The concept of “category A festival” is not formally defined, but this is one way prestigious international shows that has a non-specialized competitive program are traditionally called.
Most of the major and prestigious film festivals are accredited from the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF). FIAPF was formed back 1933, and today its content has 34 associations (including the Guild of Russian Producers) from 29 countries. Beyond just the “licensing” of festivals, FIAPF’s division of interest includes issues related to the regulation and unsafe effects of work processes in the film and television industry: modernization of copyright legislation, the fight against piracy, the creation of digital technologies, standardization, work with all the media, etc. With the issuance of FIAPF accreditation, the very idea of “class A” festivals (that is, the favourite, status events) is associated, which has now become conditional, but continues to preserved from the journalistic dictionary. It really is understood that such festivals are kept in countries where you will find there’s long-term cinematic tradition, employ a non-specialized competition having a minimum of 12 full-length films (usually premieres and not participating in competitions of other international film festivals) from different countries, a world jury and official support from the state of hawaii level. There will be a maximum of one “A” class festival in every given country.
Berlinale
Berlin, Germany / founded in 1951
The first class “A” festival inside the FIAPF calendar, starting at the beginning of February, actually is at the same time essentially the most significant (and maybe the most visited in the world). The Berlinale level of competition is being formed to guarantee an extensive representation of European cinematographies. It’s also belief that films shot while in the traditional manner and films with political themes are usually more often selected here.
Curators compose individual programs presented with the festival independently, without considering applications from outside. Nevertheless, films of less experienced directors who to be able to enter into the main competition is probably in the shorter programs Panorama (international art house cinema), Forum (experimental films), Generation (children and youth films ), Berlinale Shorts (short film). New Russian cinema has been shown in your competition in the Berlin Festival (remember Boris Khlebnikov’s Long Happy Life) along with programs of the lower rank (recent films by Alexei Mizgirev and Anna Melikyan).
The Berlin Film Festival also hosts the extremely large European Film Market, comparable in size to Cannes (last year, the organizers claim over 8,000 participants from 107 countries showing 784 films to the market) including a co-production market. They don’t neglect the advancement of young talents, inviting the crooks to have fun with the projects Berlinale Residency (a three-month residence in Berlin that has a scholarship of 1,500 euros for directors or https://greenhornfestival.com/ (https://greenhornfestival.com) screenwriters, who definitely are helped by experts to have projects to mind) and Berlinale Talents (short-term training programs for annually recruited categories of film school students from throughout the world).
Festival de Cannes
Cannes, France / founded in 1946
Cannes is regarded as the reputable (though not the oldest) film festival to the planet. It’s very difficult to acquire here, but this type of opportunity, as practice shows, always remains. An unskilled director, naturally, ought not seriously trust in coming into the leading programs (the main competition, “Special Look”, special screenings, out-of-competition section), but lower-ranked programs – “Cinefondation” (student films), short films competition are relatively accessible. Beyond the above, the parallel program “Directors Fortnight”, which was launched through the French Guild of Film Directors back 1969, happens to be widely known and frequently happens to be no less interesting than the chief competition.
The respectful attitude of Cannes towards Soviet and Russian cinematic tradition is manifested at the least in the truth that the festival website and the principle documents meant for filing software are translated into Russian. There’s no need to go far for instances of Russian films that received awards in Cannes: this coming year the prize to get the best script was awarded to Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan, and in 2012, Taisiya Igumentseva took the leading prize of the Cinefondation competition (since the Cannes rules call for a screen full-length debut of the winner, the following picture of Mrs. Igumentseva have also been shown on the festival, albeit out of competition).
By far the most prestigious festival, certainly, were buy the largest film market. In 2014, a lot more than 11,000 professionals came to France, representing about 5,000 companies from 116 countries. 5,200 films were presented for the film market, 960 of which in fact have screenings (in many instances, premieres).
