Ithaca College

Patricia Zimmermann, Professor of Screen Studies and Co-director of the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, delivered an invited lecture at UCLA on May 5.

Her lecture discussed the structures, strategies, interfaces, design, and programming innovations of the 24th Annual Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival as it transformed to a 100% virtual for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The presentation elaborated on the complex contexts and contradictions of the pandemic that precipitated a tectonic shift in festivals and the media industries worldwide, disrupting traditional practices but opening up new opportunities, especially for smaller and mid-sized organizations, that will be long-lasting. 

The lecture elaborated on the affordances of virtual festivals to increase accessibility, to expand global reach for audiences beyond one’s embodied community, to access a more international and multicultural range of works and guests, to expand the time for dialogue, debate and more intellectual depth, and to convene more heterogeneous audiences in one virtual space. Zimmermann also discussed the increase in national and international partnerships for FLEFF during the pandemic.

She also conducted a workshop with MA and PHD students in the film school to discuss career paths beyond the academy in festivals, archives, museums, and in journalism.