A discussion among three students, who are organising an international film festival at theircollege
C: Thanks for coming to this meeting on such short notice, Anna and Veronica. It looks like we havejust become the organising committee for thisyears international film festival. Weve all justmet so perhaps we should start by an introduction with a bit of background from each of us.
A: OK. Im Anna. I finished three years of a Languages degree in Sweden, where I come from. This year I decided to study overseas to get toknow a different part of the world. Im also a bigfan of European cinema, especially French andItalian. Those are the languages I majored inalong with English. To me, film is a great way tolearn about the rest of the world.I was in thefilm club at my universityso when I saw the notice asking for volunteers, I thought it would bea good way to meet people and get involved insomething I really enjoy.
V: Thanks, Anna. My name is Veronica and I come from Italy. Im doing graduate studies in EnglishLiterature. I went to some of the films in thefestival last year and enjoyed them. I especiallyliked the video interviews. That was when I decided to get involved.I used to do film reviewsfor our student newspaperback home.
C: Hi, I'm: Chris from Scotland and Im in 4th year Journalism. Cinema is my hobby. Last year Ijoined the organising committee, just like youhave now, and somehow, this year Ive ended upin charge. I'm actually able touse my coordinating work on the festival towards a credit for oneof my courses.I have to write up a report onthe festival with recommendations so thats anextra motivation for me. So I hope this is goingto be a good experience for us all. OK. Wherewould you like to start?
A: How about a general overview of the festival? I dont really know much about it.
C: Well, the film festival was started by International Students Society five years ago and has grown every year. It is held over 4 nights duringstudy break,Wednesday to Saturday. Normally we show3 films a night.Last year we tried tochoose films from different parts of the worldthat fit together in some way. Maybe a similartheme. Or we could feature a type of film likeaction films or science fiction.
[Pause]
A: Who picks the films?
C:Its up to us, on the committee, to decide.
V: You mean we get to pick all the films ourselves? What a hard decision! There are somany to choose from.
C: Well, thats the fun part. We have this catalogue of independent distributors. The films are listed by language and have a short summary. We just have to go through it to find agood combination of films that will attract anaudience.
A: Veronica mentioned something about interviews. How does that fit in?
C: We set up cameras in the foyer of the theatre and did live interviews before, during intermission and after the screening.Anyone from theaudiencecould come up and talk about thefilm. The broadcasting and journalism schoolset it up and ran the interviews. They wereshown on big screens around the lobby and inthe theatre. It went over really well. We had along line up of students waiting to be interviewed on TV. Everybody wanted their minuteof fame.
A: Great idea!
C: Yeah, it worked really well. We should certainly do something similar again.
V: Maybe even develop the idea further. Like awebsite with audience reviews and discussion1so we can get as much participation andinvolvement as possible.
C: Hey, thats a good idea!
A: Can I ask a question? None of the films are in English, right? Are they dubbed or subtitled?
C: Well, we do occasionally choose a film in English but only from unusual places where the dialect is so strong they sometimes needsubtitles - like the Caribbean or even Scotland!The majorityof films in the festival areforeign language, dubbed in English. Wevelearned from experience that students dontlike reading subtitles. Maybe they read toomuch already. Whatever the reason the subtitled films get smaller audiences so we avoidthem as much as possible.
V: So how large an audience can we expect andhow much does it cost to get in?
C: It costs $5 per film or a $20 pass for the whole event - all 12 films for the real movie fan. Wewould have broken even last year except for abad stormon the Friday night - we almost hadto cancel the whole thing. But overall, we had agood turnout - more than 2,000 people in 4days.
V: Thats what I was wondering about - the financial part. Where does the funding come from?What kind of budget do we have?
C: The festival is subsidised by the student council. We generate money through advertising andthrough admission charges. Well go over thebudget in detail a little later. But weve got lotsof work to do in the meantime.
A: I guess we have to start pretty soon.
C: Well, I think by the first of March at the latest, we need toselect all the films.Then we have tofind some advertisers to sponsor the event -that shouldnt be too hard. Well just start withlast years list. Our deadline for that should bethe middle of March. By the end of March weneed todesign the program.Then we can getposters made up and distributed in April.
V: Like you said, we need some clever promotion -something to generate interest and get peopletalking. We have 4 months to get ready. Itshould be enough time.
C: OK, where do we start?
A: Lets start by talking about films - since that is the best part - and see what we come up with.What was the best film you saw last year?