Film Festivals Quotes:

The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.

- Keanu Reeves

source: "'Matrix Reloaded' previews at Cannes". www.cnn.com. May 13, 2003.

topic: Art, Hymns, Humanity, Film Festivals

I think that film festivals, we're very often given to understand, are about filmmakers and about films and about the industry of filmmaking. I don't believe that they are, I believe that film festivals are about film audiences, and about giving an audience the encouragement to feel really empowered and to stretch the elastic of their taste.

- Tilda Swinton

source: Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

topic: Encouragement, Believe, Thinking, Film Festivals

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

source: Source: blogs.indiewire.com

topic: Opportunity, Energy, Festivals, Film Festivals

So, where's the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?

- Christina Aguilera

topic: Funny, Movie, Stupid, Really Stupid, Cannes

Truth is, generally I like film festivals; somewhere at some level there's an exchange of ideas.

- Willem Dafoe

topic: Ideas, Festivals, Levels, Film Festivals

Listen, anybody who has a film festival has the right to show what they want.

- Abel Ferrara

topic: Want, Festivals, Film, Film Festivals

If you go to a film festival and watch a bunch of features and then watch a bunch of shorts, you will almost always find that the shorts are where people are taking more risks and pushing more boundaries...simply because they have much less to lose.

- Don Hertzfeldt

source: Source: www.cutprintfilm.com

topic: People, Risk, Pushing, Film Festivals

It's always really special to be at the New York Film Festival, and always a real privilege.

- Noah Baumbach

topic: New York, Real, Special, Film Festivals

I watch many, many, many independent films every year that you see once in a film festival and they're never heard of ever again. Many of them are very, very good.

- Karen Allen

source: "Karen Allen on The Sandlot, liking the fourth Indiana Jones, and being typecast". Interview with Pete Croatto, www.avclub.com. February 13, 2016.

topic: Film Festivals

I remember when I was like 19 years old and I started a desk calendar company to pay for my first short film, just so I could say one day that my daddy didn't pay for my first short film. And I really established myself in the film festival world.

- Jason Reitman

topic: Years, Daddy, One Day, Short Films, Film Festivals

The irony of a director going to film festivals is you never get to see any of the films.

- Tom Hooper

source: "The Real Events That Tom Hooper Didn't Include in The Danish Girl, and Why". Interview with Maggie Panos, www.popsugar.com. January 5, 2016.

topic: Directors, Festivals, Irony, Film Festivals

A lot of the young people make beautiful films or big films or are able to finance them, but they can't get anyone to distribute them, they can't get anyone to see them, so they go to these thousands of film festivals. So I still believe that even though a young kid might be able to make a masterpiece or something that changes the direction of cinema, the issue of how to get it to people is still not solved.

- Francis Ford Coppola

source: Interview with Tim Ryan, editorial.rottentomatoes.com. October 15, 2010.

topic: Beautiful, Believe, Kids, Film Festivals

The really cool thing is all about being able to take your movie around and show it. It puts you in direct contact with people who are like-minded and interested in similar things. I think the film festival circuit has certainly helped to foster the community.

- Joe Swanberg

topic: Thinking, People, Community, Circuits, Film Festivals

The Woodstock Film festival is among the finest of a dying breed: a festival that isn't trying to sell you anything, but simply and beautifully celebrating the art & craft of filmmaking.

- Ethan Hawke

topic: Art, Dying, Trying, Woodstock, Film Festivals

It's a reality of film festivals that you can't see everything. You're dividing your time between seeing films and utilizing that unique space to have meetings with people that you can't otherwise.

- Thom Powers

topic: Unique, Reality, Space, Film Festivals, Utilizing

Can I just tell you the truth? I get asked to do a lot of stuff. And all of the years that people have asked me to do things for the film festival, I couldn't. And so this year, I thought, "Oh, my god, I don't have a day job. If somebody ask me to do something, I'm going to do it."

- Oprah Winfrey

topic: Jobs, Years, People, Film Festivals

[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

topic: People, Littles, Festivals, Film Festivals

It's a very strange experience to watch yourself in a movie anyway. I most frequently don't do it, but if I was going to do it, I would do it in a private way, not at a public screening at a film festival, which is just an overwhelming experience.

- Jesse Eisenberg

source: "Richard Ayoade and Jesse Eisenberg on Dostoyevsky and Doppelgänger". Interview with Deenah Vollmer, www.interviewmagazine.com. January 23, 2014.

topic: Watches, Festivals, Way, Film Festivals

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

topic: Kids, Quality, Festivals, Film Festivals, Animated Films

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

topic: Fun, Stress, Festivals, Film Festivals

All these women had directed movies that I loved on the film festival circuit, but couldn't get a job making television. That's how locked down TV is.

- Ava DuVernay

source: Source: www.glamour.com

topic: Jobs, Television, Festivals, Film Festivals

I'd met Sharon Tate at the Cannes Film Festival.

- Truman Capote

source: Source: capote.wordpress.com

topic: Cannes Film Festival, Festivals, Mets, Cannes, Sharon

There's a film there in competition [of Sundance Film Festival] called To The Bone. It's directed by Marti Noxon. I have a supporting role in it. It got really well received. It's a really great film.

- Keanu Reeves

source: Source: lrmonline.com

topic: Competition, Roles, Festivals, Supporting Roles, Film Festivals

Every year there's a jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Getting on the jury is very competitive in France. Not because the French love cinema, but because they love to judge.

- Craig Ferguson

topic: Years, Cannes Film Festival, Judging, Cannes, Film Festivals

This January, Kevin Costner will be honored by the Palm Springs International Film Festival for his contribution to film. This gives Costner just two months to make a contribution to film.

- Tina Fey

topic: Spring, Two, Giving, Palm Springs, Film Festivals

Remember when movies were just good or bad, before auteurs, film festivals, and guys from USC who were the first to shoot underwater?

- Mort Sahl

source: Twitter post from Apr 07, 2011

topic: Guy, Firsts, Underwater, Usc, Film Festivals

For many years I enjoyed the pleasure of cruising on my yacht all summer long and these were my best holidays. In mid-May, we'd start in St Tropez. I'd collect my bikinis from my home there and then we'd go up to Cannes for the Film Festival, on to Monte Carlo for the Grand Prix and then to Italy.

- Ivana Trump

topic: Summer, Home, Holiday, Cannes, Monte Carlo

After that really, I spent the majority of the spring going to tons and tons of regional festivals throughout America. Every corner of the country, I took the movie to twenty film festivals or something to that extent. I've lost track. Probably done Q&As 40-50 times at this point. It's always hard to watch something I've made, but I've got a little more objectivity and kind of see the film as not just an extension of myself.

- James Ponsoldt

source: Source: collider.com

topic: Country, Spring, Objectivity, Film Festivals

Jewish people, we're repulsed by Hitler, but we're obsessed with him. If you ever want to rob a Jewish person's house, all you have to do is call them up and tell them there's a Hitler film festival down at the multiplex - watch them file out.

- Andy Kindler

topic: People, House, Watches, Film Festivals

The biggest difference for me is that the tales really have no logical outlet, no particular infrastructure in which to present them as you would have with a film festival. There's no IMDb for audio dramas. So there's a lot of work with no particular reward.

- Larry Fessenden

topic: Drama, Differences, Audio, Film Festivals

I'm happy that my films were discovered by chance by foreign film festivals. That makes me realise more that there is a world outside Japan too. For me, it's an occasion to meet many people and to experience directly the response of international audiences to my films. But for me as a director, my attitude towards making films hasn't changed with the fame. I feel it's not good to change as a person anyway

- Takashi Miike

topic: Attitude, Japan, People, Film Festivals

It's great to meet people in a setting where it's really conducive to hanging out and having fun. Most film festivals are really low-stress, and good times to hang out with buddies and talk about what you're working on and come up with new ideas.

- Joe Swanberg

topic: Fun, Stress, Ideas, Film Festivals

Whenever you take a subject you're obsessed with or that haunts you, and make a movie about it, you're converting it into work units that need to be completed. You gotta turn it into a treatment, a script, a grant application, a bunch of forms to be filled out, a shooting schedule, casting sessions, auditions, shooting, editing, music compositions, the film festival circuit, interviews even. And by the time you've finished the process you're so sick and tired by something that was once very precious to you that you're done with it.

- Guy Maddin

source: Source: thequietus.com

topic: Tired, Editing, Filled Out, So Sick, Film Festivals

Each year we go to the Cannes film festival and I tend to have all my friends pile in the back of my car and we'll drive from London. The poor production company think they're only putting me up and suddenly they've got eight people sleeping on my hotel room floor.

- Jeremy Irvine

source: "Jeremy Irvine’s Fan Club". Interview with Michael Douglas, www.interviewmagazine.com. April 17, 2015.

topic: Cannes, Cannes Film Festival, Film Festivals

Vincent Gallo has put a curse on my colon and a hex on my prostate. He called me a 'fat pig' in the New York Post and told the New York Observer I have 'the physique of a slave-trader.' He is angry at me because I said his 'The Brown Bunny' was the worst movie in the history of the Cannes Film Festival... it is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of 'The Brown Bunny.'

- Roger Ebert

topic: New York, Pigs, Cannes Film Festival, Cannes, Film Festivals

I did a short film called 'Disco' and won an award for Best Supporting Actor at an indie film festival, and that was nice. Hopefully there's lots more to come.

- Charlie Rowe

topic: Nice, Awards, Actors, Supporting Actors, Film Festivals

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

topic: Looks, Festivals, Berlin, Booing, Film Festivals

I always go to the Cannes Film Festival and it's just such a glamorous time.

- Georgina Chapman

topic: Festivals, Film, Cannes, Cannes Film Festival, Film Festivals

Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica.

- Roger Ebert

source: Roger Ebert (2013). “I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie”, p.145, Andrews McMeel Publishing

topic: Cannes Film Festival, Satanic, Festivals, St Peter, Cannes

I got nominated for my second film as best young director in the Aikido Film Festival in Japan.

- Donnie Yen

topic: Japan, Aikido, Directors, Film Festivals

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

source: Source: collider.com

topic: Opportunity, Peers, Festivals, Distributors, Film Festivals

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

topic: Political, Littles, Festivals, Cannes, Cannes Film Festival

Cheryl [Hines] and I sat through two screenings at the Sundance Film Festival and during the second one, we said to each other: "You know, we don't have to get sad about this. Let's try to enjoy this. Let's just watch it. It's a happy movie [Waitress]."

- Keri Russell

source: Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

topic: Two, Trying, Watches, Film Festivals

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

topic: Festivals, Toronto, Film, Distributors, Film Festivals

Now I'm doing a film festival for kids and writing a script about a kidnapped journalist in Afghanistan.

- Olivia Wilde

topic: Writing, Kids, Festivals, Kidnapped, Film Festivals

Doing that, then doing a lot of theater, which I love. Doing guest stars, did two independent films that are going around to all these festivals. Both of them are going to be at the Lake Tahoe Film Festival.

- Austin Peck

topic: Stars, Independent, Lakes, Tahoe, Lake Tahoe

There's a lot of hyperventilation that takes off before the [Sundance Film] Festival, a lot of buzz. Every year we hear, this is going to be the new this, this is going to be the new that, and it never is. The buzz just doesn't mean anything. I'm glad it doesn't. Because I think the festival shows that what succeeds is content.

- Robert Redford

topic: Mean, Thinking, Years, Film Festivals, Sundance

I went to the Tokyo Film Festival in Japan because I love Japanese cinema.

- Leslie Caron

topic: Japan, Cinema, Festivals, Film Festivals

When my film went to the Venice Film Festival and won the best script writing, the jury [prize], it didn't go to my head. I know how many black filmmakers that I am operating with whose name will never be mentioned. But I'm part of them in that silent existence.

- Haile Gerima

source: Source: blogs.indiewire.com

topic: Writing, Names, Venice, Film Festivals

Well I'm Superman, just not action. I'm kind of looking for something with a lot less action and more talking and listening. I also have a film that's premiering Vegas Film Festival, short film, directed by Joel Kelly, it's called Denial and it's a story, short film, 35 mm short film and it's about a man's struggle to choose between the woman of his dreams and his reality, so it's definitely different than Superman. So I'm really proud of that.

- Brandon Routh

source: "Brandon Routh for 'Superman Returns'". Interview with Paul Fischer, www.darkhorizons.com. June 16, 2006.

topic: Dream, Struggle, Reality, Film Festivals, Talking And Listening