Greener Festivals in a High-Footprint Business: What We Can (and Can’t) Control
By nature, film festivals are intensive events that bring together thousands of visitors, professionals, and partners for a short, concentrated period. This event-driven model is in tension with the increasing demand for sustainability. How do festivals reconcile the ambition to reduce their environmental footprint with the reality of temporary infrastructure, extensive travel, and limited control over third-party suppliers? This discussion examines the difficult trade-offs and costs that come with choosing environmentally conscious suppliers, as well as the structural limitations festivals face when trying to drive systemic change. Beyond practical challenges, the panel explores collective approaches, peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, and long-term strategies that could help the festival industry adopt more sustainable practices without compromising its cultural mission.
SPEAKERS
KAREN ARIKIAN
Artistic Director, Hamptons Doc Fest | US
MAREK HOVORKA
Festival Director, Ji.hlava IDFF | CZ
SABINE GEBETSROITHER
Co-Festival Director, Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz | AT
MAŠA MARKOVIĆ
Head of Industry, Sarajevo Film Festival | BA
MODERATED BY
TIME
Monday, August 18th, 2025
11:15 – 12:15 (CET)
LOCATION
Festival Garden
Karen Arikian
Karen Arikian founded her consulting company in 2013, with offices in New York and Germany. Her clients include the Green Visions Festival Potsdam, where she is Programme Director; the Hamptons Doc Fest, where she is Artistic Director; European Film Promotion, where she is the US Consultant; the Munich Film Festival, where she is US Scout; and she acts as an advisor for the Green Shot and EFM Startups. Previously, Arikian has been Executive Director of the Hamptons International Film Festival; Co-Director of the European Film Market; a member of the Berlin International Film Festival’s Competition selection committee; a producer at Time Film; Associate Producer for Bruce Weber’s Little Bear Films; and Executive and Market Director of the Independent Feature Project. She has run workshops at Hamburg Media School and NYU Berlin. Arikian holds a degree in psychology and studied documentary film at the Academy of Film and Television in Munich.
Marek Hovorka
Founder of Ji.hlava IDFF in 1997 and its Festival Director since then. Between 1998 – 2005 studied at the Department of Documentary Film at Prague’s FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy Of Performing Arts). Co-founder of Doc Alliance festival network, East Silver documnetary film market, DAFilms on-line distribution platfrom and founder of various Industry initiatives (Inspiration Forum, Emerging Producers, Festival Identity). Member of editor´s board of Dok.revue and revue “do”. Member of various juries at international and documentary film festivals (f. e. FID Marseille, CPH:DOX, Visions du reel, Karlovy Vary IFF, Cinema Verite Tehran, It´s all true Sao Paulo).
Sabine Gebetsroither
Sabine Gebetsroither was born in Wels, Austria, in 1977 and studied German philology and media and film sciences at the University of Vienna and the University of Aarhus. She has worked in various positions for renowned film festivals including the FilmFestival Cottbus, the Reykjavík International Film Festival, and, since 2004, for the Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz, where she has been Co-Festival Director since 2021. Gebetsroither was a member of the Film Commission of the Province of Upper Austria from 2015 to 2021.
Maša Marković
MAŠA MARKOVIĆ is Head of Industry at the Sarajevo Film Festival since 2022. A graduate of Charles University in Prague, she has held key roles at CineLink for over a decade, contributing to the development of CineLink Industry Days into a major platform for co-production, professional training, and cross-sector exchange in Southeast Europe. Her previous experience includes coordination of the Ex Oriente Film (Institute of Documentary Film in Prague) and she has served as a matchmaker for various European market platforms.
From 2017 to 2025, she curated Dealing with the Past, a non-competition section of the Sarajevo Film Festival, and since 2019, has led the Human Rights Day programme. Both strands use film as a tool for dialogue and youth-driven social engagement and have led to the launch of several initiatives combining film, education, and civic participation. Since 2021, she has also overseen the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region, a collaborative initiative that connects seven regional festivals with the goal of fostering shared programming strategies, joint audience development activities, sustainability practices, enhanced regional visibility, and strengthened festival professionalism across Southeast Europe.