UNICA MM-XYZ?

A forum for sharing views on the art of film, video and AV sequence making as well as on competitions, judging and festivals.
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Pqtrick
Posts: 145
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2007 6:14 pm
Location: Warwickshire

UNICA MM-XYZ?

Post by Pqtrick »

I was surprised to see that provisionally, Korea is to host UNICA again in a couple of years. I have nothing against that part of the world, it does give and the possibility of a journey of a lifetime, if it was missed the first time around.

There must be very good reasons. But why not Royaume Unis or La France? Is it cost, capacity or just the logistics of the organisation of the festival?

Now spammers, I have noted a couple of times someone has tagged something within one of my threads a message which contained in the text, a link to a presumably dubious site.

Tell them all, that Dave is on guard and they will be down in no time. It must be annoying for him to have to spend time dealing with these nuisances – Thanks.

[I have just read the previous post – but I'll leave my message as is] PW
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Dave Watterson
Posts: 1872
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 11:11 pm
Location: Bath, England
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Re: UNICA MM-XYZ?

Post by Dave Watterson »

If you spot such a subversion of your text - please alert me by email on asstweb@theiac.org.uk at once and leave it there until I can examine it.
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As for UNICA ... yes it is very expensive. I have heard estimates from 40,000 to 60,000 Euros as the cost to the host nation. That means it is only practical to hold it where there is significant financial support from sponsorship or from the state.

Yes it demands hard work from a lot of people. Running a one day or a one weekend festival for 100 people is hard enough. Running a week or ten day festival for around 300 people ... Reg Lancaster often says it would need at least 20 people who had visited a couple of UNICA festivals and were able to do the work. The "able" part means young and fit enough to handle it and in a position to devote a huge chunk of their time to the preparation and event.

About a year before each festival there is a meeting of the UNICA Council in the host city, during which they examine all the facilities, try out the travel arrangements, test the outings and so on. That means those facilities must all be available to the organisers ... and that they have to arrange somewhere for the Council to meet.

UK delegates to UNICA are often around the 18-20 mark, but include some of our senior members whose enthusiasm is undoubted, but who could not promise, a few years beforehand, to undertake the hard work concerned. The same is true for France. At this moment 21 French and 19 British delegates are signed up for the next UNICA - Switzerland in 2010.

It is possible to host it IF you have the contacts to ensure the necessary support. Alas it was before my time but Bernard Hausberger's club once organised UNICA at Mayerhofen using all his many, many contacts, friends and colleagues. It was a huge event and made a profit!

I dream of bringing UNICA to the UK. London would be far too costly, both for venues and hotels. My home town of Bath has some things going for it. Glasgow with its many newish arenas would be a strong possibility. Manchester could host it. But when you start to look at that sort of detail you see another issue. It is not just that we need 20 committed people ... but most of them would have to come from the area concerned. No matter how keen I might be in the South-West of England, if the event were in Glasgow it would mean a 7 hour trip each way for all the preliminary work. You really need lots of enthusiasts on the spot.

The South Korean film organisation seems to have a lot of pull with its government and to get a lot of support that way. The Swiss event is the swansong of the long-serving UNICA president, Max Haensli, who is pulling all the strings he has in the business community. Luxemburg which hosts UNICA 2011 is a tight-knit, small country these days and thanks to EU administration being based there can obtain sponsorship support locally.

- Dave
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