Ahead of kicking off the 34th edition of Raindance Film Festival, founder Elliot Grove still keeps the event’s original mission ethos to his chest. Raindance, the largest independent film festival in the U.K., was born out of a desire to platform underseen and upcoming talent. Last year, the festival ballooned after a few scaled-down editions, with a whopping 90% increase in feature films. This year, the festival will screen 85 features, 112 short films and 27 immersive projects between June 17-26, with 56% of features coming from first-time directors.
Speaking with Variety ahead of opening night, Grove says growth is important, but that “bigger is not automatically better.” “What interests us is whether the festival remains useful to filmmakers and exciting for audiences. The increase in submissions and features reflects something happening globally: more people are making films outside the traditional system because the traditional system itself is becoming harder to access.”
The festival head emphasizes that his team is careful about “maintaining curation and identity.” “A festival can easily become bloated or anonymous,” he adds. “We work very hard to ensure that every selected film feels like it earned its place. We want audiences wandering into films they knew nothing about and leaving transformed by them. That sense of discovery is still the heart of Raindance.”
