Film festivals: the ultimate destination

Published January 23, 2013 · Updated December 26, 2020

Photos by Nils Wanberg. Kon-Tiki directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg with Thor Heyerdahl’s book The Tigris Expedition.

Featuring photos of the Kon-Tiki cast and crew at the Scandinavian Film Festival in Los Angeles, Calif.

Larrie Wanberg

N.D. Contributing Editor

An epic film attached to a location or an event in history is said to be the greatest draw to attract droves of tourists to relive the story or be in proximity with celebrities in the performing arts.

Travel and tourism industry is the world’s largest service-sector industry and the film industry, especially film festivals, is becoming the most exciting appeal for destinations that combine stories of culture, history and sheer entertainment.

Trends in cinematic storytelling have evolved from an interesting history, dating back to the 1932 when the first major film festival was held in Venice, Italy. Early American films from the 1920s generally exported films into the International marketplace, while importing foreign films developed in the mid 1950s.

Photos by Nils Wanberg. Tobias Santelmann portrayed Knut Haugland in Kon-Tiki. He is interviewed by NRK.

Photos by Nils Wanberg. Kon-Tiki star Pål Sverre Hagen also attended the film festival.

These origins progressively grew into the three prestigious International film festivals in Europe: Cannes, Berlin and Venice, where tourists flocked for the excitement that films offer.

Today, all eyes are now waiting for the 85th Academy Awards on Feb. 24th. The upcoming telecast is a far cry from the first Academy banquet in 1929, when 270 members, each paying $5, witnessed the first Oscar Awards.

It seems that the concept of filmmaking is coming full circle since the first film festival in 1950 that organized the “Chris Awards” in an ongoing search for excellence in visual media. Short, first-person, placed-based stories are a rapidly growing segment of filmmaking in a digital age and these cinematic stories are becoming a primary marketing tool in the tourism and entertainment industries.