Last year, the Film Festival Collective was born when the Atlanta Film Festival reached out to other local film festivals in an effort to provide official selections from each of their programs together in an On Demand channel, available for free to XFINITY subscribers in the Southeast.
Since it's launch in 2014, the Film Festival Collective has grown to include a dozen festivals, stretch across thirteen states and is available to over 9-million XFINITY customers. The three most recent festivals to come on board are the Oxford Film Festival in Mississippi, the Ozark Foothills FilmFest in Arkansas and the Sarasota Film Festival in Florida.
The Ozark Foothills FilmFest is an eclectic celebration of the cinema arts that takes place each spring in the rolling foothills of the Arkansas Ozarks. It is one of extremely few film festivals taking place in a truly rural community (Batesville, Arkansas; population 10,000). The festival screens narrative and documentary films of all lengths, as well as curated foreign language films and rediscovered American classics. The festival has received annual funding from the National Endowment for the Arts for thirteen consecutive years and was twice honored with Film Festival Grants from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The Oxford Film Festival celebrates the art of independent cinema from across the globe while also focusing on movie making and enhancing the arts in Oxford and North Mississippi. The Oxford Film Festival holds monthly events which culminate in our annual four-day film festival each February. The festival exhibits over 100 quality films from across the globe and has been praised for its hospitality.
Held annually in Sarasota, Florida, the Sarasota Film Festival emphasizes the best in cinema alongside exciting programs and events, with more than 180 films screened each year including features, documentaries, shorts, and kid-friendly picks. Entering their 18th year, they strive to bring the best new and veteran independent filmmakers to their Festival, with local and kid-friendly programs that showcase the idyllic Gulf Coast community.
Stay tuned for the announcement of more Film Festival Collective partners and look for films from these three festivals in the coming months!