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

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'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 and producer 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 o ...

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

Chris Cunningham Chris Cunningham (born 15 October 1970) is an English video artist and music video director who directed music videos for electronic musicians such as Autechre, Squarepusher, and Aphex Twin and Björk. Early in his career he worked as a com ...

and

Jonathan Glazer Jonathan Glazer (born 26 March 1965) is an English filmmaker. He began his career in theatre before transitioning into film, directing the features '' Sexy Beast'' (2000), ''Birth'' (2004), '' Under the Skin'' (2013), and '' The Zone of Inter ...

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

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

’s

SoMa Soma may refer to: Businesses and brands * SOMA (architects), a New York–based firm of architects * Soma (company), a company that designs eco-friendly water filtration systems * SOMA Fabrications, a builder of bicycle frames and other bicycle ...

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

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, digital designer Nick Philip 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 (autho ...

, and

Sofia Coppola Sofia Carmina Coppola ( , ; born May 14, 1971) is an American filmmaker and former actress. She has List of awards and nominations received by Sofia Coppola, won an Academy Awards, Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a Golden Lion, and a Can ...

. In 1997 the producers also created the digital film lifestyle magazine RES, which was affiliated with the online media site Sputnik 7. 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