Anni Asksainen originally hails from Finland and is in Edinburgh studying at University of Edinburgh’s MSc in Film, Exhibition and Curation. Here, she reflects on how Your Festival Your Community could be a model to apply to other European countries, as a way to share knowledge and encourage networks to emerge.
In celebrating the existing festivals and their achievements and introducing ideas and providing support to new festivals, Your Festival Your Community presented a well-rounded experience in which innovation and creativity was highlighted and fostered, and in which experience and knowledge was brought forward and shared. Throughout the event, Your Festival Your Community tapped into very important aspects to community film festivals and film exhibition events; that of networking and sharing. The attendees, ranging from upcoming film festivals and festival organisers to seasoned film exhibition professionals, were brought together to mingle, discuss and exchange ideas and practices. The forum also fostered a large amount of discussion between the attendees and the organisers, making it a professional yet casual event in which attendees of all level of professionality could feel at ease, offer opinions and experiences, and bring home something in exchange.
Scotland is a relatively small nation in both population and in terms of film culture and some of its corners are not easily reached. Yet the country hosts an amiable amount of community led film festivals, providing films for many different audiences throughout the nation. Your Festival Your Community brought together festival organisers ranging from The Shetland Islands to Hawick in the Scottish Borders, exhibiting also a wide selection of themes and genres as well as more general film festivals. The event proved very useful in understanding the diversity of film exhibition events in Scotland, the strength of the film culture in the small communities, and the scope which the festivals provide in reaching local audiences. The ideas of networking and sharing that were put front and centre in the event also tapped into the idea of non-local audiences in terms of widening the knowledge of regional film festivals among the attendees. Many small festivals seemed to draw a steady flow of people outside from their local community and the organisers of these festivals were available to offer viewpoints on how this is achieved.
As a somewhat newcomer in the field of film festival organizing, I was happy to note how well the basics were covered. During the event we attended a workshop aimed at new and upcoming film festivals in which we were guided through setting up a regional film exhibition event through first hand experiences and examples. Your Festival Your Community offered a lot of viewpoints on the questions of how to start a film festival, but also addressed the question of why. During the event, many film festival organisers spoke of the importance of film festival as places of learning, exploring and taking part in the film culture. The cultural and indeed economical importance of these events were addressed in many panels and the personal discussions, that the event facilitated through multiple breakdown events, revealed the social importance these festivals have to their local communities.
Whereby Your Festival Your Community to me, was a unique experience, a similar idea can also be found in other nations where remote locations and small communities call for local film exhibitions and the enrichening of the film selection and film’s accessibility. In Finland, community cinemas gather regularly to discuss common issues and topics, but an equivalent meeting of a community film festival organisers usually takes place only within larger festivals and without specified programme or agenda. From what I observed in terms of engagement and networking, Your Festival Your Community would be a rich and beneficial model to utilise abroad, especially in countries with small communities spread across large distances that make it challenging to attend cultural events further afield. Looking at Your Festival Your Community and the festivals it introduced, there is a substantial audience with a hunger for film. It is not only the attending festivals that can take something home with them from this event, but through them, the audiences will benefit from it as well.