Because you’re studying MovieMaker, you possible know that probably the most important worldwide movie festivals are Cannes, Venice, and Berlin. These European festivals are rivaled in significance in North America by Sundance and Toronto.
If in case you have the prospect to attend any of the above movie festivals as a movie lover, you need to. (If you happen to’ve made it into any of them as a filmmaker, hey — we’d most likely like to interview you, since you’ve both made it or within the course of of constructing it.)
However we at all times need to have a good time different festivals — some broadly identified, some much less so — that don’t at all times get the eye of the Huge 5 however are nonetheless essential for not solely selling the movies of their very own international locations, however the work of nice filmmakers world wide.
Additionally Learn: The 25 Coolest Movie Festivals within the World
We’ve particularly sought out areas we imagine you need to go to earlier than you die, within the hopes {that a} movie pageant provides you with the right motive to lastly e-book your tickets.
In circumstances the place the pageant dates aren’t finalized, we’ve been as particular as doable.
CAIRO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Cairo, Egypt | November 15-24
One of many oldest and most revered movie festivals within the Arab world, Africa and the Center East, CIFF held its forty fourth version in November to honor a few of Egypt’s most beloved treasures, its movies.
Underneath the brand new management of director Amir Ramses, the occasion featured tributes to actress Maha Abu Ouf, director Ali Abdel Khaleq and actor Hesham Selim, all of whom died in 2022. It additionally welcomed practically 100 movies from greater than 50 international locations.
Its worldwide jury was led by Japanese director Naomi Kawase, and the Golden Pyramid Award for Finest Movie went to Firas Khoury’s coming-of-age drama Alam. If you happen to haven’t been to Egypt, keep in mind that worldwide points of interest Nile cruises, the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx are inside straightforward distance of the Cairo Opera Home, website of the pageant.
Copenhagen, Denmark | March 15-26
Probably the most celebrated documentary movie festivals on the planet, and largest doc festivals in Europe, is now underway and celebrating its twentieth version — and is putting a particular emphasis on rising filmmakers. INTRO:DOX will maintain a day of introductory classes on March 19 with a set of classes specifically designed to assist up-and-coming filmmakers who had been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic, giving them alternatives to be taught from extra established professionals.
DEAUVILLE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL
Deauville, France | September 1-10
Established in 1975 in coastal Normandy, Deauville has attracted large names like Jessica Chastain, Robert Pattison, Nicolas Cage, and Morgan Freeman. It’s additionally a world tastemaker, giving its Grand Prize final yr to Charlotte Wells’ much-praised Aftersun.
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Nick Richey, whose coming-of-age movie 1-800-HOT-NITE kicked off a really profitable pageant run in Deauville, tells MovieMaker he discovered the pageant spectacular in each manner. 1-800-HOT-NITE was in competitors, and although it screened on the earlyish hour of 10:30 a.m., Richey and his crew entered the theater to discover a packed home of 1,600 individuals.
“The Deauville programming, audiences, publicity and surroundings are completely prime notch. If there’s a pageant on the market actually preventing for American impartial cinema, it’s Deauville,” Richey says.
Toruń, Poland | 2023
EnergaCAMERIMAGE stands out with its celebration of cinematography — and attracts A-list actors and administrators grateful for the professionals who know easy methods to make them and their concepts look beautiful.
Picture by Pawel Skraba, courtesy of the EnergaCAMERIMAGE archive.
Certainly one of Europe’s most prestigious movie festivals, EnergaCAMERIMAGE simply celebrated its thirtieth yr by awarding its prestigious Golden Frog award to Tár, shot by Florian Hoffmeister and directed by Todd Area. (The award is usually a serious Oscar predictor within the cinematography class.)
The pageant is working to advertise year-round movie training and celebration, and is beginning development this yr on a brand new cultural middle to additional promote its work.
EVOLUTION MALLORCA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Palma de Mallorca, Spain | October 18-24
Based and led by the indefatigable Sandra Lipski, this pageant on a Spanish island paradise has welcomed everybody from Ana de Armas to Mads Mikkelson to Danny DeVito. They’re drawn not solely by the gorgeous, sun-kissed fantastic thing about the Balearic Islands of the Mediterranean, but additionally by the relaxed, snobbiness-free environment.
Final yr’s friends included Ruben Östlund, who introduced his opening evening movie, Triangle of Disappointment, winner of the Palma d’Or at Cannes. In line with the setting of his movie, he additionally did a Q&A with Lipski on a yacht, the Falcao Uno, within the Palmas Port with Palma’s iconic cathedral within the background.
Different 2022 highlights included the Cinematography Icon Award for Ed Lachman, and the Mallorca Movie Fee presenting the primary annual Mallorca Movie Award to honor actress Icon Nastassja Kinski.
EMIFF welcomed greater than 250 movies and 10,000 viewers members over seven days to get pleasure from galas, screenings, panels, drive-in cinema, and far more. Submissions for the upcoming twelfth version at the moment are open.
Marseille, France | July
Every summer time, France’s oldest metropolis celebrates its latest cinema, providing some 130 movies to almost 24,000 friends in theaters, libraries, open-air amphitheaters and artwork galleries all through the town.
It’s a implausible alternative for once-in-a-life time movie experiences — just like the Apichatpong Weerasethakul masterclass held in 2021 — and to expertise a really historic Mediterranean metropolis based in 600 BC by Greek settlers.
The sense of worldliness stays with FIDLab, which helps worldwide co-productions. The FIDCampus, in the meantime, offers coaching for Mediterranean college students. FIDM additionally provides offsite screenings all year long.
Galway, Eire | July 11-16
Submissions at the moment are open for this fleadh (that’s Irish for pageant) positioned in a dreamy, bohemian slice of heaven on Eire’s west coast. Galway rejects pretense and stuffiness in favor of a passionate embrace of cinema.
It goes exhausting for Eire, to make certain — final yr’s movie pageant included a screening of Showtime’s Sinéad OʼConnor doc, Nothing Compares, in addition to a cavalcade of Irish movies, particularly by rising filmmakers. However its worldwide outlook was apparent in occasions like an appearing masterclass with Vicky Krieps, and a directing masterclass with Mike Newell.
The fleadh additionally contains the Galway Movie Honest market, a script pitching competitors, and probabilities to mingle with dozens of distributors or gross sales brokers.
When it’s essential to clear your head and unwind, take a stroll alongside the seaside or the rippling River Corrib, or get pleasure from music and good dialog at one the town’s many charming pubs and occasional spots.
Lisbon, Portugal | April 27-Could 7
Lisbon has at all times been identified for its welcoming spirit: It’s the place everybody within the film Casablanca is making an attempt to flee to. Its local weather, seashores, magnificence and affordability additionally made it a spot many Individuals fled to through the pandemic, sadly driving up costs for the locals.
Indie Lisboa invitations filmmakers with open arms by screening greater than 270 movies annually. It focuses on these outdoors the mainstream, drawing audiences and trade professionals from across the globe. It provides workshops, masterclasses, debates, a screenwriting lab, a movie fund, a pitching discussion board, and far more.
Certainly one of its biggest highlights is IndieJunior, the youthful-facing part of the pageant that guides the following era of audiences — and creators.
INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF INDIA
Goa, India | 2023
This 70-year-old pageant operates below the gorgeous philosophy of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” — the world is one household. Due to gaps between some editions, the newest was its 53rd. It started with a joyous celebration of Bollywood, then continued with a salute to cinema worldwide.
Its large winners had been the Spanish-language movie Tengo sueños eléctricos (I Have Electrical Desires), which gained the Golden Peacock, and greatest director went to Iranian writer-director Nader Saeivar for No Finish. Goa additionally features a movie bazaar by which greater than 200 scripts, tasks and movies from compete for the eye of producers, consumers and programmers from world wide.
INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM
Rotterdam, The Netherlands | 2024
In its newest version earlier this yr, Rotterdam is embraced a program referred to as Cinema Regained that created what the pageant referred to as “a sphere of collective remembrance for cinematic heritage, providing restored classics, documentaries on movie tradition, archival discoveries and extra.”
It included each brand-new movies just like the Fırat Özeler’s documentary Kavur, about director Ömer Kavur, in addition to rediscovered gems like Kavur’s 1971 brief “The Porter.”
Different movies embrace René Cardona’s Santo conra los jinites del terror (Santo vs. The Riders of Terror) , by which masked Mexican wrestler/undercover agent Santo takes on a roving gang of considerably sympathetic lepers. Rotterdam has forged a large internet, in different phrases.
KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Karlovy Fluctuate, Czechoslovakia | June 30-July 8
Held since 1946, one of the distinguished worldwide festivals endured even throughout a communist regime that attempted to make use of it as an instrument of propaganda. In 1994, a brand new crew headed by Czech actor Jiří Bartoška and main movie journalist Eva Zaoralová took over and turned the pageant right into a celebration of unfettered cinema.
Sadly, Zaoralová handed final yr, however her legacy lives on within the pageant’s annual screenings of greater than 200 movies from world wide. Karlova Fluctuate has welcomed a who’s who of A-listers, from Robert De Niro to Michael Douglas to Salma Hayek. It’s not only a movie vacation spot, but additionally a celebrated spa city famend for its sizzling springs.
Locarno, Switzerland / August 2-12
Among the many oldest and most beloved movie festivals on the planet, Locarno has spent greater than three-quarters of a century celebrating the bravest, most experimental and most distinctive of recent cinema.
With large prizes packages within the a whole lot of hundreds, and a focus from main distributors like Netflix and Pathé Movies, Locarno is a serious vacation spot for filmmakers and movie lovers who’re drawn not solely to its emphasis on nice movies, however its majestic location close to Lake Maggiore and the Alps.
Its display on the Piazza Grande is Europe’s largest, and it’s identified for programming an distinctive variety of world premieres.
This yr’s celebration will embrace the return of Locarno Children HomeMade Motion pictures, by which younger filmmakers can be inspired to create movies with the theme “the superhero in you,” and can mark the primary time Locarno’s awards classes are gender-neutral.
MAR DEL PLATA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Mar Del Plata, Argentina | November 3-13
Based mostly in Buenos Aires Province, this hub of fishing and movie is the largest seaside resort location in Argentina — and residential of maybe probably the most prestigious movie pageant in Latin America.
It has had a storied and complicated historical past since its founding in 1954, and glories in movie’s energy to push empathy throughout all boundaries.
Its newest Astor Piazzolla Award for Finest Function Size Movie went to Saudade fez morada aqui dentro (Saudade Grew to become House Inside) by Haroldo Borges, which jurors praised for “its skill to superbly and honestly painting a dramatic story that reveals us that when individuals care about one another, there may be hope.”
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Melbourne, Australia | August 3-20
Now coming into its 71st yr, one of many oldest steady movie festivals on the planet can be one of the beneficiant: Its predominant prize, the Shiny Horizons Award, is price practically $100,000.
Final yr it went to Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s acclaimed U.S.-Rwandan manufacturing Neptune Frost, which the jury praised for “disrupting the colonial gaze and connecting the rising affect of know-how in all our lives.”
Different prestigious awards embrace the BlackMagic Design Australian Innovation Award for an impressive Australian inventive with a movie within the MIFF program. This yr’s went to Jub Clerk for guiding Candy As, which, within the phrases of the jurors, “crossed worlds and intersected sure realities” — similar to a terrific movie pageant.
Santarcangelo di Romagna, Italy | 2023
Set in a small village within the hills by the Adriatic coast, close to Federico Fellini’s hometown of Rimini, the Nòt Movie Fest was began by a bunch of Italian filmmakers in Los Angeles in 2017. Its curious identify is a nod to outsider filmmakers and cinematic adventures: whereas “not” in English connotes rejection, within the native Romagnolo dialect, “nòt” means evening.
The pageant celebrates filmmakers outdoors the mainstream, shining gentle on impartial filmmaking everywhere in the world. Up-and-coming writers, administrators and producers gleefully be part of seasoned veterans and movie lovers for a weeklong celebration in quest of the boldest new visionaries.
Previous judges and friends have included Gabriela Rodriguez, producer of Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma; Slamdance founder Peter Baxter, and Theo Inexperienced, the Oscar-winning sound designer of Dune.
REYKJAVIC INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Reykjavic, Iceland | September 28-October 8
A really handy flight from the East Coast of the U.S., Iceland’s bursting-with-color capital is a superb place to fireplace your creativeness. Based in September 2004 by movie professionals and movie lovers led by pageant director Hrönn Marinósdóttir, RIFF pushes for innovation, and delivers.
It has been identified to current movies in a swimming pool, or in a filmmaker’s residence, to offer unforgettable experiences. It additionally emphasizes the brand new by presenting its predominant prize, the Golden Puffin, solely to first or second-time administrators.
It usually screens a couple of 100 movies from 40 international locations over every 11-day celebration, and friends have included Jim Jarmusch, Mike Leigh, Atom Egoyan, Dario Argento, Werner Herzog, Claire Denis and plenty of extra.
SAN SEBASTIAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain | September 22-30
Since its founding in 1953, this pageant in a Basque resort area celebrated for its superb seashores has hosted such historic moments because the European premiere of Star Wars, and Alfred Hitchcock presenting the worldwide premiere of Vertigo.
However it’s extra centered on selling new expertise than resting on its success. San Sebastian is elegantly divided into three elements: movies, films-to-be, and thought and dialogue. The films-to-be part is very fascinated by works in progress from Latin America and Europe. Its newest version, in September, awarded the Golden Shell for Finest Movie to Laura Mora’s Los reyes del mundo (The Kings of the World), a movie set in Colombia that’s actually worldwide: The manufacturing was rooted not solely in Colombia but additionally Luxembourg, France, Mexico and Norway.
TALLINN BLACK NIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL
Tallinn, Estonia | November 3-19
The very best-named movie pageant on the planet, which is often known as PÖFF, celebrated its twenty sixth version in November by welcoming practically 80,000 guests — near pre-pandemic numbers — together with 2,000 overseas friends. “Way over we’ve got ever had,” notes pageant director Tiina Lokk.
They had been drawn to 551 movies, together with 132 world and worldwide premieres, from 75 international locations — and by the pageant’s embrace of shared dedication, wrestle, and success. “A PÖFF Wolf is a pack animal who is aware of that he’ll get farther working along with the others,” the pageant explains on its web site.
“With out you, our cinema viewers and supporters, this movie pageant, largely cobbled collectively on pure enthusiasm in 1997, wouldn’t be what it’s right this moment.” And, the pageant notes, touring with pals permits a PÖFF Wolf to maneuver outdoors its consolation zone, in quest of new cinematic adventures.
TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Tokyo, Japan | 2023
The most recent version of this top-tier pageant screened 169 movies, a rise from 126 in 2021, and drew practically 60,000 in admissions, practically doubling the earlier yr. Greater than 50,000 individuals attended festival-related occasions.
Highlights included the presentation of the lifetime achievement award to 95-year-old director Nogami Teruyo, in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to Japanese movie, which started when she labored as a script supervisor for Akira Kurosawa on Rashoman in 1950.
The pageant is beneficiant in internet hosting filmmakers in competitors, who can win as much as $35,000 in complete prizes. It additionally provides one of the towering and beautiful trophies within the movie world, created utilizing Tokyo’s Edo Kiriko glass-cutting technique.
WARSAW INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Warsaw, Poland | October
Held yearly since 1985, this pageant in Poland’s gorgeous capital has hosted administrators together with Michael Haneke, Cristian Mungiu and Ashgar Farhadi as they rose to prominence.
Probably the most elite movie festivals in Europe, it’s a terrific draw for filmmakers due to its generosity with journey prices, consideration to particulars, and heavy turnout by prime distributors — to say nothing of its Academy eligibility.
But it surely’s very a lot an audience-focused movie pageant as effectively: “Choosing the movies, we at all times bear in mind about our viewers – native Varsovians, these working or learning in Warsaw, and people on the town for a short time, as an illustration just for the Competition,” writes Stefan Laudyn, director of the pageant.
Essential picture: Ruben Östlund discusses his movie Triangle of Disappointment with Evolution Mallorca Worldwide Movie Competition founder Sandra Lipski.
