Political pressure on film and television festivals emerged as a defining theme of a panel discussion Monday at the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, with Séries Mania general director Laurence Herszberg issuing the session’s most direct call for protection of programming autonomy.
“We don’t judge artists by their passport, we judge them by their works,” Herszberg said.
Herszberg was direct on the political pressure facing her and her peers. “We feel more and more under pressure from different groups,” she said. “They might be politicians, they might be just people who disagree with the representation of some countries.” As general director of Séries Mania – a free-access festival with 1,500 seats – she said controlling who walks through the door is not possible. “We have to be protected, and we still have to go on and fight for the artists,” Herszberg said.
On the festival-press relationship, Peter Debruge – now director of the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival after a 20-year tenure at Variety, the last ten as chief critic – put the case for studio films serving discovery. “The studio-level films are the sizzle that brings the attention, the press, and the audiences to the discoveries,” Debruge said.
Magdalene Reddy, director of the Durban FilmMart Institute, said the core challenge in Africa is not finding audiences but reaching them in the absence of sufficient cinema infrastructure. “For us, engaging with audiences is really going into the community,” Reddy said.
When moderator Roy closed the session by asking whether festivals could survive without the American industry – demanding a yes or no – Reddy was the only panelist to answer no, while noting that her focus remains squarely on African content.
