scholarly journals From the event to the everyday: distributor-driven film festivals

2020 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2093847
Author(s):  
Stuart Richards ◽  
Lauren Carroll Harris
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
European North ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Important Field ◽  
Primary Focus

Film festival research is an important field within screen and cultural studies, with festivals mainly theorised as a cinephile phenomenon occurring in European/North American contexts. Though cinephilia is indeed a major aspect of film festivals, adopting cinephilia as a primary focus for festival research obscures, and cannot explain, other motivations for running festivals, as well as how festivals fit into other trends in the film industry and film culture today. As researchers and film critics working in Australia, we have observed trends in festival culture that do not fit the dominant cinephilic framework. Principal among these trends is the emergence of Palace Cinemas, an arthouse cinema chain, and Palace Films, its distribution arm, as the curator and presenter of its own chain of film festivals. This essay presents an interesting case study that considers Palace Cinemas in relation to dominant understandings of the film festival. These film festivals do not exclusively fit either of Mark Peranson’s ideal models of festivals – audiences festivals or business festivals – but rather between these two positions. These distributor-driven film festivals, such as those run by Palace, greatly diminish any association with festival time, defined by Janet Harbord as a key feature of festivals.

scholarly journals Negotiating ‘Asianness’ at the Tokyo International Film Festival Local, Regional and International Dynamics Through Programming Practices and Film Markets

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenio De Angelis
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
History Of ◽  
Specific Interests ◽  
Asian Cinema ◽  
Programming Practices ◽  
International Status ◽  
Over Time

In this paper I will trace a brief history of major Asian film festivals to understand how the notion of ‘Asianness’ evolved over time and how it is expressed nowadays through programming practices and film markets. Then I will focus on the case study of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) as a problematic site where cultural and economic dynamics converge. As an A-category festival, TIFF has to balance its international status with regional relevance, negotiating ‘Asianness’ in a complex relationship involving the local film industry, since questions on ‘Asian cinema’ are deeply linked to the national. Finally, I will draw some conclusions, discussing how TIFF relates to other major film festivals in Asia, where ‘Asianness’ has been used as a shared effort to distinguish themselves from the paradigm set by European film festivals. However, this is an ongoing process, TIFF struggles to use ‘Asianness’ as a unifying element and the specific interests of each festival obstruct the possibility to create a more systematic trans-Asian model.

Absence, Ambiguity, and Deviating Pleasure Activism: The Tokyo Rainbow Film Festival

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-36
Author(s):  
Qin QIN
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Diachronic Study ◽  
Historical Trajectory ◽  
A Site ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Whereas several Japanese popular magazines have published reports and interviews on LGBT film festival curators, little scholarship has shed light on Japanese LGBT film festivals. This article serves as a case study of how the festival enables the festival community—cinephiles, LGBT audiences, organized groups of activists, and indie filmmakers—to share ideas and coordinate within and outside the metropolis. I conduct a synchronic and diachronic study to sketch the historical trajectory of the festivalgoers, material spaces, festival formation, curation, and programming. In utilizing a methodological framework which includes geopolitics, gender, film, and organizational studies, this article proposes an approach that juxtaposes the classic concept of ‘counterpublics’ with the theoretical reading of affective politics and pleasure activism. The findings suggest that the Tokyo Rainbow Reel Film Festival functions as a site of discursive political stances and affective disposition. The ambiguity of the film festival space correlates closely with two factors: Japanese homophobia, or ‘the absence of LGBT’, and an unorthodox pleasure activism that does not include suffering and oppression.

scholarly journals Film festivals as cosmopolitan assemblages

2018 ◽  
pp. 111-125
Author(s):  
Monia Acciari
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Competency ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Deleuze And Guattari ◽  
Associate Director

In this article, I seek to explore the use and development of the notion of cosmopolitanism within the context of film festivals. I will examine the specific case study of the Leicester Asian Film Festival from the perspective of an insider—as a Film Programmer and Associate Director of the event. The questions that I intend to answer are: what happens to our understanding of film festivals when we frame it through discourses of cosmopolitanism and borders and, conversely, what happens to our understanding of cosmopolitanism when we frame it through film festival studies? Accordingly, I will place cosmopolitanism in conversation with the developing literature on film festival studies. The aim is to offer an idea of film festivals as “cosmopolitan assemblage”, within a frame of fluidity, exchangeability and multiple functionalities (Deleuze and Guattari). In developing this concept, I will draw on Ulf Hannerz’s use of the term cosmopolitanism that includes being open to and involved with otherness. The aim is to theorise the idea of festivals as borders, and inspire new forms of consciousness and cultural competency applied to film festival programming.

scholarly journals International Film Festivals: For the Benefit of Whom?

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesper Strandgaard Pedersen ◽  
Carmelo Mazza
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Strategic Responses ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Classical Work ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon

Film festivals have become a widespread phenomenon over the last fifty years and are leading events establishing the reputation of film professionals and constitute a well-established field in itself. Studying the cities of Copenhagen and Rome the authors are asking why the public authorities of these cities establish their own film festivals in an lready saturated field of international film festivals? The focus is on the strategic responses and work made by two late adopters of film festivals – Copenhagen and Rome and their international film festivals, CIFF and ’Festa del Cinema di Roma’ (FCR). The comparative case study is based on qualitative data and methods. It investigates how the two festivals establish, legitimate and position themselves within the existing, institutionalised field of international film festivals. Combining the classical work on early and late adopters in the diffusion of ideas and practices (Tolbert & Zucker 1983) with forms of legitimacy (Suchman 1995) and institutional work (Lawrence & Suddaby 2006), it is demonstrated how different and sometimes conflicting demands from various stakeholders, like public authorities and the film industry, have shaped the frames used to position and legitimize the film festivals.

More than a “Chinese Century”: The Case of International Film Festival and Awards Macao

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennie Jordan ◽  
Hiu Man Chan
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Event Management ◽  
International Reputation ◽  
Unique Status

This paper contributes to debates around cultural event management in the Chinese century by investigating the case of the International Film Festival & Awards Macao (IFFAM). It first problematises the Chinese century concept by contrasting studies on film-related soft power in China as cultural diplomacy with the Macao Special Administrative Government’s use of festivals and events as place marketing strategies. It argues Macao does not fit comfortably into the soft power paradigm normally associated with China and uses the festival to illuminate areas of difference. Within this problematised context, the case study of IFFAM is built on existing studies of eventalisation as urban cultural policies. The analysis section demonstrates IFFAM differs from state-led film activities in mainland China. Findings presented and evaluated include official announcements about IFFAM by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), where the festival’s objective to ‘improve Macao’s international reputation’ are contrasted with the paradigms underpinning mainland China’s going-out international trade policy. Further findings relate to the festival’s programming strategies, and domestic and international reception of IFFAM in the past years, answering the question of whether Macao and IFFAM act as intermediaries, influencing cultural policy and film festival production practices in other regions of China and recentring film festivals’ focus from Europe to Asia. It emphasises the importance of IFFAM’s development in Macao because of its unique status and potential as an alternative, intermediary lens for observing the Chinese century.

scholarly journals The permanency of film festivals: Archiving the changing India

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-57
Author(s):  
Monia Acciari
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Active Element ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Everyday

Abstract Time and space are two dimensions that define a film festival in relation to duration, cultural, social, urban and political relations to the event. While the notion of space is well documented by the literature on film festivals, the idea of time is merely connected to the length of the event, mostly defined as volatile in nature. The overall aim of this article is to present an understanding of film festivals as multifaceted sociocultural and historical events beyond the idea of volatility that is naturally conferred to them. The idea of diverse intersecting temporalities is explored in this article by observing curated units of a festival ‐ commemorative events ‐ as loci to uncover the distinctive connotations of a changing nation. Time in film festival is discussed here not only as a dimension defining the length of the event, but also as an active element able to present history, moments of remembrance and renegotiate and contextualize current political and social instances. Hence, it is argued that festivals can be considered within the broad debate of archive a counter-archive, in which history and documents (the films) become channels to reassess the everyday social life of India, and shape a renovated image of the nation.

Australian Film and the Cultural Cold War

2004 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
David McKnight
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Slow Development ◽  
Cultural Cold War ◽  
The 1950S

This article examines whether, and in what way, anti-communism was a factor in the slow development of an Australian film industry in the 1950s and early 1960s and in the kind of film culture developed in Australia, particularly through film festivals. In particular it examines the activities of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) towards left and liberal filmmakers and film lovers. It briefly examines the effect of anti-communism on the struggle for Australian content by Actors' Equity in the early years of television.

Black hands and white hearts: Italian immigrants as ‘urban racial types’ in early American film culture

Urban History ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
GIORGIO BERTELLINI
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Early American ◽  
The People ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Jacob Riis ◽  
Italian Immigrants ◽  
Gangster Films ◽  
White Ethnics

Through the concept of ‘character’ or ‘urban racial type’, traversing literature, science and metropolitan life, Bertellini reconsiders early American cinema's colour-based biracialism epitomized by D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915). In the New York-based film industry race also emerged from the city's dense intermingling of ‘white ethnics’ and broader shifts in epistemological emphasis – from inheritance to the environment. If Italian immigrants were racialized as innately violent in early gangster films, after 1915 heartbreaking melodramas of destitution and misfortunes adopted instead a combination of still othering and universal characterizations.Half the people in ‘the Bend’ are christened Pasquale…When the police do not know the name of an escaped murderer, they guess at Pasquale and send the name out on alarm; in nine cases out of ten it fits. Jacob Riis, 1890I like to play the Italian because his costume, his mannerisms, his gestures, and his unlikeness to the everyday people of the street make him stand out as a romantic and picturesque person. Actor and director George Beban, 1921

scholarly journals Goa, India 2004

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siraj Syed
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Host Country ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
The World ◽  
Almost All

INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF INDIA, GOA 2004 Some people have described the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) as a ‘travelling circus'. While it is true that the festival has been travelling all over the country, it would be irresponsible to call it a circus. Sometimes, local authorities do go overboard in adding-on sideshows, perhaps in an attempt to use the occasion a public relations exercise for their government. On other occasions, the local government has had strong film industry connections, so the display of razzle-dazzle and magnanimity was only natural. Nevertheless, there is always a generous serving of cinema from all over the world, including, of course, from the host country, which is the world-leader when it comes to the most number film produced annually. India has been holding international film festivals since 1952, first on an ad hoc basis, and then more regularly. But unlike almost all other...

scholarly journals Creative and emotional labour

2019 ◽  
pp. 128-145
Author(s):  
Alexandra Colta
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Collaborative Research ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Emotional Labour ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
Made In

Film festival curation and programming remain highly individualistic practices, that negotiate several discourses/tensions, including the responsibility of the curator to others (artists and audiences) and the creative independence of the curator. Much remains to be written about the creative process of curation, and how aesthetic judgements are articulated by those who practice it. While progress in this direction has been made in relation to some festivals (LGBT, African), human rights film festivals have only recently started to be part of academic scholarship, which tended to focus on the main functions and spectatorship roles that they encourage (Tascón; Tascón and Wils; Davies). This article focuses on the creative process of programming human rights film festivals using the case study of Document Human Rights Film Festival in Glasgow. Part of a practice-led collaborative research project between the Universities of Glasgow, St Andrews and the festival, this article is based on my reflections and experience as a co-opted member of the programming team for the 2016 and 2017 editions. Drawing on practice-led ethnography, I argue that this festival adopted a form of ethical programming, sharing authorship and responsibility towards the audience, the filmmakers and the profession, as well as a form of emotional labour.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document