Someone is still trying to get back home because of a killer fog (in a John Carpenter’s way), but for the rest of us it’s all done: the second edition of the Bilbao Web Fest is over and we have to deal with what it bequeathed.
Premise: I’m living of web series for more than a year. Since the first edition of the Sicily Web Fest, where I went as media partner and finalist in the script contest, ’till now, I didn’t spend a single day without having the word “web series” into my mind. I write for a blog about web series, I coordinate a web series festival and I produce web series. But until a few days ago, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be part of this new digital world; not before attending the second edition of the Bilbao Web Fest.
The city worked, the festival organization worked and now you are all waiting for the chapter “What did not go well or could have been better?”. Even if I commit myself very hard, using all my grumpy essence (and believe me: I have some special grumbling powers), I couldn’t write something censorious or negative about the Bilbao Web Fest. Am I being too positive and not much critical? On my returning flight (one of the few able to leave Bilbao, it seems!) I thought about that and I found an answer (Rose and Oliver please don’t be upset for that, you did a marvellous job): if Bilbao was able to be the Capital of the Digital Series for a few days, the credit is also ours.
Web festivals are like a family reunion of one of those family in which everyone loves everybody and no one tries to avoid the aunt who gives pinches all the time. We share something beyond the simple passion for the web series, something more like a philosophy, a way of life: travelling, attending festivals, finding each other every time in a different country have a immeasurable value. All of us (creators, authors, media partners, organizers, visitors, curious people, friends and relatives as well), we are the beating heart of the digital series world. I fully understand this only now that I’ve met abroad the same people who animated Ustica and the Sicily Web Fest in the last two years. Seeing them in Bilbao made me aware of how big is our group and how small is the world.
In the Ethika Nikomacheia, Aristotle wrote: “For friendship is essentially a partnership. And a man stands in the same relation to a friend as to himself“. The Bilbao Web Fest made me realize how intense is this relation and how shared is this feeling: now I understand even more the value of spending my days writing about web series, producing them and organizing a web series festival. And heck, I love this job!
Muchas gracias Bilbao: see you next year, for sure!
I’ve been a little too romantic, I know, but I didn’t forget that a webfest is also made of awards and winners, which deserve to be praised for their excellent work: the competition is getting more and more difficult, the quality level has increased very fast and those who still see digital series as a YouTube’s cat video, should definitely look at the series of this list: they’ll be amazed!
