As film has became an prevalent entertainment around the world, the film festivals worldwide also become the hot topics towards movie lovers. In Hong Kong, most of the Hongkongers would know about Festival de Cannes (known as 康城影展 in Hong Kong). However, it is only the edge of the iceberg, there are numerous film festivals around the world!

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the first festival began at Venice, 1932. Then, in 1946, the most well-known film festival: Festival de Cannes held in Cannes for the identifcation of achievement on arts. These two festivals were accredited by FIAPF as "Competitive film festivals". Besides of that, FIAPF also accredits film festivals into these catagories: Competitive, Competitive Specialised, Non-Competitive and Documentary/Short Film.

W-wait! What is FIAPF?

FIAPF, it is an organisation established in 1933. For the film festivals, it aims to unify those producers, sales agents and distributors in those film festivals. Also it established a standard called "International Film Festivals Regulations" to supervise those festivals' qualities and make sure they had reach industries' expectations.

These standards included:

• Good year-round organisational resources
• Genuinely international selections of films and competition juries
• Good facilities for servicing international press correspondents
• Stringent measures to prevent theft or illegal copying of films
• Evidence of support from the local film industry
• Insurance of all film copies against loss, theft or damage
• High standards for official publications and information management (catalogue, programmes, fliers)

(Quoted from FIAPF offical website)

Just like I mentioned above, FIAPF would categorized some film festivals into four categories, Competitive, Competitive Specialised, Non-Competitive and Documentary/Short Film. To gain the accreditation from FIAPF, they need to fulfil some regulations stated by FIAPF, such as the highest number of screenings or the duty of asking for any additional screenings.

Moreover, the FIAPF also have a classification system for their members to know which festivals are the most worth going. At the first time, only Cannes and Venice got the highest remark, which means the class "A" festival. Time flows, now there are more film festivals got the reputations of class "A", included Cannes, Berlin, Venice, San Sebastian, Montreal, Karlovy Vary, Tokyo, Moscow, Mar del Plata, Shanghai, Locarno and Cairo and they all also belonged to the group of "Competitive feature film festivals".

As you can see, due to the censorship and accreditations of FIAPF, big film festivals in worldwide could be more organised. Moreover, the "A" class film festivals' is accredited as they fulfil all the regulations and supervisions, its quality would be guaranteed. They would had more influences to the whole film industries too as you can see that news report often notice the circumstances of those A-class festivals.

What about Hong Kong?

For Hong Kong, we also had the HKIFF, as known as the "Hong Kong International Film Festival", which established in 1977, is one of the oldest film festival in Asia. According to the official website, it has already "screening over 300 titles from 50 countries in 11 major cultural venues in Hong Kong". As same as the Tokyo International Film Festival, the HKIFF also has became a big event for Hong Kong's movie industries and mass media.

In 2010, HKIFF will be started from 21 March to 6 April. Enjoy!

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