AwardsWatch - New York Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and Venice Film Festival unite in support of film culture

New York Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and Venice Film Festival unite in support of film culture

The Toronto International Film Festival released today an official letter of solidarity with three other international film festivals, with each organization committing to cooperation, information sharing, and support of one another’s global events.

“The art form we love is in crisis,” the statement reads in part. “Our own organizations have seen unprecedented challenges to our work and our financial security. The pandemic caught each of us as we were preparing for the biggest event of our year in the fall of 2020. We knew we had to adapt. We decided to collaborate as we never have before.”

The New York Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and Venice Film Festival have all endured financial challenges amid the health pandemic. As a result, it has been essential for each organization to reimagine the delivery of its film festival to its audiences.

“This year, we moved away from competing with our colleagues at autumn festivals and committed instead to collaboration,” the statement continues. “We are offering our festivals as a united platform for the best cinema we can find. We’re here to serve the filmmakers, audiences, journalists and industry members who keep the film ecosystem thriving. We need to do that together.”

Here is the letter:

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.