Film festivals? I sometimes wonder what they actually are all about. I'm three days back from Berlin and Everyone I met, was either on their way to another meeting or just come from a meeting that was the best and most fantastic and they have been promised distribution or finance or both. So many air kisses and red carpet burns.
Stress was tangible, heartbeats raised to max, people sweat and don't look you in the eye. The different levels of power, or the game players, all guarded by the gatekeepers, positioning, pushing and shoving. Is this really a industry, and a multi million dollar one at that? And what happened to creativity, to the actual filmmaking or the writing? No one ever seems to mention the vision, the creativity. Cynical? Me? No, but I wonder how long this circus in a glass cage can continue, why does the next generation accept the rules, when there are alternatives. Are we all so duped or doped.
I took time out and went to a museum. There in a dusty corner was a penny farthing bicycle, now how long did that take to evolve into the mountain bike of today, would you accept a piece of equipment that was life threatening to anyone stupid enough to mount the thing? The analogy is simple if somewhat obscure, the film industry needs to change and just like vinyl records it will adapt or die. There is a whole new audience out there that are being fed empty shells and soon they will come looking for the nuts.
