How I Encountered My First Digital Film Festival 2020: My Journey

Fellow students! Have you been to a film festival before? Have you been to one but not physically been to one? That sounds weird, right? But I have!

This is a blog of my Digital Encounters Film Festival 2020 journey. I learnt about how films make it to a festival, the challenges faced by the festival curators, and the potential career development opportunities, and much more!

While a film festival is essentially about watching films, I found it very beneficial to learn about how they operate as part of my experience!

The beginning of my journey

In March 2020, at the University of Chichester, second-year Screenwriting students were tasked with choosing their final year options.

I was allowed to attend a film festival in September 2020 and blog my experience for the module titled “Industry, Engagement and Film Festivals". I was naturally interested since I had never attended a film festival before and was enthused by what I had heard about them (hours of amazing animation to inspiring international films with film lovers all bundled into a space).

Encounters Film Festival is described on their website as “the UK’s leading short film, animation and virtual reality festival. The festival provides a gateway for filmmakers to showcase their talent, and even qualify for awards as prestigious as the Academy Awards for Best Short Film.”

So, with that in mind, was I about to watch a short film that could win an Oscar next year!?!?!

Then, a few weeks later, COVID-19 hit the UK, which was shortly followed by a national lockdown.

Plans were made, and the festival moved online. While I was initially disappointed, I very much enjoyed the digital festival!

Let the Festival commence!

The festival began for myself and my classmates on Friday 25th September 2020.

We were given information about the Encounters Festival and then plunged into the films!

As a keen film and television lover, I’m used to watching tons of movies and shows on Amazon Prime and Netflix. Short films and, in some cases, very short films was something I was not accustomed to. I wasn’t even aware such films were possible or had ever been made! I am not used to seeing internationally produced short films either. However, I was prepared to have an open mind.

The Tent was one of the first shorts we watched, about a dysfunctional family, a father, mother, and two children are trying to set up a tent, and as the tent becomes destroyed and wrecked, secrets are revealed. The father had a rather silly time running through a street naked and is now tagged with a police ankle bracelet meaning he cannot leave the country, much to the distraught of his family, who wanted to go on a summer vacation abroad. Oh, dear! On reflection, I found this film well-made and well-structured with good reveals and was a great way to begin the journey for me. It made me consider how even small scripts can make great films, and as a screenwriter, I can see this as a great career opportunity for my future endeavours!

The Tent teaser

Another film I really enjoyed was Nortenos¸ a strange and interesting rom-com about Linda and Barry, who are in a cafe chatting. Barry has just killed his grandma and placed her parts into body bags, which are on the cafe floor! A very interesting premise! The film was seemingly universally funny from where I watched it in a lecture theatre with my module group, who were all bursting out with laughter.

The screenwriter’s mantra is “show, don’t tell” and this was well demonstrated in one of my favourite films called Green accompanied by Cavetown music. This was a beautifully crafted stop-motion animation short about the relationship of a lemon, lime and orange. I think the beauty of this short film is the soundtrack and lyrics with the story happening, no dialogue was needed. It's an emotionally engaging film which makes you consider its meanings. While I’ve never considered doing a screenplay for animation, I would now because of this amazing film.

Cavetown - Green

Two other films I really enjoyed were Bench and Speed – two hilarious animated shorts, which once again made the theatre laugh-out-loud! I think this opened my eyes to this fact: It doesn’t matter how long a film is, it’s the contents of the film and how it resonates with the viewer that matters and its impact on their emotions.

Bench (Best of Best Animation Award Winner 2020) and Speed

Most of the films I watched were outside of lecture time, or at least I had planned on it being this way, but being in a digital space did bring along some challenges for myself, other delegates, and the festival curators.

The curators were aware of these problems when they spoke in the Zoom meeting about audiences' focus and the likelihood of being distracted. I imagined myself at the festival watching non-stop films in the cinema, while, in contrast, my experience at home, was very different. It was very easy to be distracted by everything going on around me – people, Amazon Prime Video TV shows (The Americans, in particular!), and other coursework.

Learning about the Film Festival’s processes

During my journey, I learnt more about the role of a film curator. The Festival Director Rich Warren said that a lot of his work involves understanding what is happening at other film festivals by market research, seeking new festival partners and collaborations, analysing what works and what doesn’t, sending out marketing emails, scheduling Q&As and film time slots, programming film selections, and even, Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets! There’s a lot to think about! It is not all watching films 24/7, unfortunately! Essentially, Rich is looking to make the festival enjoyable for the content creators and delegates and to better it year-on-year.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to challenges for the festival team as the festival could not be held physically; however, they were resilient. They had time to plan and prepare during the national lockdown, which started in March 2020; the festival was still 6 months away.

Rich Warren said in a Zoom meeting about how a lot of other festivals were having “knee-jerk reactions” to the COVID announcements, and deciding how they were to move their physical festivals onto a digital platform.

Film Festivals having a knee jerk reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic

The Loch Ness Film Festival scheduled for July 2020 was postponed to July 2021.

Replicating a film festival to a digital platform was a challenge for the festival curators. The aim was to make the participation great for the delegates and filmmakers, and they needed a reason for the delegates to watch from home.

Nonetheless, the festival presented itself as a great practice for research and

development, so if it were online again, then it could be even better to cater to the target audience, which are cine-literate folks ( filmmakers, students and people from the film industry), and members of the public. The organisers plan to host a physical festival going forward if it is safe to do so.

Digital because of the pandemic and not instead of...

A physical film festival takes months of logistics. The festival exhibitors, organisers and curators all have a big task on their hands, so the delegates have a great time. The venues, stages, programmes and scheduling of the films to fit the length of the festival, health and safety measures, hospitality, recruiting volunteers, health and safety, and indeed, toilets (everything needs to be thought about!) are all required to make the festival viable.

The Encounters Film Festival Team organisational structure

Moving the festival online for the first time created difficulties for the curators. Something I was very surprised about was when Dave Taylor-Matthews, Encounters Producer, said that most film festivals run at a loss. He continued by saying that if a hybrid (physical and digital) film festival was considered for the future it would be double the costs. The festival curators also had to consider the time frame for this year’s digital festival in contrast to a physical festival; last year it ran from between 24th – 29th September, five days. Compared to this year’s digital festival which ran for 3 weeks and 2 days between 18th September – 11th October. I found that having more than three weeks for the digital version was a benefit for me as a delegate because of time restrictions and distractions. There needed to be enough content - films and Q&As to fill that time.

Challenges of costs for festival curators and hybrid Film Festival 2021?

When it came to watching the films at home in a digital space, I was able to pick and choose when I watched and what I wanted to watch in this period of time. I think five days at a physical festival would have been plenty of time to enjoy the films in a closed environment because watching films with others there is a certain buzz and excitement and points of discussion whereas, in an open setting at home, it just isn’t the same; It felt like a connection to others and the atmosphere was missing.

Accessibility

Something I also encountered on my journey was how going digital increases accessibility. The physical festival can restrict access to some individuals wanting to attend due to travel restrictions or disabilities, and so going digital solves this problem as its all online.

In the world of COVID-19, even if the festival was in a physical setting this year, not all of the filmmakers would have been able to attend due to travel restrictions across the world. I looked into a few of the recorded Q&As and watched segments and it was fascinating to see some of the filmmakers Zooming-On-The-Move! One filmmaker appeared to be having a walk on a mountain in New Zealand, and another in woodlands in Sweden. The majority of them were in bedrooms or a study space, but I had not expected to see the variety of locations from which the filmmakers participated in the Q&As!

Q&As and Accessibility

Pre-selection and programming

In a world hit by COVID-19, the arts industry has been badly damaged with cinemas, theatres and concerts forced to close, resulting in thousands of redundancies. Therefore, ensuring the pre-selectors are paid the minimum wage at least is better than nothing! The festival going digital gave the films a space to breathe life into the world; film can make the world seem just a little less daunting through we learn and see.

Encounters pay their pre-selectors

One thing a film festival really needs is films! So, a filmmaker has made a film? Now, what? They need to submit it to the festival!

Some of the submission rules and deadlines

The rules are stringently designed to allow time for the festival to have plenty of films shown. It is easier to block and programme several 3-10 minute short films, rather than several 40-minute shorts.

Before the festival, these submissions are reviewed by the festival pre-selectors. While the Festival Director and Producer may look at some of the films and support the programming (see the programmers above in the organisational structure picture), they are mostly the organiser and make sure everyone has a good time and so it goes smoothly.

I contacted Ben Mitchell, who explained the process of pre-selection to me.

Ben Mitchell's Twitter response

Ben explained for the animation pre-selection, he would look at half of the submissions, while his fellow animation pre-selector (Matea Milic) would look at the other half, and whittle down the list so when it came to the festival, he would still have a fresh look at some of the animation content, his speciality. He will rate the films with a suggestion of theme, and then pass them on to the main programmers and then a final selection is made.

Dave Taylor-Matthew said the festival has around 200 competition films each year from a staggering 4,000 submissions! That means they reject around 3,800 films! Then, these 200 films that make it to the festival will have a chance to win an Encounter Award, which will be discussed later!

Selection process

Some of the films are then placed into playlists (programmes); some of which are daily spotlights, which can highlight specific types of films: this could be a theme, Black Lives Matter, or type, animation, as two examples.

As I've already said this year's festival was longer, and as a way to help the audience on a journey to the Grand Prix Award, Dave said they blocked 9 competition Live-Action playlists of a similar length meaning the audience could watch a playlist each day in the lead up to the jury's announcement. It was interesting to listen to how the programmes were considered, planned, scheduled and created.

This was similar with the Q&As, which usually follow the screenings in a physical setting, which makes it easier to schedule, but they had to consider numerous factors for the digital versions including, who to facilitate conversations between, who they are as filmmakers, where they are geographically (For example, it wouldn't be fair to have a filmmaker in America to be involved in a 3 am Q&A), what kind of work they make and where they are in their careers. This sounded like a huge challenge and I think they did very well! From the recorded parts I watched, they seemed to run smoothly with all the filmmakers enjoying their time!

Essentially, the purpose of a film festival programme is to give the film-going audience a journey. Digitally this is different because instead of being placed in a cinema where you are fixed to what you are watching, you can pick and choose what you want.

Because Rich and Dave know their target audience well, they are able to find the products and services, the films, that they will want to see. If someone wants to see animation, then there are programmes for that and the same with live-action as two examples. Some programmes had a bit of everything, which suits someone who is looking for a bit of everything!

Challenges of curating programmes

As a Festival Director, Dave learnt about the challenges and how moving forward he would create more playlists so the delegates could have more a direct journey within the online space.

Another aspect highlighted, by the module tutors and, which I agreed with, was not being able to create a playlist which has a "Play All" option instead of clicking play at the end of a short. It becomes distracting and takes you out of the world of cinema and back into reality! But this all came into the research and development side of things to consider for the future, which can make the festival even better!

Encounters have festival partners, which bring along their range of diverse stories. Some of the guest programmes include Nahemi, Oska Bites, Lockdown Depict, Afrika Eye and Queer Vision. These have award opportunities attached to them also.

Some of the Guest Programmes

And what about awards? The festival selects a jury, which includes Brief Encounters, Children's and Animated Encounters. The jurors will then select films for certain awards.

Before the start of this film festival, I would often see film posters with an official selection or award-winner film festival logo (see below) but would not understand their meaning. Thanks to my journey and experiences during Encounters, I do now! Official selection refers to the films selected and to be shown at a festival, and the award winner means they have won an award at a festival.

Examples of Official Selection and Award Winners logos

Two of the Encounters Award winners, and

winners for the Nahemi@Encounters:

Variety, unique storytelling voices and distribution

I found that there were a lot of varied films. It made me consider the global outreach and the potential career opportunities in which I could connect with other filmmakers as a screenwriter. Short films are a good narrative tool to speak about contemporary issues and showcase unique storytelling. I could have not imagined some of the visual storytelling styles I saw! One of the films called Beyond Noh was about a journey through cultures and beliefs of people from all over the world using a staggering 3,475 masks! (In just 4 minutes!) Amazing! I would have not been interested in seeing this short, but having watched it, I loved it; Its fast-paced soundtrack with several masks appearing every second. It was intriguing to see masks such as Lord Vader’s from Star Wars, something I could resonate with. The more I watched this film, the more I understood its theme about cultures. I think this part of my journey taught me to give varied cinema in comparison to what I'm used to a chance.

Beyond Noh

The shorts on offer from animation to live-action to documentary, provide a rich variety of cinema for the audience. Rich spoke about when they look for films for their festivals, they are looking for new unique voices that do not tell the same stories seen in traditional films at the cinema. I think film festivals give students like myself a chance to jump into the unknown, to see what I have not seen before, a sneak peek into different cultures. This definitely benefited me and I enjoyed the diversity on offer.

Naturally, the way in which these films have been consumed has changed from the standard cinema-festival-going-experience to the digital platform, a dynamic and rapid change since March. Even a year ago, in November 2019, I would have never expected to have done a film festival module digitally!

Some of the filmmakers highlighted their concerns about their films not being shown in a cinema and without physical audience participation, but due to the pandemic, the only viable way was through a digital distribution platform. Rich and Dave had to get the filmmakers permission (the rights) to show the films digitally, the product and service.

Peek into different cultures

Oscars opportunity

During my journey, I also discovered interesting information about how short films at festivals can make their way to the Oscars. The festival is a gateway, the start of the journey for the filmmakers and provides a marvellous platform.

The Encounters festival, like so many others, is placed around the awards season (usually October to March). The Oscars is usually in February, but due to the pandemic impacting cinema it has been postponed by two months and will be on April 25th, 2021.

The 93rd Academy Awards has deadlines for specific film categories; The Short-Live Action films deadline was October 1st, but this was later moved to November 1st, again due to the pandemic to give filmmakers more of an opportunity to showcase their films.

For budding Oscar hopefuls, the filmmaker must submit their film to an Academy Award Qualifying film festival, but not only that, the filmmaker must win an award at that festival to have a chance to move closer to an Oscar!

Encounters is an Academy Award, BAFTA, Canadian Screen Award and European Film Award Qualifying Film Festival

A shortlist is then drawn up, and members of the Academy vote. Below is a picture showing the 92nd Oscars Live-Action shortlist films, a staggering 191 films to be then whittled down to just ten, and then eventually, five nominations, and then one winner.

92nd Academy Awards Live Action Short Film Shortlist

The Winner of the 92nd Academy Award for Live-Action Film was The Neighbours’ Window. Here are some of its other awards and nominations

While Encounters may be relatively small in comparison to a festival such as Sundance held in Utah in the USA, it still provides a step into the industry and with it some great opportunities through attending as a delegate.

Talking of the larger film festivals such as Sundance, the feature films shown here are often bought by large film distributors such as Netflix and Amazon. Manchester By Sea was acquired by Amazon Prime Video for $10 million at Sundance to own the rights to show it. The film went on to become one of the most successful films of 2016! More recently, Palm Springs (2020) was acquired by independent distributors Neon and streaming service Hulu for $17,500,000.69 to surpass the previous Sundance record by $0.69! The opportunities at some of the well-established and world-renowned film festivals are excellent!

On a side note, when doing some research about these larger festivals, I found out that these festivals often have large corporations sponsoring them. Cannes Film Festival had Nestle and HP as sponsors in the past!

Opportunities for filmmakers at a festival

As a screenwriter, it was very interesting listening to Rich and Dave talk during the Zoom meeting about career opportunities from winning at a festival. I always thought that if you won a festival your career pathway was set. I imagined, me, the writer, and the filmmaker of my script, the director, shaking hands and flying off to Hollywood! However—it seemed that getting into the festival and going to a festival where your film is being showcased is the most important thing. Winning does not necessarily open many doors; it takes time to make it big. It's the dedication and commitment to keep going, to submit your films into more film festivals, and building up a contact list that will help in the long run!

From an emerging filmmaker to a Hollywood legend takes time!

Denzel Washington gave a brilliant speech on Barry Jenkins (Director and writer of Moonlight) about this.

Although Dave spoke about how winning can help to fund future films; most filmmakers self-fund their first film, and if they are successful, they may have more chance to receive funding from family members and friends via a Kickstarter campaign as they have recognition for their efforts. Eventually, filmmakers at film festivals during networking will increase their contacts and attempt to gain funding for bigger projects and more awareness. The more projects a screenwriter like myself get involved in and help produce, with positive results, the more a track record starts to build which helps for the future.

Something I had not considered before was the different types of film festivals, industry-based and audience-based festivals. The industry-based festival helps develop a career whereas the audience based festival helps advance practise and craft. I will definitely put these into consideration when I attend festivals as a delegate and hopeful filmmaker (screenwriter of a project) in the future to see if I can attend both types!

I think the most important aspect for filmmakers who have a short film is to try and get involved at as many festivals as possible, build contacts, which can have a snowball effect to boost career prospects and development opportunities!

Career improvements for filmmakers at Film Festivals

Networking:

Physical and digital challenges and opportunities

The curators were aware of the challenges the digital platform would bring to networking. Film festivals in a physical setting can bring about great opportunities for networking with other filmgoers. Personally, I’m interested in stories with plot twists and would have loved to pitch an idea to a producer, but in the digital world, this opportunity did not present itself.

Challenges and opportunities of networking

Normally after a showing of a selection of films, there would be a Q&A panel with the filmmakers. This is then often followed by a gathering in the bar area with the hype of what has just been witnessed! The buzz and excitement of “that scene!” or “those characters!” will be the talk of the room. In this scenario, a chance can present itself to speak with the filmmaker of your favourite film. In the physical world, it is much easier to network with filmmakers, but digital Encounters did provide some chances. The filmmaker’s Q&A’s on Zoom gives listeners a place to type out questions onto a chat-box, however, due to my scheduling conflicts I was unable to attend a live Q&A! But even in a chat-box style of discussion it just does not have the same quality of human-to-human contact.

The curators also discussed the chaos that could have happened if they let delegates connect to the Q&As. Imagine 100+ audience members trying to speak out at once during a Zoom call would have been an issue for the host, and so it was better to just have a chat room. It could be possible to do some form of lottery next time to allow lucky delegates to join the Zoom calls.

There was a “chat roulette speed dating event” as described by Dave for the filmmakers and people from the film industry using experimental technology. The challenges with this sort of social interaction are that it lacks the atmosphere associated with a physical film festival. The Festival Director spoke about how staring at a screen and chatting for 30 minutes on a zoom meeting can feel like 3 hours; there is a definite preference to meeting in a physical setting.

There are other opportunities to meet with people at a film festival through industry talks and some workshops. Networking at a festival is ultimately having the skills to sell oneself. It can definitely help if you have a plan about what to say and to who. For example, if you know a producer is going to be there, then talking to them and getting their contact details is very beneficial

Volunteering and working at a Film Festival

I learned about the many opportunities offered through the diverse field of employment within the film festival organisation. One of these being volunteering! Most of the following roles apply to the physical setting: festival support roles, information and ticket desk, supporting guest speakers, directing delegates, and serving refreshment at networking events. Since I am interested in becoming a film festival volunteer in the future, I decided to research the key roles and responsibilities that are desirable: while having a passion for film is not mandatory, it helps! (lucky for me!). Other desired features include: enthusiasm, friendliness, welcoming, positive attitude, reliability, team player, and knowledge of the area the festival is being held at and, of course, knowledge of the festival itself!

Volunteering would broaden my knowledge and expertise of how a film festival operates and runs on a day-to-day basis from the inside (I hope one day when COVID-19 restrictions have eased to experience this for myself). Not only would it look great on a CV, but also as someone wanting to get into the industry volunteering is an important step.

Depending on the festival and type of volunteer, a volunteer can spend ten plus hours a day at a festival supporting it to make it run smoothly. That’s ten hours around filmmakers, even potential distributors, and producers! It sounds like a budding screenwriter's paradise! It made me think of the importance of getting myself involved in networking, and volunteering. I considered two budding screenwriters: Bob has never volunteered at a film festival, whereas Tim has volunteered at over ten in the past year. Who is more likely to get recognition and interest from a producer? Tim wins!

As a volunteer (and as a delegate) there may be an opportunity to give producers business cards with your name and contact details; you should attempt to get theirs too, so you can contact them. Outreach is vital: the more you put in, the more you get out! If there was a particular project you wanted to pitch, now you have their business card. Another amazing opportunity!

It was interesting listening to Dave and Rich talk about networking and how people have worked at film festivals with him and then gone on to work as one of the BFI Talent Executives, research for the BBC and documentary, and PA for one of the Jurassic World directors!

Being within the film festival circuit brings along industry skills, language and how the moving parts of the industry work - the operation and why it is done this way. Every bit of experience can be very helpful in the long run!

What I’ve learnt on my journey about planning for a festival digitally and physically

Plan! Plan! Plan! Digitally speaking, before the festival starts, if the pre-selection list is available, write down a list of what films you want to see. This can help save time for when the festival is active because when the festival ends, the content will not be easily accessible.

While some of the films are available online, not all of them are easy to find. This was definitely an unfortunate moment for me, realising I would not be able to access one of the films titled David, starring well-known American comedy actor Will Farrell, a film I was looking forward to, but due to time constraints I just missed out!

David IMDbPro International Audience Award Winner 2020

Having a schedule is very important when it comes to the film festival. The schedules were listed on the website and I printed these out and stuck them on my notice board to remind myself to keep watching, even although none of what I saw was live.

The curators designed these schedules, which also included live-watch along with other delegates. I was unable to attend to them as they were somewhat limited based on my other schedules I had outside of my digital festival journey.

I managed to watch a full recorded Q&A, which featured Ben Mitchell as the host, along with other animators competing including, Ivvy Chen director and writer of Isle of Chair. I enjoyed the film so much in class, I was interested in discovering how she made her film.

Isle of Chair Short Film

I was hoping to gain access to the Q&As after the festival. I contacted Dave Taylor-Matthews about this. He explained by extending the festival's duration, he aimed to give people more time to watch. There are costs involved for the online platform he had to also consider. Hopefully, within time, some of the content will be easily available again. However, with the amount of content, it would take a long time to process.

Dave Taylor-Matthew's email reply about the Q&As availability after the Festival

Other challenges and opportunities – VR

I continued to research about the festival after it ended, learning more about what was on offer with Encounters, and other challenges faced.

One aspect that wasn’t widely available this year was the Immersive Encounters, which included a chance to wear a VR headset and experience film in a different way. It was available for those who could travel to Bristol City Centre and rent a VR Headset. In a COVID-19 world, the headsets are cleaned thoroughly before use, which one of the Immersive Encounters team did.

Interestingly, in the video shown below, Rich Warren says that VR has not taken off commercially yet. He also went on to say there an expectation because of the lockdown and people being stuck at home that this would have been the time for it to, but it didn't unfortunately. This proves to be challenge for commercial projects going forward.

The Immersive Encounters VR click-and-collect service was obtainable for a few weeks after the festival ended, but as of November 11th, 2020, it is no longer available.

Immersive Encounters and VR

On the Immersive Encounters off-site page, (https://www.encounters.film/life-moves) I found some Immersive Encounter videos such as Life Moves Pretty Fast, an interactive choices film where at the end of each clip, you choose where the character goes next and it will load a new clip based on your choice. While I haven’t seen Black Mirror: Bandersnatch yet, I found the way these clips were designed were a bit too mechanical since at the end of a 50-second clip, two choices appear, which load a new video, as opposed to the options appearing throughout. However, I understand that budget constraints would have impacted this and technically this method is much easier and less complicated to create for a short film.

Life Moves Pretty Fast

While VR and Immersive have not necessarily taken off yet, I reflected after watching Life Moves Pretty Fast, on the idea that hopefully in ten years’ time cinema may evolve into and eventually be a VR experience whereby the audience is the protagonist or the villain and get a ton of options to choose which direction the story will go!

I would love to write a VR film and saw this as a great opportunity for my future career, but I also sadly considered, in a COVID-19 ridden world, will it be easy to develop, produce and allow audiences to see such films wearing VR-headsets in cinemas? Add to that VR is not commercially viable yet. It seems to me that now, VR is in the same technological cycle as 3D. It started well and then saw a rapid decline. I am curious as to when VR will become a hit, and if it will?

I hope by the time I attend a physical film festival I will get a chance to try out some VR cinema!

Closing comments

The Legacy of the Festival

For my closing comments I want to talk about the overall journey for me, and how (and if) the film festival has influenced me with regards to my career prospects in the filmmaking industry.

While I resonated well with the British films since I am used to the style of filmmaking, I found as the festival progressed my enjoyment in the variety of films increased. I have become more open to watching a different type of films. I know for a fact I would have watched more in a physical setting, but at least there was an Encounters Festival 2020!

I plan on going to a physical film festival as a delegate in the future and will be prepared with a schedule; because of the digital festival, I have been empowered with knowledge that will help me navigate myself through the physical landscape.

My knowledge of how submissions work and festivals in general operate has broadened my understanding. I would also like to try out volunteering one day because I believe it will help create networking opportunities, vital for the film industry to help career.

As to whether the festival has made me change career directions? While I still plan on being a screenwriter, I believe the festival has opened my eyes to new possibilities from networking through being a delegate or a volunteer. There are more opportunities out there than I knew about before the festival began for me back in September! If there is an opportunity to connect with a director / producer on a short film project as a screenwriter, then I would love to do this! I would also hope for the film to be submitted to a festival (and be selected!), and attend as a filmmaker.

This journey has been fantastic! Learning about the challenge’s curators face was very interesting on my journey from their test of having to move to digital in the first place to deciding schedules and programming.

So, bring on Encounters 2021!!! Physically, I hope!

Thank you for reading my blog.