Film festivals are not given prominence in the Nigerian Film Industry. Most of us film industry practitioners attend reputable Film Festivals outside the country. Our government sponsors some people that have attended Toronto, Cannes, Berlin e.t.c but find it too difficult to grow the local film festival. This is not the case in some of these countries’ whose Film Festivals we attend. For instance the French government supports French Cannes festival with 50℅ of the budget because of the tourism and growth of their film industry.
The festival’s budget is about $22 million. Half of the funding comes from French taxpayers, the other half comes from corporate sponsors, according to france24.
Film festival is the only platform that attract most film industry practitioners to a particular country for some days, and the big ones last for two weeks and give opportunities for collaboration, film market etc.
Every government want to develop their tourism industry, and film festivals contribute so much in this area.
The population of California is less than 38 million but they have over 85 film festivals, including Hollywood and others, and generated $144.9 Billion in 2019 from tourism alone. These platforms attract over 250 million visitors annually. All their film festivals are under the California film commission that support and help them to flourish every year. Film festivals are too important for any country’s film industry to grow faster.
