As festivals reach for industry’s authoritative involvement or stamp of approval, they limit their potential to build a strong, alternative platform for artists — unknown, unfiltered, and from unlikely places, but no less eye and ear worthy.

The more we can establish festival solidarity around the substantive, life-affirming art of the filmmaker rather than the shallow, killer instinct business of the conformist, the better our chances of creating a strong, visible counter-culture — a healthy, popular perspective and inclusive, support network from the ground up.

We need each other “to touch for good” – to transform lives, even after we leave this planet.

This doesn’t come in the form of obsessively lionizing the disconnected and the dead,
but rather giving meaningful support and opportunity to the living.

I believe festivals have a huge role to play and example to set in that aspiration.