Movie Festivals Before Today

• The Time’s Up movement is making strides to eliminate gender-based discrimination at every stage of the film-making process.
• It has established a mentorship programme for aspiring producers from socio-economically disadvantaged households.
• The 4 Percent Challenge, encourages industry figures to work with a female director every 18 months.
• Grants have been made available to journalists covering film festivals.
• Standards of behaviour on set are changing. There is a push for more female directors and equal pay to ensure sustainable cultural change.

Streaming services following in the footsteps of Netflix, have revolutionized the way we consume visual media.

• Despite the boycotts by major cinema chains, they also succeeded in democratizing the movie business, because they can take more risks. They release more films and are free from box-office pressures.
• Mid-budget movies is another welcome side-effect.

• On May 13, 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.
• The influence of Christianity spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In 1000 A.D., the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It was probably done to replace the Celtic festival.
• All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas, and eventually, Halloween.

The celebration of Halloween was limited in colonial New England, but as the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with Irish immigrants, fleeing the Irish Potato Famine. This helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally.