If you like film, crowds, excitement, and traveling you can visit many famous film festivals. If you are lucky some will be right in your own backyard.
The top five film festivals are:
The Sundance Film Festival in Utah, founded by actor/director/producer Robert Redford. The beauty of this festival is you will see independent films as well as more high profiled ones.
The Cannes Film Festival (travel package info included in link) is one of the most prestigious film festivals. The world’s elite grace this Red Carpet in Cannes, France.
The Berlin International Film Festival or in German, Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin is also considered one of the world’s leading film festivals.
The Toronto International Film Festival or TIFF is a huge event in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Over 300,000 people attend this festival. The tickets are a bit of a headache to get. I personally think it is a “red-tape” nightmare. However, if you can endue their archaic process of buying tickets, picking films and attending them, then you will have a great time.
The Venice Film Festival or Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica di Venezia in Italy is (according to Wikipedia) “one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals and is part of the Venice Biennale, a major biennial exhibition and festival for contemporary art.”
There are also local film festivals that may be available in your area. In my area, there is the Ancaster Film Fest (blogspot link) which, is tied in with the Toronto Film Festival. It is a great event for people who live in the Hamilton, Ancaster, and surrounding areas. It has however, grown enormously in size. It has increased in attendance so much that they have made an additional time for patrons to view all the films. One showing is usually at 4:00PM and the other is at 7:00PM. At least for the 7:00PM showing it is advisable to get there two hours earlier to get a decent seat. They show their films on a Monday night in Ancaster, at Showcase Cinema in the Meadowlands.
I did enjoy the earlier years of the Ancaster Film Fest when it was a smaller, more personal experience, however, they have some great films. If you are willing to take the time to get a seat, you will enjoy the film experience. They even have guest speakers who may have produced, acted in, or directed the films.
If anyone has been to any of these festivals, I’d love to hear about your experiences.