Sundance to Sarajevo
Monday, July 23rd, 2007 @ 03:54
Film Festivals and the World They Made
by Kenneth Turan (2002)
In this book Kenneth Turan presents us with “insider’s view” of twelve film festivals. Divided into four sections, part one studies “festivals with business agendas”: Cannes, Sundance and ShoWest; part two “festivals with geopolitical agendas”: FESPACO, Havana, Sarajevo, Midnight Sun; part three “festivals with aesthetic agendas”: Pordenone, Lone Pine and Telluride. The concluding part four, “the politics of festivals”, is dedicated to the past Florida French film festival.
From the reading of the initial part of the book (Cannes, Sundance, ShoWest), one wonders about the lack of references (especially for a university press publication) and the (very) liberal, bordering on unnecessary slash annoying, hackneying of anecdotes, e.g. contents of concession bag at ShoWest and blushing Robert (”Bob”) Redford. Perhaps due to the availability of works pertaining to these festivals, Turan opted not to delve deep. His analysis gets slightly better in the following chapters, although there is still that annoying quasi-travelogue tone.
