in London.
Then there is the sizable list of contributing critics like Jordan Mintzer, writer, producer and film critic born in Queens, New York. He produced Matt Porterfield's feature films Hamilton, Putty Hill and Sollers Point, and is co-writing and producing his upcoming hip-hop movie Check Me in Another Place. Based in Paris, he works as a film critic for The Hollywood Reporter, covering French and international cinema, as well as festivals like Cannes, Berlin and Toronto.
Clarence Tsui is a Hong Kong-based film critic, programmer and part-time lecturer. He has written for The Hollywood Reporter, South China Morning Post, Cineaste and Film Quarterly, and has served on juries at Cannes, Berlin, Rotterdam and Tokyo. He was the director of the Broadway Cinematheque and the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival from 2019 to 2022. He teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Oris Aigbokhaevbolo lives in Lagos, Nigeria and is an award-winning writer and critic. He won the 2015 AFRIMA award for Entertainment Journalist of the Year and has led a team of writers across Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Gambia as West Africa editor for a digital publication supported by the German Cultural Centre. Well-respected as a leading critic of Nollywood and African cinema, Aigbokhaevbolo has covered Sundance, the African International Film Festival, and Africa's oldest film festival, FESPACO. His writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, the Guardian UK, the Africa Report, and the London Review of Books. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
Carmen Gray is a New Zealander who lives in Berlin. A film critic and journalist, she has contributed to Sight & Sound, The Guardian, The Observer, Screen International, and more. She has written liner essays for several Criterion releases, and was previously Film Editor of Dazed & Confused magazine in London. She contributes regularly to The New York Times with investigative journalism on culture and politics in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Caucasus, and has written chapters for books on Portuguese cinema and Peter Watkins. As a film programmer, she is on the selection committees of the Generation section of the Berlin International Film Festival and the Winterthur International Short Film Festival in Switzerland, and is a program adviser for Open City Docs in London. She also consults on projects, and is a regular industry adviser on films at the editing stage for First Cut Lab. She frequently serves on festival juries, and has taught writing workshops in Poland, Serbia, Estonia and the Czech Republic.
Lucy Virgen is a journalist, film critic and programmer who works mainly in Mexico and Argentina. She is the founding editor of the specialized online magazine The Thinking Eye. She has worked with the Guadalajara Film Festival, Ventana Sur in Argentina and a number of film institutions all over Latin America.
Alonso Duralde is the former Film Reviews Editor for The Wrap and the co-host of the "Linoleum Knife," "Maximum Film!," "Breakfast All Day" and "Deck the Hallmark" podcasts. Duralde has appeared on TCM and was a regular contributor to FilmStruck. He is the author of two books, Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas (Limelight Editions) and 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men (Advocate Books), and the co-author of I'll Be Home for Christmas Movies (Running Press). His book on the history of LGBTQ+ Hollywood will be published by TCM/Running Press in 2024.
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