While movie theaters are closed: world film festivals launch a movie marathon on YouTube

The pandemic canceled all major international film festivals, but their organizers teamed up to host a 10-day online movie marathon, We Are One. Writes about it with the BBC.

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As planned, almost all major international festivals, such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, London, founded by Robert de Niro Tribeca, Sundance and others, will be presented at it.

“We thought: What can we do to help the film industry in some way?” says the new festival's organizer, Tribeca director Jane Rosenthal.

“Musicians, comedians, chefs constantly hold some kind of charity events together, and at a time when we feel this isolation, when we are looking for something to watch, I came up with the idea of ​​​​bringing all the film festivals, all the famous curators together,” - she explains.

Gathering and coordinating 21 film festivals is not easy, not to mention the need for a suitable video platform to display the material.

“We wanted the virtual festival program to include both new and old films, those that have not been shown outside of any one country,” explains the organizer. “So we contacted YouTube and thought it was a perfect platform and they were interested in our idea.”

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YouTube already had technical options for such an event, including an on-screen text translation option and a “donate” button for charitable efforts to combat Covid-19.

“They also have the ability to premiere and film quickly. So if we have a movie that only plays for one day, you can only watch it that day, and then it will be taken from there,” explains Jane Rosenthal.

In addition to films on the festival channel, discussions from previous festivals are also available, such as with Jackie Chan, Ang Lee, Jane Campion, Guillermo del Toro, Viggo Mortensen, Francis Ford Coppola and Stephen Soderbergh.

However, one can imagine how difficult it is to persuade a director to show his film online instead of releasing it in theaters.

Some film studios are holding back the release of their films until cinemas open: for example, “Mulan”, the next portion of the Bond movie “No Time to Die” and “Fast and Furious 9” are still waiting in the wings.

“Some took longer to convince. It all depends on the specific film and what the creator wants,” says Rosenthal about the festival selection process.

How does the We Are One Film Festival work?

The festival is allocated a special channel on YouTube, where from May 29 to June 7 there is a constant broadcast.

Program you can read here, consists of more than 100 films, 13 of them are world premieres, another 31 are premieres on the Internet.

All films are available for free. Some of them can be viewed only once - at the time of their direct broadcast (this information is indicated in the description).

Before some shows, the filmmakers themselves will say the opening remarks.

Rekindle imagination

One of the advantages of We Are One can be considered that the combination of different film festivals on one platform will give odds to smaller film events, which usually do not gather great feedback in the press.

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True, despite an interesting idea and noble goals, not all experts are convinced that this is the future.

“In the end, when this is all over, people will want to go back to the tangible cinema, to see it on the big screen, to be part of the spectacle - which is so important and what organizers usually rely on when selecting a new film,” says Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw.

“And people will want to talk about cinema: talk over coffee, over lunch, on the street outside the cinema. This is the essence of the film festival,” the critic believes.

Of course, nothing can replace real participation, but still Jane Rosenthal hopes to restore some of the usual festival atmosphere online, promising some surprises - be it performances from directors or musicians.

“And while we can't all line up or touch each other, or hear someone in the audience laughing or whistling, we can spark imagination and inspiration,” says the organizer.

5 films worth paying special attention to:

• “Anna” is a Ukrainian short film by Israeli director Dekel Berenson about a single mother living in Donbass who is trying to improve her personal life with the help of a marriage agency that introduces women to foreign men (Cannes Film Festival);
• Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet is a Czech comedy-parody of Hollywood detective stories directed by Oldřich Lipský, first released in 1977. Pure escapism has not lost its strength even forty years later (Karlovy Vary Festival);
• “Late Marriage” is a 2001 film by Israeli director Dover Koshashvili about how the parents of 32-year-old Zaza dream of marrying him to a good Georgian girl, selecting suitable candidates, but their son has other plans. A film about emigration, tradition, duty and love (Jerusalem Film Festival);
• "Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records" - a documentary film about the emergence in 1968 of a British record label specializing in reggae and ska music coming from Jamaica (London Film Festival);
• "The Brat" is a short film about a patient mother trying to teach kindness to her seven-year-old son through bedtime stories (Mumbai Film Festival).

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