063 // Screenwriting, film festivals, and TENET with Khizer Khani

Speaking of canon stuff, it's like I'm not as tapped into that scene as much as I maybe used to be.

But, you know, I'm curious to know, like, if you're if you are still tapped into it or tapped into it now, like the word is that like most of this stuff is going to be delayed.

Like we just found out the Oscars are going to be late a few months and then obviously Independent Spirit Awards will follow suit and everything.

But, you know, TIFF is technically around the corner here and we haven't heard many mumblings about how they're planning on approaching it.

I know we are tentatively hoping to have movies come back in like end of July with Tenet and Mulan and stuff.

But, you know, I was talking to a friend the other day because I'm an avid TIFF goer, so I like going to the TIFF.

And I was thinking like everything about TIFF is designed to cram as many people together in the smallest space as you can.

Like everything from the parties to the lineups to get into a theater to sitting in a theater, like the entire thing is designed to be a petri dish for bacteria or virus.

So it's like, what we can do to even kind of mitigate that.

And, you know, like, do you run it 30% capacity? Is it even worth running the festival at that point? Like, but then on the flip side of it, is it like, you know, if you run an online only festival, does it cheapen it entirely? Do you know what I mean? Like, is it kind of against the whole idea of like, why are we going to a festival to begin with if I could have just put this on Vimeo or YouTube? Like, are they really going to be able to give you a platform like they could have when they had it at TIFF or at Sundance or Cannes or whatever, right? Like, if it's some...

login website is it have the same effect on a film or is it better just to release on your own like that's such an interesting thing to try to wrestle with right

Yeah, because, I mean, and again, this is from the perspective of someone that just meets filmmakers.

I haven't met someone directly who's been in one of the big festivals.

TIFF, yeah.

TIFF plays a lot of Canadian, they have a section for just Canadian films.

I guess I'm talking about Sundance and all these other big festivals.

But my perspective has always been like, the name doesn't help as much as the networking does.

Yeah, that makes sense.

The ability for you to play something, someone to have seen it, and then meet that person in one of the networking events or somewhere, and then it's the after, right? It's like once the film finishes, all the filmmakers are talking for the ability for someone to be like, hey, what do you do next, right? Yeah.

And whether that person is a financer or whether that person is just like another fan.

Okay.

Right? That is kind of the bigger part, right? And I think that online, it's a completely different world because once they watch the film, if they're not meeting the filmmaker, if they're not putting a face to that, because once you put a face to a product like that, especially when it's that much of an underdog, right? Because a lot of these films that are showing, they're from filmmakers that are underdogs, that are no names, right? Yeah, yeah.

you kind of want to root for that person.

So you kind of like attach to like, it's like when you see like an up and coming YouTuber, it's like, oh yeah, I'll watch him and I'll like share him around because it's like, it feels like, you know, I get to see his rise.

And if you can't do that with a filmmaker, because the filmmaker version of that is beating them, right? It becomes so much harder to be able to be like, oh, I want to see what he's doing next.