The invisible art is gaining visibility.
The Boston Film Festival is adding editing — often described as the “invisible art” — to its awards categories.
“Editing is definitely one of the main elements of the film … and is critical to the director’s success,” Robin Dawson, executive director of the Boston Film Festival, told The Hollywood Reporter.
As it turned out, American Cinema Editors had recently send letters to several festivals, including the Boston Film Festival, asking them to consider adding an editing category.
Dawson related that an editing category was “under consideration and certainly the letter brought it to the forefront.”
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“This is great news for the American Cinema Editors recent push to get film festivals and award shows to add the editing category if they don’t already have it,” said Academy Award-nominated editor Stephen Rivkin (Avatar), a member of ACE’s board of directors. “Last month ACE was influential in convincing ASIFA to add the editing category for animation in their annual Annie Awards and now Boston represents the first live action festival on the ACE list of targeted festivals. Hopefully, the other festivals will realize their omission and recognize the significant creative contribution of the film editor in the filmmaking process.”
A few weeks ago, ASIFA decided to add two editing categories — one for features and one for television — to its annual Annie Awards. The decision was made following a meeting during with a group of representatives from organizations including ACE, Motion Picture Editors Guild, DreamWorks Animation and other companies and individual discussed the role of the animation editor with ASIFA board members.
As part of its initiative, ACE has also sent letters to the Shanghai International Film Festival, New York PictureStart Awards, Durban International Film Festival, Boston Film Festival and San Sebastian Film Festival.
This year, the 27th annual Boston Film Festival will run from Sept. 16-22.
