1- The community of like-minded people

Film festivals involve the coming together of the community of cinema lovers and makers from across the world. As such, they function as meeting places for filmmakers and people who are interested in the world in its variety, different approaches to life, film as an art form, a medium and a tool of social expression*.

2- Diversity

Film festivals allow auteurs access to a bigger community of film enthusiasts while also providing them with a stage to facilitate an exchange of cultural ideas and ways of storytelling, thus encouraging close, personal dialogue.

3- Networking

Coming together of a myriad of cultures often leads to interest in filmmaking techniques characteristic to each region. For instance, American filmmakers can learn the poetry of cinema from Iranian auteurs, while the latter can gain a better know-how of various technologies available to the former. Shared interests often lay the foundation for collaboration in the form of future co-productions – sparks fly when a feisty storyteller meets an interested producer!

4- Big screen

As per the independent cinematography office, only ~10% of feature films made each year make it to the big screen. Most of them are distributed commercially on VOD. Such platforms do not allow for a film to be properly seen or appreciated. Images can become dubbed and grainy, and do little justice to the intentions of the filmmakers. Festivals are many films’ chance to be seen on the big screen. In doing so, festivals “reproduce the festival audience” by cultivating a disposition to art cinema and allowing films to be seen as their makers intended*.

5- Gain foothold

Especially for new filmmakers or auteurs from relatively small domestic film markets, such as Tajikistan and Afghanistan, film festivals provide an opportunity to be seen, known, and heard. Their art reaches wider audiences and screens, catapulting their names into the vast reaches of international cinema.