PIFF 2020 Festival Roundup

Maria Moreno

It’s truly been a uniquely historic year for the Portland International Film Festival. There was certainly excitement about the new Future/Future competition, which marked PIFF’s entrance into the realm of competitive film festivals and locals were also enthusiastic about the merging of the Northwest Filmmakers Festival with PIFF, leading to wider exposure for the filmmakers in the community. The Cinema Unbound Awards were meant to serve as the swanky awards portion of the festival, honoring legendary artists like Todd Haynes and John Cameron Mitchell and providing a valuable networking experience for those who were able to afford the $250 tickets. It was set out to be a record year for the Portland International Film Festival, bringing it closer to the prestige afforded to larger North American festivals such as Sundance or Tribeca. This year, though, has been most historic because of PIFF’s unexpected closure midway through the event due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was an unforeseen event that even the most seasoned programmer or festival organizer could not prepare for. As Janet Harbord says in the piece Contingency, Time, and Event, “the festival, like early cinema actualities, retains the risk of a live event unfolding in real-time, in the singular instant of the here and now. It creates a moment that seems paradoxically to suspend the moment (72).” It’s unfortunate that PIFF did not achieve the sort of synchrony that they were aiming for at the beginning of the festival, instead having to settle for an event which, while unique to our moment in time, is overall not conducive for the festival. It’s even more unfortunate that many people, myself included, missed many of the most exciting films showing at PIFF due to the sudden closure. I think the extraordinary circumstances which PIFF had to work under this year are important to think about while studying the festival and other larger festivals still set to happen later this year, such as Cannes. Perhaps, in a moment where the in-person network building aspect of film festivals is prohibited, upcoming festivals will begin to move onto digital platforms to keep their events alive. In this roundup, I’d like to talk about the Portland International Film Festival in relation to the events I was able to attend, specifically the opening night screening, but I’d also like to discuss this idea of the future of film festivals in the digital age, especially during a time when social gatherings are playing out online instead of in person. I’d especially like to contemplate what this means for, arguably the largest film festival in the world, the Cannes Film Festival, which is still set to go on in May as of this writing.

Of the events I was fortunate to attend before PIFF unceremoniously shut down, the Opening Night at the Whitsell Auditorium was the most interesting for me to analyze in terms of festival studies. To quote Roya Rastegar’s piece Seeing Differently, “Festival programmers do not just select films – they actively give shape to film culture. Film festivals facilitate the development of modes of storytelling and cinematic style (183).” Festivals do not take opening night programming lightly; It is the first glimpse that audiences have into the festivals programming strategy and the films they chose to highlight. It’s no wonder that the opening night screenings, two American films showing at two different theaters, were sold out fairly quickly. Anyone looking to take part without having bought the $25 tickets in advance would have had to have waited in a rush line, as I did at the Whitsell. The opening night ticket allowed for one to attend the two opening shorts at 5 PM, the opening night feature at 7 PM, and the opening night party at the Portland Art Museum. To my dismay, the opening night shorts, both by prolific, up and coming black female filmmakers, had nearly empty screenings at the Whitsell, which can seat up to 376 people, according to its Google listing. To add to the disappointment, these shorts were only available to watch during the opening night screenings, leaving many festival goers without the chance to see two of the most successful short films that travelled the festival circuit last year. It’s worth noting that these films were two of the only films at the festival made by black filmmakers from the U.S, which were shown as a precursor to two films made by white filmmakers from the U.S. To once again quote Rastegar, “Festivals have been critical sites for reinforcing what [Stuart] Hall refers to as “dominant cultural order” around beauty and stories in relation to the formation of national identity, establishing who belongs and who does not; whose expressions of selfhood and humanity are validated and whose are not; and who has access to the structures of cultural influence, or not (186).” It seems slightly tone deaf for the Portland International Film Festival to program these two important shorts where they did, during a time slot when no one was there, to only those select few who had the financial means to spend $25 on a festival screening. Unintentional as it may have been, PIFF reinforced the “dominant cultural order” by privileging films made by white American filmmakers with the coveted time slot of 7 PM on opening night. The shorts by Garrett Bradley and Ja’Tovia Gary, which both dealt with what it meant to be a black person in a white, Eurocentric society, seemed to be programmed almost as an afterthought, meant to fill the screen while people waited to watch the feature films about white people. One would hope that the Portland International Film Festival will be able to diversify their programming in the coming years and prioritize films made outside the white “dominant cultural order”.

Although one could write in great detail about the other events and films that shaped the 2020 Portland International Film Festival, the event that most significantly shaped the festival was one completely out of their control. The COVID-19 pandemic raises important questions about film festivals and public spheres during a moment in time when public spheres are being forced to adapt to the current conditions. As Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong writes in their piece Publics and Counterpublics, “While festivals need physical spaces to realize presentations and discussions, the public sphere is based on discursive construction (85).” What does the film festival as a public sphere look like when physical public gatherings are prohibited? Some filmmakers, such as director Nicholas Brennan, have begun to show what adapting to this new world may look like. Brennan, who directed the film Los Ultimos Frikis which was set to open on March 13^th at the Miami International Film Festival, has announced that the film will be available to screen digitally through Vimeo for $4.99, half the price of a ticket at MIFF (Cinema Tropical). Of the unexpected digital release, Brennan says, “While traditional outlets for creative work are suspended and cancelled, we can work together to find new ways for sharing stories and supporting each other.”  While larger international film festivals may be hesitant to approach their screenings in this way to preserve the prestige of the event, I believe this is the way for festivals to survive during this time. In opposition to this format, the Cannes Film Festival, one of the most prestigious festivals in the world, has said that they plan to be open for the public on May 12 as scheduled. This is despite the contradictory fact that they have planned to host the Marche du Film, their international film market, fully online, according to Forbes. Is it possible for these large-scale festivals to move online? One would hope that this moment in time will prove pivotal for changing the landscape of film festivals as public spheres.

Works Cited

1. Harbord, Janet. “Contingency, Time, and Event.” Film Festivals History: Theory, Method, Practice, p. 72.
2. Rastegar, Roya. “Seeing Differently: The Curatorial Potential of Film Festival Programming.” Film Festivals History: Theory, Method, Practice, pp. 183–186.
3. Wong, Cindy Hing-Yuk. “Publics and Counterpublics: Rethinking Film Festivals as Public Spheres.” Film Festivals History: Theory, Method, Practice, p. 85.
4. Gutierrez, Carlos. “In Lieu of a Public Screening, Cancelled Miami Film Fest Doc LOS ÚLTIMOS FRIKIS Premieres Online.” Cinema Tropical, Cinema Tropical, 18 Mar. 2020, www.cinematropical.com/cinema-tropical/in-lieu-of-a-public-screening-cancelled-miami-film-fest-doc-los-ltimos-frikis-premieres-online.
5. Scott, Sheena. “Cannes Film Festival 2020: Marché Du Film Plans To Go Virtual.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 19 Mar. 2020, http://www.forbes.com/sites/sheenascott/2020/03/19/cannes-film-festival-2020-march-du-film-plans-to-go-virtual/#4387d8866d1c.