No doubt there's an audience for the Banff Festival of Mountain Films, the Seoul Queer Film and Video Festival, the Freaky Film Festival and the Los Angeles Festival of Italian Films. Based on this year's record attendance at most festivals, there's no problem. In fact, audience enthusiasm and the independent film glut are probably what's driving the boom. The tapes won't fit on the shelves of our storage room. They're up the walls and spread out across the floor.
Every filmmaker wants to get into the top festivals.
The competition, obviously, is intense. Filmmakers complain that politics and friends in high places lend some films an unfair advantage and work against the unknowns. But we work hard to reject any type of lobbying. It's a truly democratic process. Each film is watched three times.