Diwali is really a happy time. It’s a festival of lights. That’s the only time when the entire family comes together and celebrates together.
The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries, Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation.
Warped Tour is completely in a league of its own. It’s this crazy cross between a real, full tour and a festival.
I got nominated for my second film as best young director in the Aikido Film Festival in Japan.
Id is the festival which I celebrate wholeheartedly. I love to celebrate it with family and friends.
My favorite festival beauty look is definitely braids and hats: a messy fishtail braid and a cute outfit, and I’m ready!
The Festival of Books is indeed a well-oiled machine, one which leaves most of the other literary festivals in America, including vaunted Brooklyn’s, in the dust.
Deepavali is my ‘favouritest’ festival. More than Pongal or New Year’s, this is the time we all come together as family and celebrate.
I saw Dolly Parton play at the Glastonbury Festival to about 120,000 people. It was an ocean of human beings. I was a mile away from the stage, and I swear to God, I could feel her energy.
Wow, a left-wing leader getting a good reception at a rock festival. What kind of crazy world is it we live in that that kind of thing happens?
I organize a chess festival in Hungary. I support chess in schools, and I have my own chess foundation. And I started writing books.
I’ve always been against the idea of dividing films between festival titles and popular movies. I think you can make films that are both.
The whole idea of a festival to me is that filmmakers get to interact. You see someone strolling, you get to meet them and tell them you like their work, you admire their story.
To be invited to the Park – the greatest free Shakespeare festival in the world – is a great honor, and I don’t take it lightly.
The Rotterdam Film Festival really makes you feel like part of a film family.
I don’t ever take anything for granted. I know… people would kill for the opportunity to play on festival stages and whatnot.
I remember playing with John Zorn and Ikue Mori in Taiwan in a school classroom. There were, like, 15 people there, maybe, and they were sitting at the classroom desks, and we played under the chalkboard. There’s no difference between playing that and the ‘download’ festival.
At a festival like Coachella, you’re not necessarily playing for your fans. You’re playing to some, but there is also a lot of people that have maybe heard one of your songs, but aren’t quite fans yet, so you feel like you have something to prove.
You know, Equal Interest played at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival Awards and not one musician from that category was even thought of. Even thought of! The idea, that here’s this vital energy, and that element doesn’t even know it exists!
One of the nicest things to do in Kingston on a Sunday is eat johnnycake, Festival and fish at Hellshire Beach.
I grew up in a chawl where the ganpati festival is celebrated in a big way.
I love the Cannes Film Festival. From the lavish parties and events to the red carpet attire, this star-studded week-long event is where I get a lot of inspiration for hair and fashion.
As my mother is a Kerala Brahmin and my father a Kerala Nair, every day in the house is like a religious festival.
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holy of holies of Jewish time. It is that rarest of phenomena, a Jewish festival without food. Instead it is a day of fasting and prayer, introspection and self-judgment when, collectively and repeatedly, we confess our sins and pray to be written into God’s Book of Life.
In Toronto, the film festival is like a carnival… entire families come to it.
I was invited to do an all-female improv festival in Portland called All Jane, No Dick. The person running it asked me if I had a female improv team, and I just said yes and then figured out who I would want to bring with me. We had such a fun show together that we decided that we should keep doing it.
When I do the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I always go across to Loch Ness and stay there.
I met Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu years ago during my college days, and I was in charge of international promotion of this movie festival he was invited to as part of the jury, and then he saw my work on a short film that was directed by a friend of mine.
Burning Man is a crowning achievement of freedom in festival culture.
When the fearsome foursome of rock music, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis, decided to show up in Toronto for a rock and roll festival, I knew we had to go there to try to get them all on film.
This worldwide spread of recognition is insane. I was brought up in a small country. If you made a Swedish film that just got into a film festival somewhere, that was like the biggest thing you could wish for.
We program the festival, after 20 years, exactly the way we did on the first day.
Because I’ve a track record of talking about books I never write, in Australia they think I’m about to write a book about Jane Austen. Something I said at some festival.
Being at a film festival reminds me of the power of film. The power that we have in our hands. Telling specific stories about personal matters can start the debate that is needed today, and that connect you with realities that you had no idea were connected.
I’ve been a part of Margazhi festival even as a little boy. I used to accompany my mom to concerts held by the Music Academy.
I performed in Sydney some years ago for the Sydney Festival and I am just so pleased to be returning to the wonderful Sydney Opera House and also performing in Melbourne for the first time.
It’s strange to play outdoors, especially in the daytime. But we’re figuring it out. The rules are different for festival shows – how you talk to the crowd, how you can try to get them involved. Things are just a little different, and I think we’ve learned to adapt our show.
Once the festival achieved a certain level of notoriety, then people began to come here with agendas that were not the same as ours. We can’t do anything about that. We can’t control that.
I’ve been going to Europe for some time on the festival circuit, and once you get in that element and see others reacting to it, it’s easier to understand. You get trapped in the wave. The beats are driving and super-aggressive – like, so hard. I was curious.
What bothers me about red carpet, particularly Cannes, is that it’s an extremely important festival where stunning films are shown and nothing of that ever comes in papers. It’s always celebrities standing with one hand on waist, I don’t know who decided that as an attractive position.
I dug up some old John Buscema ‘Conan’ comics. Man, when Alfredo Alcala was inking, that was some of the most beautiful black and white comic art ever published. The stories are good, too, though early ’70s comics based on Conan is a festival of sexist, racist stereotypes.
The Monte Carlo TV Festival is great because it’s a celebration of television and great storytelling.
I did a tour down South someplace, and it was an all-day festival, and there were about 2,000 people. It was pouring down rain, and I went to grab the mic, and I got electrocuted. I felt the electricity flow through my body.
Well I went to New Orleans to cover the jazz festival for Trio, it’s this new arts channel, it’s really great.
For a writer, the Book Festival is interesting because you bump into all these other writers whose work you know, whose names you know, and you have a chance to put a person with the name and the work.
Having my film premiere in Cannes has always been the ultimate dream for me. It is a combination of the elegance of the festival, the setting and the quality of films that premiere there.
I’m about to go to Sundance for my 3rd year, and Sundance has never felt like a real independent festival at all. On the other hand, it might to start feel that way.
I did do some Shakespeare on film, it’s really difficult. It’s really interesting, because I was doing a series in Canada called ‘Slings and Arrows’ and it was about a company based around the Stratford Festival.
I used to do a lot of serious theatre during my school and college days. Comedy was only reserved for youth festival and inter-college competitions. Then once ‘The Great Indian Laughter Challenge’ was launched, a regional channel in Punjab started a program based on that. I participated in it and emerged as the winner.
I was acting before I was modelling, when I was very young, doing the Edinburgh Festival and that sort of stuff.
If you’re not keen on crowds, it might be best to give Edinburgh a miss during festival time when it can get extremely busy.
When you get close to race day, there’s that anticipation and excitement – it’s the same whatever level you’re running at because the marathon is like a festival.
Doing that, then doing a lot of theater, which I love. Doing guest stars, did two independent films that are going around to all these festivals. Both of them are going to be at the Lake Tahoe Film Festival.
I met Prince William at a musical festival and he let me know he was a fan of my music. But the invitation to sing at his wedding reception came completely out of the blue. The fact that Kate and William knew the words to my songs was very touching.
