RESFEST (1996–2006) is a defunct American film festival. It was by the 2000s the most prominent digital film festival in North America.

History

RESFest was a leading global showcase of new digital filmmakers alongside

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

's Onedotzero festival. The festival toured the world and in 2005 travelled to 35 cities in the USA, Canada, UK, Japan, Australia, Brazil and in various cities in Europe, Asia and Africa. A large part of the festival's latter content focused on cutting-edge music videos and short films, and directors like

Michel Gondry Michel Gondry (; born 8 May 1963) is a French filmmaker noted for his inventive visual style and distinctive manipulation of mise en scène. Along with Charlie Kaufman, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as one of the writers ...

Spike Jonze Adam H. Spiegel (born October 22, 1969), known professionally as Spike Jonze, is an American filmmaker, actor, musician, and photographer. His work includes commercials, film, music videos, skateboard videos and television. Jonze began his ca ...

, Chris Cunningham and

Jonathan Glazer Jonathan Glazer (born 26 March 1965) is an English film director and screenwriter. Born in London, Glazer began his career in theatre before transitioning into film. Over the course of a career spanning nearly three decades, Glazer's directing ...

all had their catalogs of work showcased at RESFEST over its 10-year run. The film festival was founded and directed by Jonathan Wells after the dissolution of the Low Res Digital Film Festival which he had previously co-founded. Low Res Digital Film Festival first took place in October 1995 at an art gallery in

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’s

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district. Founded by Wells and Bart Cheever, the first year’s program featured work from pioneering music video and motion graphics studio H-Gun Labs, England’s design collective

Tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

, digital designer

Nick Philip Nick Philip (born in 1968 in London) is a graphic and multi-media artist and clothing designer based in San Francisco, California. Career As a teenager in London, Philip was a cut-and-paste artist active in the city's freestyle bicycle/skateboar ...

and filmmaker

, whose early skateboard short films were screened. The New York City screening in January 1996 featured work by Rox,

Emergency Broadcast Network Emergency Broadcast Network is a multimedia performance group formed in 1991 that took its name from the Emergency Broadcast System. The founders were Rhode Island School of Design graduates Joshua Pearson, Gardner Post, and Brian Kane (author ...

, and

Sofia Coppola Sofia Carmina Coppola (; born May 14, 1971) is an American filmmaker and actress. The youngest child and only daughter of filmmakers Eleanor Coppola, Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola, she made her film debut as an infant in her father's acclaimed ...

. In 1997 the producers also created the digital film lifestyle magazine RES, which was affiliated with the online media site

Sputnik 7 Tyazhely Sputnik (russian: Тяжёлый Спутник, meaning ''Heavy Satellite''), also known by its development name as Venera 1VA No. 1, and in the West as Sputnik 7, was a Soviet spacecraft, which was intended to be the first sp ...

. The original founders parted ways, with Cheever establishing a D.FILM festival and Wells championing RESFest. Both the festival and magazine stopped updating their websites in the midst of RESFEST 10, the organization's 2006 tour, and have since been inactive.

References

* John Alderman (September 25, 1998
"All Digital, All Weekend"
Wired * Wendy Mitchell (12 September 2005
"RESFEST kicks of global tour in New York this week"
Screen Daily

External links

(archive - June 2006)
RESFEST
(archive - January 2006)
Flux
Defunct film festivals in the United States Film festivals in California Film festivals established in 1996 {{US-film-festival-stub