Art Lies, Volume 10, April-June 1996 Page: 34
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As a scholar of contemporary world cinema with a
doctorate in Comparative Culture, and as one who has
attended and participated in a variety of film festival
in thiS country and others over the past two decades, I
can assess the first Houston Pan-Cultural Film Festi-
val, which I attended almost in its entirety, in term of
its concept and purpose, its artistic merit, its execution
and logistics, and its future.
At the outset, we might consider the question, "Why
another film festival?" In an era when funding for the
arts, cultural programs, and social projects is scarce, film
festivals seem to be sprouting up every hundred miles.
One would think these initiatives were in response to a
time when Hollywood movies fill 80% of the world's
screens and even Americans are demanding alterna-
tives to the high-gloss, low stimulus entertainment
product. However, because of the expense and risk of
cinema as a medium, most festival today - even the
so-called "art film fests" - have to do with marketing.
Sundance, now more than ever, is about "making deals"
that launch independents; even the special sections at
Cannes and Berlin promote names and sales, fashion
and stars, images and profiles. Cities all over Europe
generate tourism, a special identity, a unique signature
through their longstanding festivals. American fests
afford industry careerists and new artists alike a place
to "schmooze" and sniff the air for ways to achieve,
maintain, or renew a film's bankability.
Film festivals can offer retrospectives of directors who
have produced a significant body of work, and they
can introduce new filmmakers who merit exposure. But
even these showcases, which often charge film entry
fees in order to structure competitions and award prizes
(an example is the World-Fest Houston) generally pur-
sue commercial goals. Films are selected with limited
knowledge of or regard for the cultural contexts in
which they were made and the roles they play in their
societies. Within these parameters there is little room
for consideration of how these screenings can engage a
city's population.
The Houston Pan-Cultural film Festival (HPCFF), it
seems to me, is concerned with learning as opposed to
buying and selling. It strives to bring esteemed film-
makers who are artists, educators, and socially con-First Pan Cultural Film
Festival
February 19 - 25, 1996
by Diane Sippl, PhD
scious individuals to audiences who might otherwise
never know their work. In the tradition of international
festivals like Montreal, Mannheim, and Locarno, which
emerged from the postwar cine-clubs in order to re-
consider the purpose and role of filmmaking, the
HPCFF stands on the premise that the cinema bridges
socials gaps, that people are more curious than oblivi-
ous, more impressionable than implacable. Further-
more, like the vast and widely reputed FESPACO in
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso's noteworthy festival, the
HPCFF demonstrates that cross-cultural communica-
tion is not only neccessary and possible in today's cin-
ema, but it also nourishes filmmaking at its very core.
The HPCFF bothers to represent and address popula-
tions bypassed in mainstream cinema practices, and
invites them to come and see, to talk and learn, about
each other and themselves.
The festival is for people who choose to travel - not
by road, rail, or air, but by light, on journeys of the mind
and heart that transpire not even so much on the screen
as in the dialogues thereafter. People sitting together
shoulder-to-shoulder in a community auditorium may
still discover in the cinema what they cannot acquire
by purchase: a shared cultural experience, a social ex-
change.
Therefore the HPCFF selects its program with equal
regard to the films, the filmmakers themselves, and
divergent audiences. Thoughtfully, tightly, and eco-
nomically planned, its festival is excellent. Its size,
scope and range suit the purpose of the festival, which
has emerged organically from the experience and suc-
cess of Ancestral Films public screenings in Houston.
Insisting upon cinema as a living exchange, the festi-
val brings its artists to the doors of its audience. The
lively presence of a sagacious figure such as Ousmane
Sembene's lends inspriration to anyone who woudlike
to know a culture by its people, or know a people
by their own social relations and aesthetic expressions.
Sembene's astute remarks pose pointed questions to a
hall of spectators just as his ouevre affords them a chance
to see and hear something old that's new: a history
known but not duly acknowledged, because it is scarely
recorded in our history books, let alone on our screens.34
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Reece, Garry. Art Lies, Volume 10, April-June 1996, periodical, April 1996; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228041/m1/36/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .