Paris Fashion Film Festival

The purpose of this fashion film festival, typically, is to feature artistic film makers, who are an ideal medium for fashion brands. While at it the fashion film festival will also be a celebration of artistic and cultural progress. The Paris Fashion film festival will give them a platform on which they can express their identity and values. Jenkins 2018 (p. 7) reveals that fashion film festivals provide platforms deemed necessary for the connection of film makers with various groups such as viewers, sponsors, and distributors. Through the celebration of these creatives, the fashion film festival in general will be fostering both an open and inclusive approach for more narratives to define the history and culture of fashion in the future. The fashion film festival will be held in Paris. In attendance, will be world-class film makers and fashion brands that are reputable in the industry. The festival will run over one week, during which there will be more activities as outlined in the program. 

Name

Taking into consideration that Paris is one of the most important centers of fashion and culture in the word, the festival will be named Paris Fashion Film Festival 2020. The Festival will provide an opportunity to look at the subject in various ways including from the standpoint of Paris City itself. Furthermore, Paris is regarded as a fashion capital with major boutiques across the city. In addition, Paris is the headquarter of major French fashion brands such as Dior, Lacroix, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel (The Best French Fashion Designers, 2020). Also, looking at the history of Paris, the city has been a capital of fashion in the Western since the 17th Century to date. 

Location

Paris Fashion Film festival will be held in Paris, the capital of France. The rationale behind the choice pf location stems from the fact that Paris is considered the world’s fashion capital. There is also the Parisian appreciation of and curiosity for films. Paris also has world-class infrastructure which gives the city the capability to host film festivals. Another reason is that Paris city has an exceptional capability to keep the film culture thrive, which is mostly done by encouraging and rewarding domestic production. Also, the history of Paris makes it an ideal location for the fashion film festival. To begin with, Paris has been an attraction to hordes of artists including musicians, film makers, and writers among others. This has made the once small city rich in culture. Since the 17th Century, Paris has been the world’s fashion capital which makes a very critical part of its culture (Steel (2019). Research reveals that Parisians owe a great deal of their lavish fashion taste to King Louis XIV whose reign began in the mid-17th Century (Sterrett 2017, p. 30). The king not only dressed spectacularly, but also facilitated trade in textiles and brought the fashion industry under the royal court which made it a global arbiter of style. 

The venue for the festival will be Le Grand Palais. This comes out as the best place to hold the best place to organize the fashion film festival. The rationale behind this location stems from the fact that numerous fashion houses in France, such as Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent, and Chanel among others have used Le Grand Palais over the years to host their fashion shows (VanderPloeg & Lee 2017 p. 345). The venue’s vast is also glass covered which makes the infrastructure appealing for the event. Notably, the festival will run for one week. The preferred dates for the event are from the 9th September 2020 to 15th September 2020. The choice of dates steams from the consideration of the weather in Paris. During this time, it will be less snowy. 

Mission Statement

The Paris Fashion Film Festival seeks to be a sustainable event of national reputation, that will showcase a compelling selection of thought-provoking fashion films in a beautiful setting. Particularly, the Paris Fashion Film Festival lays emphasis on the cinematic art and its blend with the fashion industry, and engagement with filmmakers, the community, audience, and every other individual that makes up the fashion film industry globally. The mission statement for Paris Fashion film festival states, “Recognize, applaud, and support creative individuals who contribute to the Fashion film festival world-wide.” The festival also seeks to achieve the following goals and objectives:

To show concrete support to filmmaking by helping the industry gradually grow

To present to the audience a festival that celebrates and explores contemporary French and international film culture that has a unique program of screenings and events. 

To increase the knowledge of the audience in fashion film as well as encourage participation in the future. 

To showcase a festival that incorporates the unique hospitality of the region, unique cultural and fashion artistic heritage. 

To provide an opportunity for local and international fashion film makers to express their arts and celebrate its power and growth in a beautiful natural setting. 

To continually market Paris as a global fashion capital to the world. 

Submission Policy

Through a carefully curated fashion film program, live shows and exciting film presentations, the Paris Fashion film festival would like to invite all film makers, designers, agencies, and other creatives to submit their work for our first edition which will take place in September later into the year. The deadline for submission is 30th June 2020. The criteria for receiving submissions is both high and standard formats of URLs, DVD, or thumb drive. Below are the specifics that will be employed for the films to be submitted:

Films submitted must have fashion either as a theme, major element, or as a sponsor. 

There should be rights to the copyright of films submitted. 

Films 20 minutes or more are eligible for special awards and screenings 

The film submitted must be one’s original work, implying that one has the right for public display. 

The film should not have premiered on any platform including the internet. 

It must not have been shot earlier than September 2019. 

Submitted work that is less than 20 minutes will be categorized under documentaries. 

The films submitted can be excerpts from longer pieces of work. 

The entry fee is dependent on the number of submissions, budget of the film, and the various categories of the festival. 

The submission should not contain any pornographic content or violate any applicable laws or rights of people, places, and even the general world peace. 

Failure to meet any of the requirements and obligations may result in the disqualification of the submission. 

Admission fees are non-refundable

The following are guidelines or steps for submission 

All parties interested in submitting their films will begin the process by completing an entry form that is available on the Paris Fashion Festival website. 

The second step is to confirm an agreement to the terms and conditions that the submission will go by. 

The third step will be to pay the entry fee using a payment method that has been authorized. 

Select the language for subtitles which is either English or French. 

Finally send a link to the film. The link can either be Vimeo URL or YouTube. 

Awards

Butler-Adam 2017 (p.1) defines awards as non-material extrinsic compensation that takes the form of medals, decoration and prizes, that have widely been used in film festivals to recognize artists’ efforts, progress, and achievements in a particular film genre. According to () awards in film festivals have become global cultural icons that signify popularity and success in a certain film. As such, the Paris Fashion Film Festival will have awards under the below categories:

Best emerging talent

Best Fashion

Best stylist 

Best Costume Design

Best sound

Best Hair stylist 

Best concept of creativity 

Best fashion film direction 

Best actor

Best actress

Best picture

Best Makeup

Best Fashion message

Best Fashion Accessories 

Programming Strategy of the Festival

Simmonds (2018, p.10) reveals that curating or rather programming is an essential part of the film culture that is obvious for every film festival. This stems from the fact that a film festival has to consider a number of factors among them the events and programs, if any, and the types and lengths of films that will be showcased. Notably, the overall driving factor for the festival is to celebrate icons in the fashion and film industry. Furthermore, one of the submission policies for the festival is that the films must be fashion-oriented. Fashion plays a critical role in the film industry and so the festival seeks to celebrate it via both short and long films. 

On the first day of the festival the films in line include a 30-minutes show of iconic award winners in other global and iconic festivals such as the London Film Festival. The short film is intended to motivate the audience of the great diversity in fashion and the milestones of the fashion film industry up to the modern day. The second line up in the program is dramatic competition. This category will feature some of the world’s best drama films that have an outstanding sense of fashion. The other category will be documentaries. Based on the policies of the Paris Fashion Festival, this category is made of films that are run less than 30 minutes; mostly between 2-20 minutes. The documentary category will feature non-fiction 15 films. The aim of these films is to offer a first look into the Parisian films illuminating the creativity and ideas of the local and international issues that shape the present-day fashion industry. The programing strategy will also include a spotlight category. Particularly, the strategy aims to pay tribute to the fallen heroes of the fashion film industry and remind of their great contributions. This category is made of films that have premiered globally. The other strategy to be considered for the program of the festival is a mix of the various cultures and nationalities. As such, each nationality represented will have a chance to showcase the progress of the fashion industry in its specific nation. This will help appreciate the contributions of various countries towards the fashion and film industry. 

In addition to the major concept of the fashion film festival, there are will be other events whose purpose is to support the overall aim of the festival. Needless to say, fashion cuts across ages and so does the film industry. As such besides the showcasing of events, there will also be sale of souvenirs from the festival. These include clothes, accessories, hairs, books, and jewelry. The overall aim of these other shows and events is to show the milestones achieved in the industry. There will also be live runaways where models of various fashion brands will showcase the variety of apparels used for various films in the industry. Finally, the other significant event of the festival is the kids. Often children are forgotten yet both film and fashion cuts across all ages. This event will show the contributions of the young artists and children in the fashion and film industry. 

The Paris Fashion Festival is both an audience and market festival. From a standpoint of market, the festival is a platform where local and international film makers in the fashion industry will market their skills, products, and services. As such, the platform will be a center for networking between various film makers in the industry. On the other hand, the festival will be audience-oriented in that it celebrates the authenticity and reality of various arts and cultures in the fashion industry. 

Audience

The Paris Fashion film festival is intended for various audience, particularly those in the fashion and film industry. The guest list is made of filmmakers and celebrities, fashion houses or brands, fashion designers, social media influencers in the film and fashion industry, upcoming fashion designers, financiers and investors of the film and fashion industry, creatives, Production and studio companies, and sponsorship guests. The audience has to be people aged 18 years and above. In addition, they are both local and international. Inclusive in the attendance are media houses and photographers. The festival will be appealing to the audience because to each the film will serve a particular purpose or meet a certain need. For instance, for the fashion designers, the festival will be a platform to market their work both locally and internationally. To another group in attendance, such as financiers and investors, they will be able to identify independent fashion filmmakers as well as clothing brands with which they can work for financial returns in the future. 

Film Festival Landscape

Paris Fashion Film Festival focusses on re-using what is already in existence. For instance, regarding the venue of the event. Le Grand Palais, much changes are not needed because the place has unique architecture that are used as a creative driving force. Van der Linden (2017, p, 187) in his study reveals that film festivals of the 21st Century no longer happen as a cultural practice but instead serve as a platform to link individuals to various public spheres. Also based on the fact that fashion films are diffused based on the festivals and online platforms, their means of distribution is close to that f short films. Similarly, the Paris Fashion Film Festival will take into account such factors in order to fit the fashion film landscape as well as the industry. 

Also, looking at the existing festival circuit, the Paris Fashion Film festival will be an addition to the famous Cannes International Film Festival. Usually, the international film attracts international attention but is not particularly on the genre of fashion. As such, this festival will be a showcase of specialization. The Cannes International Film Festival is one of the five world-class or rather globally recognized films in the industry (Craig 2018, p. 5). When it takes place, it gets a lot of local and international media which is critical for marketing of France to the world. Paris will also market the city and its artist to the world. 

Financing

One of the critical aspects in film festivals is financing. The funding for the Paris Fashion Film Festival will be both private and public. Looking at the history of the Cannes Festival, the event has always been financed by both the public and private sectors. The rationale behind the funding stems from the fact that both private and public investors consider fashion and film industry a great source of revenue for France and Paris in general. Also, the festival will apply to a particular scheme; the Creative Europe Desk UK. At its core the Creative Europe Desk UK is involved in two major responsibilities; support for European film festivals and support for networks in Europe that are film-oriented (Support to Film Festivals - EACEA - European Commission, 2020). The scheme allows or rather supports up to 60% of the costs of the project. Film festivals can apply for funds up to 500,00 Euros. The scheme is promising because the European Council sets funds aside to support creatives on an annual basis. Statistics reveal that in 2020, the European Council set aside approximately 4 million European pounds to fund such projects as the upcoming Paris Fashion Film Festival (Film Festivals | Creative Europe Desk UK, 2020). The festival is expected to generate money also from the sale of tickets. To run the entire festival, an approximate of 100,000 Euros are needed. Research reveals that fashion film festivals need to be financially sustainable. As such, marketability of the festival must be highly considered to ensure that A-list talent is attracted. This can sequentially be beneficial as the festival will get sponsors for funding the programs and events of the festival, across the public and private sectors. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Paris Fashion Film Festival will have a significant impact on the fashion film genre. Overall, the festival is a platform for artists to market and sell their ideas as well as for the celebration of culture and milestones the industry has achieved. Through the dialectic space and the concept of sustainability, the fashion film festival will maintain its attractiveness as well as have a great perception of the fashion film industry. 

References

Boca do Lobo's inspirational world. 2020.  The Best French Fashion Designers . [online] Available at: https://www.bocadolobo.com/blog/fashion/best-french-fashion-designers/

Butler-Adam, J., 2017. Worlds of awards.  South African Journal of Science ,  113 (7-8), pp.1-1.

Craig, B., 2018.  Cannes-A Festival Virgin's Guide: Attending the Cannes Film Festival, for Filmmakers and Film Industry Professionals . Cinemagine Media Publishing.

Creativeeuropeuk.eu. 2020.  Film Festivals | Creative Europe Desk UK . [online] Available at: https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funding-opportunities/film-festivals

EACEA - European Commission. 2020.  Support To Film Festivals - EACEA - European Commission . [online] Available at: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe/actions/media/creative-europe-media-film-festivals_en

Jenkins, T. ed., 2018.  International Film Festivals: contemporary cultures and history beyond Venice and Cannes . Bloomsbury Publishing.

Simmonds, H.A., 2018. Curating the Cinematic Muse: The Role of Programming in the Film Festival Experience-The 40th Toronto International Film Festival.

Steele, V. ed., 2019.  Paris, Capital of Fashion . Bloomsbury Publishing.

van der Linden, J. (2017). Fashion film festivals: Shifting perspectives on fashion in one of the world’s dirtiest industries.  NECSUS. European Journal of Media Studies ,  6 (2), 189-196.

Sterrett, E., 2017. Modes of Address: The Fashion Print as Passe-Partout.  Getty Research Journal ,  9 (1), pp.23-38.

VanderPloeg, A.J. and Lee, S.E., 2018. The role of the creative director in sustaining the luxury brand.  Fashion, Style & Popular Culture ,  5 (3), pp.343-358.