Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made

by Kenneth Turan

Almost every day of the year a film festival takes place somewhere in the world--from sub-Saharan Africa to the Land of the Midnight Sun. Sundance to Sarajevo is a tour of the world's film festivals by an insider whose familiarity with the personalities, places, and culture surrounding the cinema makes him uniquely suited to his role. Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times, writes about the most unusual as well as the most important film festivals, and the cities in which they occur, with an eye toward the larger picture. His lively narrative emphasizes the cultural, political, and sociological aspects of each event as well as the human stories that influence the various and telling ways the film world and the real world intersect.

Of the festivals profiled in detail, Cannes and Sundance are obvious choices as the biggest, brashest, and most influential of the bunch. The others were selected for their ability to open a window onto a wider, more diverse world and cinema's place in it. Sometimes, as with Sarajevo and Havana, film is a vehicle for understanding the international political community's most vexing dilemmas. Sometimes, as with Burkina Faso's FESPACO and Pordenone's Giornate del Cinema Muto, it's a chance to examine the very nature of the cinematic experience. But always the stories in this book show us that film means more and touches deeper chords than anyone might have expected. No other book explores so many different festivals in such detail or provides a context beyond the merely cinematic.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Kenneth Turan is the film critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR’s Morning Edition, as well as the director of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. He has been a staff writer for the Washington Post and TV Guide, and served as the Times’ book review editor. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, he is the co-author of Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke. Turan teaches film reviewing and non-fiction writing at USC and is on the board of directors of the National Yiddish Book Center. His most recent books include Free for All: Joe Papp, The Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told and Never Coming To A Theater Near You. Turan lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Reviews

[Neil R. Coulter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sundance to Sarajevo is a great bit of journalism at film festivals around the world. I had no idea there were so many, nor that each festival has its own distinctive character. Kenneth Turan was the film critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR, and he attended many, many festivals over several decades. His perspective is especially insightful because he was working as a critic in the years that many of the now-dominant festivals were just starting, so he saw them from the beginning. I appreciated that his writing about each festival demonstrates a fond affection for each place and the people involved. In his career as a critic and traveler, he didn’t become jaded or numb to the wonder of filmgoing.

I was reading this in preparation for Sundance this year, but I couldn’t put the book down. I enjoyed learning about every festival Turan features—including a few that I’d love to visit someday.

[PJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I need to attend the Midnight Sun Film Festival!

[William Torgerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was the vessel that gave me a taste of what it would be like to spend the year on the film festival circuit. What an adventure! Turan's a smart and expert narrator. As a professor, I can only read so many sentences about parties and drugs done. Turan avoids this and brings a critical eye to the films and the fests that I appreciated.

I went online and found the Iff (International Film Festival Magazine) because of this book. I read up on European history because of this book. There's four or five festivals I'll attend in the years to come after reading this book. Good stuff. Read it fast!

[Raf Linmans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice insight in the different kind of filmfestivals that exist around the world.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

An informative and personal history of film festivals and their longstanding impact on the world of entertainment, this book meanders around the world and delves into Turan’s 20+ years of covering film for the likes of the LA Times. Obviously, films are Turan’s passion, and it shows with how well he analyzes the festivals’ impact on the industry and, as a whole, film’s transformative power.