Festival Programming Quotes

Cannes Film Festival prefers political films. We have to target certain festivals based on our films.

We program the festival, after 20 years, exactly the way we did on the first day.

Tribeca Film Festival Doha will be both an industry festival and an audience festival, not just an event for insiders. Community outreach will be a major part of what we're doing. We'll put filmmakers in touch with local, regional, and international audiences.

In starting to learn about film festivals and what were good ones - 'cause there are five billion of them - it was just a really good East Coast festival. And I thought this little movie was an East Coast film.

The quality of festival Q&As is often a matter of chance. Sometimes the lights come up on movies I loved, and not a single meaningful question is asked. Sometimes it's the opposite.

I've been to Sundance before, but I'd never seen a lot of screenings.

Playing big films on festivals is SO misguided. And I know where it comes from: it comes from the head of the festival thinking that he'll play with the big guys, like that's the way to do it and it's SO not the way to do it. It's where Cannes went wrong, it's where Toronto is going wrong. I mean, I got off the plane in Cannes this year and the streets were paved with posters from studio movies. Who cares about that? Why come to Cannes for that? You're going to be able to see all those films anyway - you're not going to be able to avoid them, so I don't get it. Obviously.

At Performa in New York, there are a lot of commissions, but Manchester Festival is the only festival where everything is fully produced by the festival.