Independent film culture doesn’t exist in a vacuum. While the big hitters can rely heavily on the power of a big old studio release — One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson), for example, came out this year without premiering at any film festival at all— film festivals are crucial for fostering new and exciting talents. It’s basically what Journey Into Cinema — which is a film festival site first, with a smattering of traditional press releases in between — is all about, celebrating the cinematic spaces that make moviegoing so special. That’s why this year’s prompt is all about everyone’s film festival experiences of the year. Stretching from London to Tallinn (twice!) to Austria, our picks celebrate the magic of in-person gatherings in a world atomised by algorithmic streaming platforms and an increasingly degrading online media ecosystem. We hope it inspires future journeys and more films discovered in person! Say no to online, head on down to the kino.
Joseph Owen: Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
In my round-up of the excellent Black Nights Film Festival, which I attended in November, I described Tallinn as “gorgeous, in all its briskness and easy familiarity.” I was feeling pretty low, and an ultra-social film gathering, replete with wine receptions and hobnobbing, filled my shaky disposition with mild dread. Once I had arrived, however, I couldn’t have been treated much better. The press officers were helpful and communicative, and I had the pleasure of getting to know a fellow critic, Paul Risker, whose all-round decent demeanour offered an invaluable tonic to my severe case of morose self-indulgence.
Rather than make merry, I swam each night on the top floor of the Nordic, our swanky hotel, embodying a (let’s face it, funny) visual metaphor for soul cleansing and moral restoration. I made sure to traverse the Old Town one morning after a screening, and while idling in the square, I encountered a full-sized figure in a doorway, a pig-tailed young girl swaddled in a matching Christmas jumper-scarf-mitten ensemble. Bizarrely, I wondered if some words would pass between us. A pause, a passing expectation, but silence. This encounter, strange as it was, steadied me for the rest of my time there. By the end, I left more hopeful than how I had entered, and maybe next year, I’ll see that monstrosity again.
Redmond Bacon: Crossing Europe
Sitting on the Danube in the middle of Europe, Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade floating downstream, Linz — also a short hike from the infamous Braunau am Inn, the birthplace of Herr Hitler himself — is the perfect small town for a genuinely Gemütlich film festival experience like Crossing Europe (feature).
Film highlights: April (Dea Kulumbegashvili, 2024), Christy (Brendan Canty, 2025), a programme dedicated to shorts from Upper Austria, Under the Volcano (Damien Kocur, 2024), Vitić Dances (Boris Bakal, 2023).
Culinary highlights: a Kafka bosna (still not sure what was in it) at a famous wurstlstand, Weiner Schnitzel at the Stiegl-Kolsterhoff, several beers at Cafe Strom.
Plus, a lively crowd of talented directors, critics, and plenty of funny Austrians and Slovenians, making for a wonderful and very typical Central European vibe. Yet the true highlight of the trip was getting stranded by Deutsche Bahn in Nuremberg for a night, giving me the chance the next day to wander alone in one of Europe’s most misunderstood yet beguiling cities — so much more than just the home of Nazi trials.
Read our Crossing Europe coverage!
David Katz: BFI Film Festival
You must never forget where you came from… The BFI London Film Festival is my favourite by default, because it taught me what film festivals were. I’d spent my late-teenage years, before first attending in 2010, rubbernecking at the Reading, Glastonbury and All Tomorrow’s Parties festivals, and I was surprised by what cinema and music events had in common — their combination of electric vibe, timely looks at often-great art, and ad-hoc sociability. I was primed for my new cultural obsession by my previous one.
Not all my subsequent visits to the LFF were “electric,” and, sure, that initial reaction must’ve been beginner’s luck. Once I fortunately started attending festivals abroad for work, the LFF became a less stressful way to enjoy a similar experience on my doorstep. Other years, it reminded me that it’s preferable to hit several eclectic international ones, if you’re so lucky, rather than have your cinephile year concentrated there. But for me, and the UK capital’s wider film culture, it abides, with ticket sales booming year-on-year; it’s also the only one I can share with friends and family (for whom it became a cinema gateway drug, as well).
Paul Risker: Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
We’re living in a time where film critics are defined as the “enemy,” or so the way publicists, distributors and festivals treat the profession suggests as much. We have become tools in a workshop to be picked up and put down as and when we are useful. Or another analogy might be that we are toys in a sandbox, those shiny objects a publicist, distributor or festival will want to play with, at least until a shinier object comes along. Yes, being a film critic is pretty much like being back in the school playground… oh, the joy!
Of the festivals I’ve attended in-person, there’s one that stands out: Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. The 2025 edition was only my second time on the ground in the Estonian capital, after covering the festival remotely since 2020.
In each of the past two years, Triin Tramberg has programmed a consistently interesting First Feature Competition. What’s striking about PÖFF is their willingness to simply give films and filmmakers a chance to find an audience. Every year they programme films that you quietly question how other, bigger festivals hadn’t programmed these films. In cinema as in life, all anyone is asking for is a chance, and PÖFF gives some deserving films and filmmakers that opportunity. In the current landscape where fewer films make it into cinemas, and where finding distribution is increasingly difficult, despite the plethora of streaming platforms, festivals are the beating heart of film culture. They allow filmmakers the opportunity to share their films with an audience, which is why one makes a film in the first place.
There’s, of course, the mix of discoveries across the various strands, but those that elevate PÖFF’s appeal are the Critics’ Picks Competitions, all world premieres, Best of the Festivals that brings together some of the current festival darlings, and the Screen International Critics’ Choice, highlighting some of the year’s gems.
My second experience of PÖFF was one in which I felt valued as a member of the press by the team and the festival at large. Most things are easy-going, from access to press and public screenings to interviews. Unlike experiences at other festivals, where access to interviews is growing increasingly difficult, a concern echoed by other journalists, Tallinn is one of the more accommodating. It’s also one where an in-house team run it, and where publicists thankfully have less of a dominant and oppressive presence.
The downside, however, was the absence of Journey into Cinema’s editor-in-chief Redmond Bacon this year1I did not tell him to write this (ed)., who was a good tour guide on my first trip, pointing out the Gentlemen’s Club to avoid, and introducing me to a nice little bar off the festival track run by the guy who used to be Tallinn radio’s premier rock music host. However, in his place came the genuinely nice chap Joseph Owen, who laughed at way too many of my bad jokes. After all, the fun of a festival is not only the films, but the connections and, hopefully, lifelong friends you make.
Read our Tallinn coverage here.
Earl Peterson: None
I don’t like film festivals. Never have. Would rather sit at home and watch the football.