In a digitally saturated world with intimate viewing practices, how do we imagine a film festival? What are the impulses that keep film festival curators and organizers continue to hold them? In this chapter I examine the history and ecosystem of non-fiction screenings and film festivals in India, alongside the curatorial philosophy and methods of the Urban Lens film festival. I argue that a film festival is a space that isn’t only about viewing practices but a space where conversations between film practitioners and academics is possible. The chapter also argues for a need to think of films as texts in a film festival space, waiting to be discovered by a new generation of audience, that need not be bound by time or geography.