Jerusalem Film Festival is set to expand its industry program with THINK Fest, a three-day initiative bringing together dozens of international film festival directors, programmers, organizers and staffers.
The inaugural edition of THINK Fest will run July 13-15 and will host several panels discussing issues affecting the film festival world.
“The program was designed based upon topics raised by the participants and organizers; the strong attendance of so many film festival professionals will undoubtedly result in a passionate and stimulating debate,” stated Jerusalem Film Festival.
The first panel will discuss the impact of digital services on film festivals with Frederic Boyer, the artistic director of Tribeca, Anna Hoffmann, the forum program manager of Berlin Film Festival, and Mirsad Purivatra, the director and co-founder of Sarajevo Film Festival.
The role of film festival within the changing landscape of arthouse film distribution will be debated during the second roundtable with Bero Beyer, the artistic director of Rotterdam fest,
Mike Goodridge, CEO of Protagonist Pictures, and Karel Och, the artistic director of Karlovy Vary film festival.
Meanwhile, the third panel, titled “film festivals in the 21st Century: trapped between red carpets, high-brow Programs, and decreasing Budgets,” will be attended by Carlo Chatrian from Locarno, Cosima Finkbeiner from Beta Cinema, and Matthijs Wouter Knol from Berlin’s European Film Market.
Jerusalem Film Festival will kick off on July 13 will the screening of Michel Hazanavicius’s “Redoutable” which world premiered in competition at Cannes.
