The San Francisco Film Festival, Essay Example

The San Francisco Film Festival invites the cinemaphile to experience films which lay outside the orbit of the American mainstream. On the one hand, the film festival presents American films which do not have access to wide audiences. On the other hand, the festival also remains committed to screening international films, which because of the Americocentric as well as Anglocentric nature of U.S. society, remain on the fringes of the American movie culture. In this regard, my experiences at the festival were above all defined by the cosmopolitan and artistic feel of the event, which emphasizes that cinema is not only above all a form of art, but one that is practiced by filmmakers all over the world.

The film’s program provided a rich and diverse perspective on a wide number of themes. Films that I was able to see tackled heterogeneous, but also deeply resonant themes, related to questions about the extent of human freedom as well fundamental social relations, such as the family unit. Because of the international selection of films shown with such themes, this demonstrates, against arguments of cultural particularism and relativism, that there are fundamental human questions which transcend local contexts and their normativities. The film festival, in this sense, communicated a deeper universalism, which seems especially relevant in an age of globalization. In other words, to the extent that the mainstream discourse constantly discusses globalization, the film festival is a true realization of this phenomenon. However, it is also, more importantly in my view, a realization of the positive aspects of globalization, namely, in the form of the exchange of life stories and ideas.

The film festival provided me an opportunity to experience a world that was both deeply committed to art and diversity. At the same time, an underlying commonality shaped the event, not only in terms of the aforementioned film themes, but also in terms of the opportunity to meet and discuss with others from throughout the world.