“Born in Venice in 1932, film festivals have exploded worldwide in recent decades,” writes Jeffrey Ruoff, an associate professor of film and media studies, in a Huffington Post opinion piece. “Every significant international metropolis, up-and-coming city or hamlet now has one of its own. France alone hosts some 500 film festivals—that’s more than one for every day of the year. The best festival you may have never heard of, the Telluride Film Festival, takes place each Labor Day weekend in Colorado.”
Across the globe, film festivals “nourish world cinema,” he continues, “sustaining its evolution as an art form as well its militant dimension. They support a greater diversity of subjects, points of view, and styles than found on Netflix or Amazon. Festivals keep alive the communal experience of film viewing, considered an anachronism in the age of laptops and cell phones.”
Read the full opinion piece, published 9/8/15 by The Huffington Post.
Ruoff is a Dartmouth Public Voices fellow.
