You couldn't turn a corner in Telluride this year without hearing a festival manager or volunteer gushing thanks to the festival's many sponsors for continuing to support Telluride despite, to quote Charlie Kaufman, today's wintry economic climate. Telluride, a posh film industry mainstay, appeared to weather the storm: the $680 "Festival Passes" -- the most common, middle-of-the-road choice for Telluride pass-holders (passes run from around $300 to over $3000) -- didn't sell out for the first time in recent memory, but the festival was well-attended, the movies plentiful, and apart from the speech-making, the only sign of trouble was that Omaha Steaks provided flatiron instead of sirloin for the event's annual Labor Day picnic.
Some of the less entrenched film events apparently are not so lucky. The increasingly popular CineVegas, for example, recently announced a hiatus for 2010, so that regular attendees -- of whom Cinematical is one (or more) -- had better make other plans for next June. Part of the problem, as The Hollywood Reporter notes, is that unlike Telluride and a great many other film festivals, CineVegas is not a non-profit, which makes sponsorships harder to come by.
Still, though CineVegas may have been minor compared to Toronto, Sundance, etc., it was certainly a major regional player. Several of the lower-profile events with which I'm familiar -- the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, the Philadelphia Film Festival -- have gone ahead as planned this year. (The latter was affected by a feud among two major Philly film scene heavyweights, but that's neither here nor there.) The Hollywood Reporter article linked above notes a number of other events that have felt the pinch, though it only cites one other one -- the Jackson Hole Film Festival -- that was canceled entirely for budgetary reasons. How have festivals, repertory venues, and indie art houses fared in your neck of the woods?
1. The Philadelphia fued is notable because the split has now caused two festivals in a city the only had one. One will be held in the spring, the other in the fall. Next year will mark the first full year. The fall festival this year will be a shorted affair. It is notable because your preimise about canceling for monetary reasons is suspect because of Philadelphia's doubling of festivals. Considering Philadelphia is a city with budgetary problems of its own (it threatened closing citiy libaries) how is it possible it can hold two festivals when other cities claim to be losing theirs for budgetary reasons?
Posted at 9:46AM on Sep 28th 2009 by hiki