We recently concluded the second season of the Malhaar Global Virtual Film Festival. Granted, we held it after 2 years, but the content and lineup of the 2022 Edition more than made up for the gap.
It was an eye-opening saga of world-renowned Web3, NFT, Content and Cinema experts who collaborated and collated on such elusive ideas as building a Creator economy in Web3, the need for intimacy coaching in direction, strategies for indie filmmakers to efficiently distribute their films, etc.
In the course of marketing and advertising and participant outreach for such a trailblazing event, one preconception that I frequently encountered revolved around the word ‘GLOBAL’ in the name ‘Malhaar Global Virtual Short Film Festival 2022’ – What makes it GLOBAL? If it is GLOBAL, surely, it must have a lineup planned around people and industry experts from all over the world… Does it involve global filmmakers or international producers? Would that mean if my film is selected for screening, it would find itself on the spectrum of international premieres?
Although all of the above is true in a way, being a GLOBAL Film Festival isn’t exactly all about international glamour. Worldwide coverage cannot represent the spirit of a GLOBAL Film Fest….
What the GLOBAL in a GLOBAL Film Fest actually stands for, is a chance for people from different walks of life as well as different ethnicities, different perspectives, and completely different lives, to come together and forge friendships out of the one thing that they have in common – An unending, undying passion for storytelling through the medium of cinema….
The biggest barrier in a Film Festival, especially the high-profile ones, has always been language. You’d often find the language of the host country become the common tongue of the festival, and filmmakers from other countries who may not be familiar with either the common tongue or English, get sidelined.
A truly global festival is one that designs the infrastructure and literature of the festival in such a way that no filmmaker or producer or any other festival aficionado speaking a different language feels sidelined or intimidated.
What a Global Film Festival is, is a chance for filmmakers to immerse themselves in a universally engaging experience, with zero language barriers.
A global film festival is a safe place for creative people from conservative countries to let their artistic expressions breathe and thrive, without the fear of censure that they usually face in their homelands. A true global Film Festival is one that not only helps these filmmakers break free of the shackles of censorship but also enables them to draw the entire global film community’s attention to the issues they face in their own country.
If a film festival can successfully achieve all this, then, it is a true GLOBAL Film Festival in my understanding. How many of you agree with me on this?
