01 Mar The Art of Reviewing Film Festivals
We’re all used to seeing movie and film reviews but reviews for film festivals are not quite as
frequent. What if your a die hard movie junkie who needs their fix of fresh indie cinema but
don’t know just where to turn? Well film festival maven Christina Kotlar has got you covered.
Her blog Film Festival reViews, http://www.filmfestivalreviews.com/, fills this niche by examining
all that is indie in films, filmmakers and film festival’s the world over. Mrs. Kotlar, a jersey native who
received her masters in Producing Film and Video from American University in Washington D.C. founded
the site in 2006. One of her main goals was to give some insight in to the film industry as a viable means of
economic development in the film festival circuit.
One of her passions is the work of early women film makers, more specifically Alice Guy Blache, the first woman
film director.
While most would shrug their shoulders and say “Alice who?”, Blache was an important
figure in the then burgeoning industry as she was making fiction films before women could even vote in this country.
Even more impressive, she built, owned and operated Solax Studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey which did work such
as special effets, super imposition, sound synchronization and colorization. Mrs. Kotlar has actually written a story and screenplay
about Alice Guy Blache titled Madame Director who’s website can be found here: http://madamedirector.com/
Some other unique features on the Film Festival reViews blog include the Backstage Pass which looks at unique and rare events
happening at different film festivals. Examples include an in depth look at the eagles in honor of their documentary History of the Eagles
Part 1 which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. There are of course the reviews of films and film festivals such as the recent Athena
Film Festival which are told from a woman’s point of view. Lastly, there is also the Media Madness Workshop which strives to develop leader
ship capacity in the media community.
For all this and so much more check out her website at
http://www.filmfestivalreviews.com/