Thinking about her position as an emerging film curator, Sarah van den Hoogen, a student of University of Edinburgh’s MSc Film, Exhibition and Curation, tells us what she learned at Your Festival Your Community.
One of the main things I took away from Your Festival Your Community was “think global, act local”. I think that this is one of the main points that sets community festivals apart from big established ones. Volunteering for big festivals means building your CV, while volunteering for a smaller festival is much more about community engagement for the sake of helping. I will definitely keep this catchphrase in mind for future curation projects because I feel like most film festivals think global and “act global” too, trying to establish their festival in the world first and foremost rather than in the community first.
Another thing that would be worrisome for a future curator is the copying of ideas. Hearing Alfie Ingram’s concerns about the Dundee Mountain Film Festival really stuck with me. He explained that while Dundee’s Mountain Film Festival was the first one of its kind, now other cities have copied the concept with mountain film festivals popping up in many cities, which means they don’t draw as many people in to Dundee anymore. According to Alfie, only around 20% of the audiences used to be from Dundee, but this has changed drastically. It wasn’t a local festival at the beginning but has inevitably become one.
What I took away from YFYC as well was that the importance of audience feedback shouldn’t be overlooked to feed into the curation of festivals. Muriel Ann MacLeod from the Hebrides International Film Festival explained how they asked the audience what they wanted to see and it worked. People wanted to see films about small islands, the environment and remote communities, and now HIFF screens international feature documentaries and dramas which link to this theme. I think that this is one of the most important points in terms of curation and something that especially emergent curators should keep in mind. Screening exactly what people want to see rather than what you think a festival should show will let an emergent curator gain trust from the audience. If then, one day, a curator decides to show more “risky” films, audiences might be more open to it.
In conclusion, Your Festival Your Community has helped me considerably to understand how community festivals in Scotland operate and I believe that big festivals around the world should look at how smaller festivals approach curation and how they engage audiences.