It’s good to see Stephen Follows unpacking the entries for the Berlinale Filmfestspiele, as it may help us as filmmakers to choose which festivals we apply to with our films. It would be interesting to see more breakdowns of the entry data for festivals such as Cannes, Venice and Tribeca.
(The comparison here is between Berlin festival films and all movies that cinemagoers watch).
Follows writes:
“The aim is not to imply one set of films is better or worse than the other, but more to look for patterns among the Berlin films and also to compare them to what the average cinemagoer is offered at the multiplex.
I'm going to look at genres, stories, language, and origin.”
From the data-set, it seems that the festival favours films from France and Germany, whilst the less favoured films are from Italy and the UK.
Does a film festival have a political ideology? I’m not sure about Berlin, but it makes me think twice about applying there for entry with my film. How about you? What are your thoughts about the findings in this article?
https://stephenfollows.com/p/comparing-mainstream-movies-to-berlin-film-...
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Great share and topic, Geoff Hall! I agree, I think these types of breakdowns can help filmmakers choose which festivals to apply to. I'm not sure if film festivals have political ideologies. From what I got from the article, the Berlin Film Festival doesn't have a political ideology. It sounds like the films focus on internal struggles more than external struggles. And the Berlin films are more likely to take place in the past.
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Very interesting, Geoff Hall! It’s always valuable to see data-driven insights on festival selections, especially when trying to decide where to submit a film. It’s not surprising that Berlin favors French and German films given its geographic and cultural ties, but it does make me wonder how much national representation plays into the selection process versus purely artistic merit.
The idea of festivals having a subtle (or not-so-subtle) political or regional bias is definitely worth considering, especially for independent filmmakers who are strategizing their festival runs.
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Maurice Vaughan yes, Maurice. I liked that notion of films with internal versus external struggles.
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Ashley Renee Smith thank you, Ashley. It was also interesting to read that Berlin favours stories set in the past, and with no surprise that the favoured decade of the past century was the 1940s. It seems that German filmmakers are still trying to come to terms with the demons of their past. So the national psyche seems to play a dominant role.