Film Festivals: full of impact and importance

When Ger Zielinski came to speak to the class about film festivals, he spoke about how film festivals were largely ignored in film studies up until 5-6 years ago. During this presentation and in thinking back to Danya McLeod's presentation to our class, we could not help but wonder how many of the movies that we watch were largely successful due to film festivals. We understand that the films we watch in class are a bit biased, as they are chosen to give a wide range of perspectives and are chosen specifically for a queer cinema class; however, in looking at the many different film festivals the movies we watched this term were a part of, it is clear how important these festivals are, especially in making this queer cinema class possible.

Here is a list of the movies and some of the film festivals they were a part of:
Hedwig and the Angry Inch: Sundance, Berlin, Connecticut Gay and Lesbian
My Own Private Idaho: Venice, 16th Toronto, 24th New York
Edward II: Venice, Toronto, Berlin International
Go Fish: Berlin International, Deauville, Sundance
Rock Hudson's Home Movies: Toronto, Virginia, National Film Festival
Un Chant d'Amour: Thessaloniki International, French Cinepanorama
The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant: Berlin, Chicago, New York, Milwaukee
Female Trouble: No film festivals listed on IMDB
Tarnation: New York, Sundance
Velvet Goldmine: Toronto, Seattle Lesbian and Gay, Miami Gay and Lesbian

Interestingly, the only movie that is not listed as having been shown in a film festival is Female Trouble. We found this interesting because Female Trouble seems like it could have been made for a film festival audience. Also even when a film made it to the mainstream audience, film festivals provide the jumping off point and help the films get noticed.As seen above, film festivals are extremely important for movies that could be considered quintessential to queer cinema. Without the ability for one's work (particularly queer works) to be viewed in a festival setting, most of these movies may never have even made it into our classroom, let alone into a larger society.