Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)
Location: Toronto, Ontario
The first festival was founded by Bill Marshall, Henk Van der Kolk and Dusty Cohl in 1976.TIFF collected the best films from other film festivals all around the world to then show to audiences in Toronto. The first year an audience of 35 000 watched 127 films from 30 countries. When the year of 2009 came around the numbers boosted up to 336 film from 64 different countries and audience of 500 000 people.
It was first called The Festival of Festivals but renamed The Toronto International Film Festival in 1995 introduced many of the world’s greatest film artists to the Toronto audiences. The first year there was a particular spotlight on German cinema and it had film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders.
Many film artists found their career had begun at Tiff. Some include Paul Haggis ( films include Oscar award winning Crash and Million Dollar baby), Jason Reitman (up in the air and Juno), Micheal Moore?( Farenheit 9/11), David Cronenberg Cosmopolis and History of Violence)and John Woo ( Mission Impossible 2).
Raindance
Location: London, UK
The first Raindance Event was in April 1992.
They had year round training courses (2,800 attended in ’06 )some who attended were Guy Ritchie, Mathew Vaughn, Christopher Nolan and Paul Brooks (My big fat Greek wedding)
Since 1993 the Raindance Film Festival has uncovered every year the hottest new filmmakers, some popular movie premieres included Pulp Fiction, Memento, The Blair-Witch Project, Ghost world and Love exposure.
In 1998 they launched The British Independent Film Awards is a yearly event where the upper ranks of the UK moviemaking establishment attended. The BIFA’s are now looked at as the second to last awards in the world film calendar. It helped launch countless film including 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire.
BFI:
In 1956, a film critic named Dilys Powell thought that London should have their own festival. He and the British Film Institute’s director James Quinn created the London Film Festival. Known people in cinema like Ingmar Berman and Luchino Visconti walked the red carpet to view the lineup of fifteen films.
Today more than 50 countries participate in this film festival with around 300 films being screened in October when it takes place. BFI has more than 150 000 people in the audience. The films you can expect to see are documentaries and experimental films.
Other Can’t miss film festivals are: The Cannes Film Festival , The Berlin Film Festival, The Madrid Film Festival
For More information on the film festivals here are some links.
BFI: http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/
Sundance:http://www.sundance.org/festival/
Raindance: http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/
Cannes: http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en.html
Berlin: http://www.berlinale.de/en/HomePage.html
Madrid: http://www.madridinternationalfilmfestival.com/
Toronto: http://tiff.net/
– Tori S.A
Sofia Independent Film Festival
The Sofia Indpendent Film Festival takes place in both New York City, United States, and in Sofia, Bulgaria. This festival’s purpose is to bridge both the American culture and Bulgarian culture. It makes for a very diverse and interesting film festival. The other goal this festival has is to collaborate and produce cool movies and projects that are more diverse since both countries have different strengths that they can bring to the project. Every year, there are new independent movies that are showcased in both cities. Bulgarian movies are played in New York and American movies in Sofia. I find this really cool because it really allows both countries to experience different styles of independent cinema works.
For more information:
http://soindependentfilmfest.com/2012/en/
http://soindependentfilmfest.com/ny-2012/
London Independent Film Festival
The LIFF (London International Film Festival) showcases the best micro-budget and even no budget-films. The films range from International films to strictly UK films. This festival is also renown for presenting movies that have been overlooked by other festival. It allows first time and second time filmmakers to present among each other.
http://www.londonindependent.org/
TWIFF
TWIFF stands for Third World Indie Film Festival. This festival promotes and gives awareness to many issues in the world. It also allows cultures all around the world to be showcased. From first time filmmakers to already established filmmakers, this festival allows all of them to have a voice. Did you know that more than halogen of the worlds films have been produced by third world countries? However, they have stayed unknown because of the western films that dominate the market. This festival is helping to spread the word about third world movies. This will finally allow the filmmakers to get the recognition they deserve.
http://www.thirdworldindiefilmfest.com/index.html
Trailer:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=PhWSTsx3LDA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPhWSTsx3LDA
– Ruth S.P
Dawson Independent Cinema 