[00:29.84]A discussion among three students, who are organising an international film festival at their college.
[01:10.35]C: Thanks for coming to this meeting on such short notice, Anna and Veronica. It looks like we have just become the organising committee for this year's international film festival.
[01:21.07]We've all just met so perhaps we should start by an introduction with a bit of background from each of us.
[01:27.27]A: OK. I'm Anna. I finished three years of a Languages degree in Sweden, where I come from.
[01:33.90]This year I decided to study overseas to get to know a different part of the world. I'm also a big fan of European cinema, especially French and Italian.
[01:44.50]Those are the languages I majored in along with English. To me, film is a great way to learn about the rest of the world.
[01:52.66]I was in the film club at my university so when I saw the notice asking for volunteers, I thought it would be a good way to meet people and get involved in something I really enjoy.
[02:04.75]V: Thanks, Anna. My name is Veronica and I come from Italy. I'm doing graduate studies in English Literature.
[02:12.67]I went to some of the films in the festival last year and enjoyed them. I especially liked the video interviews.
[02:20.15]That was when I decided to get involved. I used to do film reviews for our student newspaper back home.
[02:27.93]C: Hi, I'm Chris from Scotland and I'm in 4th year Journalism. Cinema is my hobby.
[02:33.73]Last year I joined the organising committee, just like you have now, and somehow, this year I've ended up in charge. I'm actually able to use my coordinating work on the festival towards a credit for one of my courses.
[02:47.06]I have to write up a report on the festival with recommendations so that's an extra motivation for me. So I hope this is going to be a good experience for us all. OK. Where would you like to start?
[02:59.38]A: How about a general overview of the festival? I don't really know much about it.
[03:05.22]C: Well, the film festival was started by International Students' Society five years ago and has grown every year. It is held over 4 nights during study break, Wednesday to Saturday.
[03:17.72]Normally we show 3 films a night. Last year we tried to choose films from different parts of the world that fit together in some way.
[03:26.68]Maybe a similar theme. Or we could feature a type of film like action films or science fiction.
[04:08.10]A: Who picks the films?
[04:10.06]C: It's up to us, on the committee, to decide.
[04:13.14]V: You mean we get to pick all the films ourselves? What a hard decision! There are so many to choose from.
[04:20.02]C: Well, that's the fun part. We have this catalogue of independent distributors. The films are listed by language and have a short summary. We just have to go through it to find a good combination of films that will attract an audience.
[04:35.74]A: Veronica mentioned something about interviews. How does that fit in?
[04:40.25]C: We set up cameras in the foyer of the theatre and did live interviews before, during intermission and after the screening. Anyone from the audience could come up and talk about the film.
[04:52.25]The broadcasting and journalism school set it up and ran the interviews. They were shown on big screens around the lobby and in the theatre.
[05:01.09]It went over really well. We had a long line up of students waiting to be interviewed on TV. Everybody wanted their minute of fame.
[05:10.26]A: Great idea!
[05:12.18]C: Yeah, it worked really well. We should certainly do something similar again.
[05:16.98]V: Maybe even develop the idea further. Like a website with audience reviews and discussion, so we can get as much participation and involvement as possible.
[05:26.34]C: Hey, that's a good idea!
[05:28.14]A: Can I ask a question? None of the films are in English, right? Are they dubbed or subtitled?
[05:35.84]C: Well, we do occasionally choose a film in English but only from unusual places where the dialect is so strong they sometimes need subtitles - like the Caribbean or even Scotland! The majority of films in the festival are foreign language, dubbed in English.
[05:53.48]We've learned from experience that students don't like reading subtitles. Maybe they read too much already. Whatever the reason the subtitled films get smaller audiences so we avoid them as much as possible.
[06:07.68]V: So how large an audience can we expect and how much does it cost to get in?
[06:10.96]C: It costs $5 per film or a $20 pass for the whole event - all 12 films for the real movie fan. We would have broken even last year except for a bad storm on the Friday night - we almost had to cancel the whole thing.
[06:28.43]But overall, we had a good turnout - more than 2,000 people in 4 days.
[06:35.03]V: That's what I was wondering about - the financial part. Where does the funding come from? What kind of budget do we have?
[06:42.51]C: The festival is subsidised by the student council. We generate money through advertising and through admission charges. We'll go over the budget in detail a little later. But we've got lots of work to do in the meantime.
[06:55.87]A: I guess we have to start pretty soon.
[06:58.19]C: Well, I think by the first of March at the latest, we need to select all the films. Then we have to find some advertisers to sponsor the event - that shouldn't be too hard.
[07:09.65]We'll just start with last year's list. Our deadline for that should be the middle of March. By the end of March we need to design the program.
[07:18.97]Then we can get posters made up and distributed in April.
[07:22.81]V: Like you said, we need some clever promotion - something to generate interest and get people talking. We have 4 months to get ready. It should be enough time.
[07:32.85]C: OK, where do we start?
[07:34.98]A: Let's start by talking about films - since that is the best part - and see what we come up with. What was the best film you saw last year?
