Featuring both scholarship and performance, the festival represents the most direct fusion of Mr. Botstein's two worlds.
And yet the version in the festival represents a subtle but significant advance over even the superb Blu-ray edition issued by Criterion this year.
Front and centre is fledgling DJ Ethan Shaw, for whom the festival represents a chance to make good on the rapturous online response to his blandly euphoric breakthrough single All I Ever Wanted.
Good, bad and sometimes just blah, most of the selections in the coming week support Mr. Peas assertion that the festival represents something like the state of the art.
He says that the festival represents a "bright spot of positive energy" in a city where the population fell by 25% between 2000 and 2010, leaving more than 84,000 buildings abandoned.
Fes was the destination for many of the Muslims and Jews who were kicked out of Spain in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the festival represents a kind of nostalgia for the great days of the old Andalucia, where Christians, Jews and Muslims lived more or less in harmony.
Reportage does not consider that the images included in the Projections fell short of what the Festival represents.
Over 1,700 films were viewed by the selection committee this year, out of which 49 were selected for the festival, representing more than 30 countries around the world.
This said, the film festival represents an important venue for both filmmakers and film audiences to experience the linkage between movies and meaning that otherwise might go unnoticed.
