Film festivals can feature both short and feature length films, films from big name directors to emerging film school talent. It’s this open and diverse platform that has allowed some of our biggest named directors to shine through.
The annual Cambridge Film Festival is here again and it brings with it the opportunity to discover new filmmaking talent. Cambridge self-storage provider, Storebox, wanted to shine a light on the festival and its potential to discover the next big name, by highlighting just a few that have broke through on the festival scene.
Christopher Nolan
Back in 1996 a young Christopher Nolan entered his student short into the Cambridge Film Festival, since then he has been featured at some of the biggest film festivals in the industry.
Nolan’s 2000 film Memento premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and received critical acclaim. Christopher Nolan is now one of Hollywood’s biggest directors, delivering some of the biggest cinematic masterpieces from the last 10 years, such as Inception and Interstellar.
Wes Anderson
The director of cult classics such as The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel, premiered his short, Bottle Rocket, back in 1993. Despite the feature length version meeting criticism, Wes Anderson has since continued to create visually stunning and quirky feature length films.
Steven Soderbergh
Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape saw major success at Sundance, which later resulted in the film being featured at Cannes and winning the coveted Palme d’Or.
Steven Soderbergh has continued to develop a successful and diverse filmmaking career, directing films such as Magic Mike, Ocean’s Eleven and Side Effects.
Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky is now better known for his multi-award winning film Black Swan featuring Natalie Portman. However, back in 1998 his black and white drama Pi, made waves as the Sundance Film Festival.
The film won Aronofsky the directing award, and set him on the road to making some of the most critically acclaimed movies of the last decade.
The Coen Brothers
Way back in 1985 the Coen brothers burst onto the scene at Sundance with their film Blood Simple.
Now the filmmaking duo are some of the biggest names in the independent film industry and are often associated with high quality cinema. With films such as No Country For Old Men and the remake of True Grit under their belt, the brothers continue to make critically acclaimed films.
Quentin Tarantino
The king of independent cinema, Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs was a cinematic game changer.
Despite the film failing to collect any awards, the buzz surrounding it spread and made people in the industry take notice of the up and coming director. Now Tarantino has a huge repertoire of actors that jump at the chance to work with him, and a cult following like no other filmmaker.
Film festivals continue to be a platform for young and fresh filmmakers to grab an audience for their work.
