TJFF first virtual festival - the followup
1 July 2020
The first part of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival programme for 2020 wrapped on June 7th. Back in May, the Jewish Film Review reported on the preparations Executive Director Debbie Werner and her team made to move the festival online. We recently followed up with Werner on what TJFF have learned from their experience.
JFR: Overall, how to you feel the online festival went in comparison to past physical festivals? Was anything better than you expected? Anything worse than expected?
Werner: I am not sure that we knew what to expect - we took a leap of faith, and fortunately our viewers came along for the ride. While the online Festival was born out of necessity and an attempt to innovate and survive difficult times, for many of our viewers they found advantages to being able to watch from home - no line-ups, parking issues, seat-saving problems or travel time. We heard from people who told us that they were able to watch more films as a result.
What I struggled with personally, was the disconnect between what we were offering and what people were experiencing. I am used to being able to walk into a theatre and see people enjoying themselves, talk to customers about their experience, and put out fires for those who have a problem that needs addressing. With the online Festival we were mainly hearing from those that required technical help - and I missed hearing from all the others who found it smooth sailing. We did conduct a survey afterward and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
JFR: Now having the experience of a completed festival, looking back, what things do you know now that you wish you knew when you were planning the virtual festival? If you were to do another virtual festival in the near future, what changes would you make?
Werner: We were careful in not taking on too big a lineup for our first online Festival. Plans for part two are now underway (scheduled for Oct 22 - Nov 1). This split-delivery allows us to continue with what worked well and tweak the things that our viewers (and us) would like to see changed.
One thing that we learned is that while people can make it to the theatre for a set date and time...they can't make it to the couch. Watching at home comes with delays and distractions, so for our Fall schedule we hope to move from a 24h viewing window to 48h.
JFR: What is your key advice for other festivals (big and small) that are planning their own virtual festivals from scratch?
Werner: Go for it! Despite the hiccups along the way, our regular Festival goers were grateful to have 'the shows go on'. At a time of great upheaval and uncertainty we were able to still offer something that our annual attendees look forward to every year. And while it was a very different delivery, that the Festival still took place on our scheduled dates gave a certain air of familiarity and continuity to crazy times. We were also able to still bring people together and hopefully make them feel like they were still connected to the TJFF community.