Festivals quotes
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It's going to be a combination Scopes trial, revolution in the streets, Woodstock Festival and People's Park, all rolled into one.
-- Abbie Hoffman -
Listen, anybody who has a film festival has the right to show what they want.
-- Abel Ferrara -
I will not do festivals. The thought of an audience that big frightens the life out of me.
-- Adele -
Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
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Festivals are unique. They can be the best of times or the worst. You're not playing to the converted. But those are the best shows - to see if you can make new friends and entertain them.
-- Andrew W.K. -
As the future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future -- a terrible festival of dead leaves.
-- Anna Akhmatova -
If extravagance were a fault, it would not have a place in the festivals of the gods.
-- Aristippus -
I started graduate school in 1971, I started working at the Smithsonian in the festival in 1972. I went full-time at the Smithsonian in 1974. And I got my doctorate in 1975.
-- Bernice Johnson Reagon -
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I discovered after going to music festivals that I am a rock fan. I love the guitars, the phrasing, and the abandon of rock fans.
-- Beyonce Knowles -
For every rockabilly festival staged here, there are 10 held overseas.
-- Brian Setzer -
This is our festival and on this day we are all Indians. We celebrate the festival by maintaining the spirit of brotherhood.
-- Brinda Karat -
I've been to the Reading festival twice before-as a punter, though I stayed backstage in the hospitality tent!
-- Bruce Dickinson -
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Death is the supreme festival on the road to freedom.
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer -
Still, as much as I wish Ballistic Kiss could be a better film, the recognition it gained from critics and at festivals speaks for itself.
-- Donnie Yen -
Comic-Con has become more of a pop cultural festival, and to not be included feels like you're missing the biggest celebration of the year.
-- Felicia Day -
We have a documentary film festival in Mexico. It's really original. It's called Ambulante, and it's a film festival that travels around several cities in Mexico.
-- Gael Garcia Bernal -
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There's nothing like a music festival. People are ready to have a good time. I don't think anyone comes to a festival going, 'I'm gonna be a complete bummer today.
-- Gary Clark, Jr. -
The academic area of new music or modern music festivals is not something which attracts me at all.
-- Gavin Bryars -
I got more publicity for not doing a festival than for doing the festival.
-- George Wein -
I always go to the Cannes Film Festival and it's just such a glamorous time.
-- Georgina Chapman -
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Then when I got to Hollywood, the first musical I did was Festival in 1977.
-- Gregory Harrison -
I think once you have films in certain festivals you begin to have name recognition, and there are possibilities.
-- Haile Gerima -
A highly promising new artist and I look forward to seeing Natalie McCool perform at major festivals and concerts in the future
-- Harvey Goldsmith -
I danced with the London Festival at Covent Garden. I'm a ballerina by trade; I'm a ballerina who sings by the way.
-- Jane Seymour -
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I see most of my movies at festivals.
-- Jean Reno -
At the heart of the celebration, there are the poor. If [they] are excluded, it is not longer a celebration. [...] A celebration must always be a festival of the poor.
-- Jean Vanier -
People come to Cannes just to advertise their films, not with a particular message. But the advantage is that if you go to the festival, you get so much press coverage in three days that it advertises the film for the rest of the year.
-- Jean-Luc Godard -
For me, my taste is all over the place, so the festival is the perfect match for me because I can hit, again, Against Me! and SZA, all those different genres and the experience is awesome.
-- Jennifer Abbott -
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Joan of Arc is my namesake. I played her character while still in my teens, at a music festival held at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
-- Joan Van Ark -
I'll never forget the first screening at the Berlin Film Festival. As soon as the film ended there was an outbreak of booing, which made us look at each other with some surprise.
-- John Schlesinger -
I love the outdoor festival feeling.
-- Joshua Bell -
I'm launching my own festival in South Wales. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. It's going to be held at Margam Park, because I wanted the venue to be as close to my home as possible.
-- Katherine Jenkins -
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The Cannes film festival is about big-budget films but also remarkable films made in different political regimes by film-makers with little resources.
-- Kristin Scott Thomas -
I love being in public places, but I can't stand long, drawn-out music festivals.
-- Lamorne Morris -
When I show a film at a festival, I am showing myself. Everything is at stake for me.
-- Lars von Trier -
I went to the Tokyo Film Festival in Japan because I love Japanese cinema.
-- Leslie Caron -
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Life is a happy thing, a festival to be enjoyed rather than a drudgery to be endured.
-- Luci Swindoll -
Not to think of yourself / as someone who did not count -- / Festival of the Souls.
-- Matsuo Basho -
We enjoyed the fact that we were called to the folk festivals and we got to know Joan Baez, Dylan. We were singing strictly gospel, but then after we started hearing songs that they would sing, we saw that those songs were very fitting for us because they were singing the truth, and truth is gospel.
-- Mavis Staples -
I love festivals because I feel like I'm more of a movie fan than a person who's in the film industry.
-- Melanie Lynskey -
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Bonnaroo has kind of become the granddaddy of all American festivals. The thing I love about it most is that it wasn't born out of picking the top ten bands off the Billboard chart and creating a festival around it.
-- Michael Franti -
I really love the festival circuit.
-- Michelle Monaghan -
You have to be born with it. You can't even buy it. If you could buy it, they'd have it at the next Newport Festival.
-- Miles Davis -
In fact, Moon came on tour with us for a bit just before a big festival in Brighton, I think.
-- Neil Innes -
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When I used to do the Edinburgh Festival, there was a bunch of guys selling fresh oysters and I'd eat ten daily - marvellous.
-- Paul Merton -
When I first saw The Black Kat Boppers I was sat on a hill at a festival and could hear this music in a tent that literally grabbed me by the lapels and dragged me in
-- Paul Simonon -
Teller and I worked Renaissance Festivals and street performing - actually more real, no kidding around, Philadelphia street performing than we did Renaissance Festivals.
-- Penn Jillette -
Village reform is not merely cleaning the roads, constructing schools and worshipping monasteries. It is not mere celebration of festivals.
-- Periyar E. V. Ramasamy -
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I've found that festivals are a relatively painless way to meet people and make a few points that need making, without having to hit them over the head with too many speeches.
-- Pete Seeger -
I think people expect mud at festivals, I think you'd be asking for your money back if you didn't get it.
-- Peter Hook -
Festival of the impassioned efforts and manifold ambitions of all forms of youthful activity of every generation springing from the threshold of life.
-- Pierre de Coubertin -
I did do some Shakespeare on film, it's really difficult. It's really interesting, because I was doing a series in Canada called 'Slings and Arrows' and it was about a company based around the Stratford Festival.
-- Rachel McAdams -
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Before I went on stage at Kyle Hutton's Real Life Real Music Festival, I heard one of his songwriting students, Abbey Hirvela, sing; she was in the poet's saddle and riding that horse like she owned it. She was good! I probably ruined her by showing her how to make an E chord without the 3rd though.
-- Ray Wylie Hubbard -
the time for prizes and competitions at art festivals is over. Competition is too closely tied to values that are alien to the arts.
-- Renata Adler -
I listen to all types of different music. I go to different festivals. I'm around music.
-- Rico Love -
I have an Italian comedy at the Venice Film Festival.
-- Robert Englund -
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The moon has become a dancer at this festival of LOVE.
-- Rumi -
Live every day as if it is a festival. Turn your life into a celebration
-- Shri Radhe Maa -
The greatness of a culture can be found in its festivals
-- Siddharth Katragadda -
I started with commercials - for shampoo, pancakes, insurance, Volvo. I did a Lux soap commercial with Sarah Jessica Parker. And I got a role in an indie film called Satellite that did well in festivals.
-- Stephanie Szostak -
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I don't really expect much from my life. So when I heard my films are premiering in film festival circuits I was glad of course but I thought it was lucky accident.
-- Takeshi Kitano -
I like being a patron of things, I like patronizing things. And if it's not going to be people, I'll patronize a festival.
-- Terry Gilliam -
We're playing all these weird festivals, usually outdoors.
-- Thurston Moore -
People discover you at festivals. They come to see Coldplay or whoever, and then wander over and catch your act. Festivals make a lot of sense to me.
-- Tinie Tempah -
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In New York, I'll walk down the street and someone will say, 'Nice show,' and that's it. If I'm at a food festival, it's open season.
-- Tom Colicchio -
Martin's Monsanto poem holds devastating power. I heard the first public reading at the Resurgence Festival of well-being in London. It brought truth with clarity, not least with a kind of conviction and passion that is all too rare
-- Tony Juniper -
Live interaction with a crowd is a cathartic, spiritual kind of exchange, and its intensified at a festival.
-- Trent Reznor -
Stay well away from the enemies of Allâh during their festivals.
-- Umar -
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Toronto Film Festival is one of those festivals where there are 400 movies, and unless you have a distributor who is super confident and puts a lot of money into it, sometimes movies can go unwatched or unnoticed.
-- Viggo Mortensen -
I get invited to many more literary festivals than I used to because I'm associated with 'Slumdog Millionaire,' the brand. Many more doors have opened up for me as a result of the global success of the film, although I believe that I'm the same person that existed before it.
-- Vikas Swarup -
Truth is, generally I like film festivals; somewhere at some level there's an exchange of ideas.
-- Willem Dafoe -
What's great about the Sundance Film Festival is the festival takes over that town as it's intended to do. But, it's very focused on a lot of other filmmakers and distributors so it almost feels like, while they're a lot of so-called civilians there, it's an opportunity that you have to see, to show your stuff to the other folks, your peers really, and to get that reaction.
-- Alex Gibney -
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Nothing surprised me more, and meant more to me, than seeing an entire class of ninth graders mob Congressman [John] Lewis at a book festival.
-- Andrew Aydin -
People are going to be seeing me a lot everywhere: TVs, music, movies, festivals. You name it, I'm gonna be there.
-- AraabMuzik -
I saw my first gig here actually (Festival Hall in Brisbane) Duran Duran.
-- Bernard Fanning -
Playing to bigger audiences at festivals got me in the mindset of writing music that I would sing to a crowd.
-- Caroline Polachek -
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When it's your own thing there's a lot more pressure to make it awesome, since these people bought tickets specifically for you. Whereas at the festivals, you're one of many acts on a bill so I find it's less pressure.
-- Flume -
Frank Sinatra was very devoted to what it was he did. At the end of his life, what he had left - there have been accolades, mementos, festivals, superlatives, all that stuff. He's done movies, TV, done this, done that - what he had left was a love of his audience, and that kept him alive.
-- Frank Sinatra, Jr. -
Wagner festival was [Adolf Hitler] time with the Wagner family. [Eva Braun] asked once to attend but he forbade it and that was that, she never asked again.
-- Gretl Braun -
When my stories were translated into other languages and received good reviews in the international press and won prizes, some Arab festivals and newspapers began to take an interest in what I had produced. This sudden Arab interest is a form of hypocrisy and nonsense.
-- Hassan Blasim -
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Film festivals are a great vehicle for gaining an audience for your film, for exposure for the talent in the film and for the film makers to leverage opportunities for their films. I love the energy that film festivals bring.
-- Jamie Hector -
When it's a folk festival, there's more of an intention on the song and connecting with people.
-- Jenny O. -
Only in Texas can mesquite have its own festival, then there's a crawfish festival, a festival for strawberries, everything has its own festival, with each town having their own yearly thing.
-- Kevin Fowler -
I make films, and festivals, museums, and academia are embracing the work. It will be heard. It's bound to happen because cinema is universal. You create it, some people will notice it, some people will watch it.
-- Lav Diaz -
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The quality and success of Disney was actually bad for us animators because everyone on the planet thought that animation was only for kids and only in a certain domain. The big film festivals never thought much about animated films.
-- Michel Ocelot -
Before my commercial success, I had difficulty doing what I wanted, but my sincere short films always won prizes in festivals. So I was ready for larger successes.
-- Michel Ocelot -
When you go to a film festival as an audience member, it's so much fun. But when you bring your own film there, you carry so much stress and excitement.
-- Mora Stephens -
Festivals become a family because you start seeing the same people.
-- Philipp Wolter -
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The Internet right now is another way to get exposure. You depend on that because they give you press, and if it's successful it gets into a lot of festivals.
-- Philipp Wolter -
The festivals are cool because you make a lot of connections at the festivals.
-- Philipp Wolter -
I stopped my iTunes festival set because someone fainted at the front. It felt like the right thing to do at the time but maybe I was being too sensitive.
-- Rae Morris -
When I do the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I always go across to Loch Ness and stay there.
-- Rhys Darby -
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American audiences don't react in the same way as European ones to African music because, I think, Europeans listen to this music through all the festivals that exist here.
-- Rokia Traore -
To be honest, I was just honored to be in the same festival [ Raindance Film Festival's ] as Johnny To and Dominik Moll.
-- Rudolf Buitendach -
[The Raindance film festival] is literally the first time we've ever screened the movie ["Selling Isobel"] to anyone, and people are a little bit traumatised by it.
-- Rudolf Buitendach -
I'm looking forward to seeing more of the US, and hopefully spending some of the summer in Europe playing festivals. It's early days though, so who knows.
-- St. Lucia -
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Sundance felt like a natural fit. I love coming here, and I do think that this festival suits my films rather than most of the festivals I've been to. I'm not going to Cannes, you know.
-- Taika Waititi -
Be merry, really merry. The life of a true Christian should be a perpetual jubilee, a prelude to the festivals of eternity.
-- Theophane Venard -
I think certain filmmakers going into Sundance or other big festivals should consider screening more for press and tastemakers before the festival. The traditional wisdom has always been the opposite: to not screen for anyone prior, let your film be seen by an audience, and generate the buzz from there.
-- Thom Powers -
Our Feastival of Queens area, which featured five different authentic ethnic foods from Queens, was one of the most popular areas of the festival, and was written about in a number of different reviews.
-- Tom Russell -
