Which film festivals select the best films, in terms of their artistic quality and originality?
Of course there is the Big Three -- Cannes, Venice, Berlin -- but beyond that?
I LOVE the Florida Film Festival and have been attending now for over 10 years!
http://www.floridafilmfestival.com/
The 2016 festival starts in just a little over a week!!
BAFICI is pretty gigantic in terms of scale, read in Sight & Sound once that it was the critic's choice of festival to attend.
If you like short films, Oberhausen or Ann Arbor
If you like old films Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna is great for restorations and discoveries and such.
Toronto (TIFF), New York (NYFF) and London (LFF) all hold big festivals later in the year and tend to show pretty much all the good stuff from the earlier Cannes Venice and Berlin festivals prior to their release in the cinemas.
Rotterdam is another one to mention, their program is usually pretty interesting, and socially relevant.
I have a penchant for the Leeds and Edinburgh festivals in the UK in addition.
If you like American Independent cinema, I guess Sundance is good.
Worth pointing out that you can't attend Cannes as a member of the public (except for a smattering of outdoors screenings). It is a press and industry event. Venice and Berlin are more open but still partly private I believe.
There is a governing body called FIAPF, and currently they have given 15 festivals competitive status, Toronto from above has non-competitive status (just Vienna and Toronto in that category):
Berlin (Germany) / Berlin International Film Festival
Cairo (Egypt) / Cairo International Film Festival
Cannes (France) / Cannes Film Festival
Goa (India) / International Film Festival of India
Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic) / Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Locarno (Switzerland) / Locarno International Film Festival
Mar del Plata (Argentina) / Mar del Plata Film Festival
Montreal (Canada) / Montreal World Film Festival
Moscow (Russia) / Moscow International Film Festival
San Sebastián (Spain) / San Sebastián International Film Festival
Shanghai (China) / Shanghai International Film Festival
Tallinn (Estonia) / Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
Tokyo (Japan) / Tokyo International Film Festival
Venice (Italy) / Venice Film Festival
Warsaw (Poland) / Warsaw International Film Festival
You mentioned the class A film festivals. Class B may contain:
San Sebastian
Mar de Plata
Sundance
Locarno
Toronto
NY
Tokyo
Then the rest is class C.
Some great lists have been provided, here, but you should take a look at this site:
http://www.fipresci.org
This is an organization of international film critics that attends and gives awards at all of the International film festivals.
I might also mention that San Francisco is a great festival city, and the SF International is the oldest in the United States. In addition they have a Jewish film festival, Lesbian/gay film festival, Latino film festival, Asian film festival, etc., so access to films there is extraordinary.
ITSA Film Festival is in its 7th year in Northern California. They've been known to have celebrities attend without notice and they normally screen a pretty good slate of films. They also have industry speakers out of Los Angeles for guest panels. I loved the networking I was able to do when I attended.
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