The Film Festival Academy has been established with the intention of becoming a credible, ethical, flexible and truly international community network platform for film festival professionals (and all other constituents involved or interested in the film festival world), providing a neutral space for knowledge exchange, vocational training and actual collaboration. Primarily the operation will entail specially curated and specifically themed industry events run at and with international film festivals, where the festival hosts the events but the Film Festival Academy, after discussions with the festivals regarding actual content and formats etc, takes the main responsibility in programming, organising and delivering the event. (We will also be working with other hosts and collaborative partners, such as film institutes, film schools, etc.) The events are therefore genuinely collaborative in nature, co-produced by the Film Festival Academy and the hosting festival etc. The plan is to have 4–6 high-profile events across the world, throughout the year, added to by other 'branded' smaller events as and when strategically appropriate. In parallel to this, many online services and activities will include the events being accessible somehow (whether via video broadcast and/or digital podcast and/or edited transcripts), various means of festival professionals' interconnectivity (much like an industry-specific LinkedIn), a diverse range of publications related to film festivals (from academic, film critical, and trade journalistic texts to official industry reports and festivals' own materials), and daily film industry and festival news etc. All this means that the Film Festival Academy will be a truly unique operation as no other organisation has functioning online and offline means of delivering services, activities and content, being truly of use to a very wide range of constituents.
