Focus on Festivals at the bfi National Library
6-29 April 2005, Reading Room
Jean Simmons in Hamlet (1948), the 1948 Venice Film Festival included a focus on her work.
Where can you find out about the newest and most exciting productions from countries as diverse as Brazil, China, South Africa, Bangladesh, Iran and New Zealand - as well as those from Europe and the US? Where can you find out which companies are handling their sale or distribution? And where can you find up-to-date filmographies of leading film directors and of upcoming new talents?
The answers to these questions - and many more - can be found in the bfi National Library's unique collection of festival catalogues gathered from film festivals around the world. Early acquisitions in the collection date as far back as the 1934 Venice Biennale and the Berlin Internationaler Filmkongress of 1935.
Simone Signoret in (1958), winner of the Best Actress Award for Le Chat (1971) at the Berlin International Film Festival of 1971.
In addition to providing information of the type outlined above, these programme catalogues, detailing all films screened at a particular festival, give individual film credits and cast as well as technical data such as running time, format, and so on. Production company addresses are often included as well as distributors and sales contact points. Except for earlier examples, almost all festival catalogues provide a synopsis and a still for each film listed - while some will additionally include further information such as a review, article or director's commentary.
Although programme catalogues form the core of the Festivals Collection, these are supplemented wherever possible by press cuttings with reviews of the festival and of the films shown. Where we have been able to obtain them, the collection also holds related publications such as books, special issue journals and festival dailies.
La Terra Trema (1948), screened at Venice in 1948.
With so many festivals devoted to a particular theme (women's films, environment, horror, animation, human rights - to name but a few) their programme catalogues provide a huge resource for research into specialist topics and genres. Increasingly, festivals are presenting retrospectives of individual directors, actors or of a national cinema. These also feature in the accompanying festival catalogues, providing concentrated information, often with notes on restoration. And this is not to forget another area of specialist cinema: early silent film. Festival catalogues (for example, from the Pordenone Silent Film Festival) can help here too.
The Library's Festivals Collection has been painstakingly built up over many decades, the result of generosity on the part of film festival organisers and, just as importantly, through individual donations. bfi colleagues are requested to make a point of bringing back programme catalogues for the Library when attending festivals, but we are grateful to the many others - critics, enthusiasts, Library users - who have contributed over the years to make our collection the extensive and highly varied resource it is today.
Do come and see for yourself a sample of what the Library's Festivals Collection has to offer, and other related items. An exhibition is to be held in the Reading Room, 6-29 April, and staff there will be happy to help with any enquiries regarding the collection or access to its material.
