The Circuit

At Variety, we wondered what it takes to make something into a true, four-legged industry.  With film festivals, the fitful birth of its own tradeshow was a sign, mentioned in this fest-stress article. 

Now the industry has its first major federal indictment - Gerald and Patricia Green of Film Festival Management were arrested on bribery charges.  They tried to payoff a Thai official so they could land a contract managing the Bangkok International Film Festival.

My first thought was: "Really?  They wanted to manage Bangkok fest that bad?"  Surely there are countless other more worthy festivals that could use some bribe cash, something other than the usual corporate payola.

But then Grady Hendrix put it in perspective:

I never met anyone who took the Bangkok International Film Festival seriously. It was an excuse for the well-connected industry folks to get flown to Bangkok, eat great food, do some shopping and go out with other people on the film festival circuit all on the Thai government's tab. (I was never invited. Can you tell I'm a little bitter about it?)

From beginning to end it was something of a joke, with few foreign films being subtitled in Thai for local viewers and a line-up usually consisting of leftovers from other fests. It was run by a company in Los Angeles called Festival Management who seemed only to exist to run the Bangkok International Film Festival and they never seemed to do a particularly good job of it.

And yet, every year, the Thai government sunk millions of dollars into the fest.

Full post here, on the must-read Kaiju Shakedown blog.