In the decades after World War II, two major trends shaped the evolution of cinema across Europe: the rise of international film festivals and the emergence of a transnational arthouse style out of successive ‘new waves’ of national cinemas. The two are inextricably linked; film festivals provided a venue for the consolidation of art cinema as a mode, facilitating creative exchange and solidifying new aesthetic templates, while the concepts associated with art cinema, like auteurship, gave festivals much of their cultural capital. This starter kit explores the evolution of European film festivals during this era, focusing on their role in defining and promoting the arthouse genre.
New festivals like Venice, Cannes, and Berlinale, Karlovy Vary and Moscow formed an important network of exchange of ideas and resources for filmmakers from the then-called First, Second, and Third Worlds. As Western Europe dominated early festival culture, the values and hierarchies that originally emerged largely reflect their biases. However, alternative festivals were soon created specifically to spotlight Second and Third World filmmakers, like the Tashkent festival.
This kit examines the rise of arthouse cinema through an infrastructural lens, emphasizing the interplay of economic, geopolitical, and cultural forces from 1945 to 1968. It asks:
How is postwar European (art) cinema defined from an infrastructural perspective?
How did films, filmmakers, ideas, values, and tastes travel across Cold War-era cultural and geopolitical divides?
The Doge's Palace in Piazza San Marco hosted the 1947 edition of the Venice Film Festival. Source: Pakdooik at Italian Wikipedia, via Wikimedia Commons.
Framing
Liu, Alan, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, and James Smithies. “‘Object of Study’: Digital Humanities and Critical Infrastructure Studies.” In Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities, forthcoming, pp. 1-8.
Introduction to the current theories and methods of Critical Infrastructure Studies
Valck, Marijke de. “Introduction: Film Festivals as Sites of Passage.” Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam University Press, 2007, pp. 13-43.
Extensive account of the historical evolution of film festivals, from their prehistory in the 1920s international cinematic avant-garde to the contemporary moment
History of film festival studies within Film and Media studies
Extensive argument for the use of network approaches to study festivals, including Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory and Niklas Luhmann’s concept of “autopoiesis,” and the author’s own concept of festivals as “sites of passage”
The book’s four chapters each take a different angle on one major film festival: Berlin, Cannes, Venice, and Rotterdam
Berlinale Palast (aka Theater am Potsdamer Platz), main venue since 2000. 2007. Source: Maharepa, via Wikimedia Commons, CC 2.0.
Foundations
Film festivals, film history and European cinema
Elsaesser, Thomas. “Introduction - European Cinema: Conditions of Impossibility?” European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, by Thomas Elsaesser. Amsterdam University Press, 2005, pp. 13-31.
Historical and theoretical introduction a collection of essays on European cinema written between the 1970s and 2000s
Questions the categories of “national cinema,” “auteur cinema,” and “art cinema” traditionally used to study European cinema, mainly as defined against Hollywood
Argues that the postwar international film festival helped cinema to transcend national boundaries and develop an ‘international art cinema’; studying film festivals can help historicize the ‘transcendental’ categories of national and auteur cinemas (explored further in Chapter 3, below)
Elsaesser, Thomas. “Film Festival Networks: The New Topographies of Cinema in Europe.” In European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, by Thomas Elsaesser, Amsterdam University Press, 2005, pp. 82-107.
While making a case for a central role played by film festivals in the constitution of European cinema, the piece provides insights into the complexity of film festivals.
Explores the role of festivals in creating a ‘European cinema’ that transcends national boundaries
Discusses the role of the festival in the contemporary (in the early 2000s) economy - as recurring cultural events that can help a former industrial city rebrand as a cultural center and attract the “creative class”
Outlines the mechanics of film festival in their connections to industry - global film production and distribution, including Hollywood company Miramax
History of development of film festivals, connected with political events, 1932-2000s
Introduces network and systems theory approaches to the study of film festivals
Chiara, Francesco Di, and Valentina Re. “Film Festival/Film History: The Impact of Film Festivals on Cinema Historiography. Il cinema ritrovato and beyond.” Journal of Film Studies, vol. 21, no. 2-3, Spring 2011, pp. 131-151.
Case study of an archival film festival, Il cinema ritrovato in Bologna, tied to the archival institution Cineteca di Bologna, to suggest methods to research how film festival practices (programming, publications, conferences / workshops / roundtables / gatherings, promotional materials) can affect academic film history
Implicitly suggests how film festivals in the 1950s and 60s defined film historical narratives and canons, at the time and into the present
Explores the institutional links between academia/universities and film festival and archival organizations
First, second, and third worlds
Evans, Owen. “Border Exchanges: The Role of the European Film Festival.” Journal of Contemporary European Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, April 2007, pp. 23-33.
Challenges the uncritical use of Cannes as a model for all major film festivals
Uses postcolonial theory (Said, Bhabha) to compare Cannes with Berlin and Karlovy Vary, arguing that the latter two did more to oppose Hollywood’s hegemony and promote ‘world cinema’
In dialogue with Elsaesser, European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood
Kötzing, Andreas and Caroline Moine. “Introduction.” Cultural Transfer and Political Conflicts: Film Festivals in the Cold War. V&R Unipress, 2016, pp. 7-12.
Argues for the usefulness of film festivals in studying Cold War cultures that transcended standard conception of West / East (and South) divides
Implicitly takes a systems-theory approach, though it claims film festivals “cannot be described as systematic networks” (10).
Book includes 10 essays (case studies) in three clusters - one examining circulation of films and people between East and West, North and South during the Cold War; one offering an overview of festivals that emerged in the 50s and 60s and were headed by institutions that didn’t fit the classic mold of film festival organizer; one addresses interconnectedness of local, national, and transnational contexts in the creation and evolution of festivals in Eastern and Western Europe, 1950s to 1990s
Câmara, Regina. “From Karlovy Vary to Cannes. The Brazilian Cinema Novo at the European film festivals of the 1960s.” In Cultural Transfer and Political Conflicts. Film Festivals in the Cold War, edited by Andreas Kötzing and Caroline Moine. Göttingen, 2017, pp. 63-77.
Details how the screening of Brazilian films at festivals on both sides of the Iron Curtain in Europe in the 1960s helped define the Brazilian ‘new wave’ (cinema novo), shaping perceptions of European publics, Brazilian publics, and the filmmakers themselves
Describes the interplay of global film and geopolitics, as the Eastern and Western ‘blocs’ vied for dominance over ‘emerging’ and unaligned countries, and as decolonial movements gained prominence in politics and culture around the world
Fehrenbach, Heide. “The Berlin International Film Festival: between Cold War politics and postwar reorientation.” Studies in European Cinema, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 81-96.
Traces the history of Berlinale from 1951 through the 50s and 60s, focusing on three themes - its political function as an American initiative during the Cold War, its audience outreach, including to East Germans, and its relationship to the postwar reconstruction of German film culture to distance it from Nazi film
Bláhova, Jindřiška. “National, Socialist, Global: The Changing Roles of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, 1946-1956.” In Cinema in Service of the State, edited by Lars Karl and Pavel Skopal, Berghahn Books, 2017, pp. 245-272.
Traces the evolution of Karlovy Vary in the first postwar decade, identifying three phases according to official, top-down agendas - first, a platform to showcase the national culture of the newly established Czechoslovak state, second, a space to consolidate socialist-bloc, ‘supranational’ (Slavic, Eastern European) cinema under greater influence of the USSR, and third, an increasingly global outreach to promote ‘peace’ (following the principles of Marxist-Leninist internationalism) after the outbreak of the Korean War
Suggests that political and ideological agendas shaped festival practices, which in turn shaped the development of postwar cinematic canons and movements
Salazkina, Masha. “Introduction.” World Socialist Cinema: Alliances, Affinities, and Solidarities in the Global Cold War. University of California, 2023, pp. 1-22.
Book focuses on the Tashkent Festival of Cinema of Asia and Africa, founded by the USSR in 1968, as a case study for studying global (Third World) cinema networks that developed with the facilitation of, but exceeding the agendas of, First and Second World countries
Explores programming and selection at Tashkent as an alternative to European preferences for Western-style auteur cinema (developed largely at European festivals in the prior two decades) from 1968 to end of 1970s, the period when “global art cinema becomes the dominant mode of transnational cinematic culture” (12)
Resources for researchers
Valck, Marijke de. “Introduction: What is a film festival? How to study festivals and why you should.” Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice, edited by Marijke de Valck, Brendan Kredell, and Skadi Loist. Routledge, 2016, pp. 1-12.
Brief introductory guide for a researcher seeking to study film festivals, including various aspects of film festivals that can serve as an entry point into a research project, and how to define a research question and choose an appropriate theoretical framework and methodology
Film Festival Research Network (FFRN)
Network for researchers by Dr. Skadi Loist and Dr. Marijke de Valck
Signed up for the mailing list
There are two workgroups of the FFRN: the Film Festival Research work group within the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS). Within the Society of Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) a Scholarly Interest Group (SIG) for Film and Media Festivals has been established. Dedicated panels and workshops organized through the FFRN have also taken place at other prominent conferences such as Screen or ECREA.
Maintain frequently updated, searchable film festival studies bibliographies
Loist, Skadi. 2014. “Cultural Transfer and Political Conflicts. Film Festivals During the Cold War: 09.05.2014-10.05.2014, Leipzig.” Conference report. H-Soz-Kult, September 11, 2014. http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=5533.
Film Circulation on the International Film Festival Network
“Film Circulation on the International Film Festival Network and the Impact on Global Film Culture” (2017-2022) is a research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the scheme “Small Disciplines, High Potential.” It started in August 2017 under the leadership of Dr. Skadi Loist as primary investigator at the University of Rostock. In March 2018 it transferred to the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF where Dr. Zhenya Samoilova joined the project as postdoctoral researcher in August 2018.
The Film Circulation project aims to create a large data set of festival runs for films circulating within the festival network based on the complete program of six major film festivals, documenting the run from premiere to the end of its festival life.
Results published:
Loist, Skadi and Evgenia (Zhenya) Samoilova. “How to capture the festival network: Reflections on the Film Circulation datasets.” NECSUS_European Journal of Media Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2023, pp. 363-390. http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/19615.
A detailed account of the project’s dataset, including decisions on data model, collection, structuring and enhancement. Also documents the dataset’s sources, structures, limitations and potential, with the goal of making the project more feasible and encouraging further collaborations in festival-related data analytics
Draws on Digital Humanities methods
Dataset includes festival runs from 2011 to 2017
Detailed methodological details can help researchers studying other periods (ex. Postwar decades)
Grandhotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary, host of the film festival. 2007. Source: I, Becherka. Wikimedia Commons.
Exhibits
Methods and resources
1) FFRN Bibliography | Film Festival Research
Scholarly network and sources for film festival research
2) Data tables, charts, and descriptions of methods published from the Film Circulation on the International Film Festival Network project:
Loist, Skadi, and Evgenia Samoilova. “Film Circulation Dataset.” Zenodo, 2023, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7887672.
Major tables are presented in Loist, Skadi and Evgenia (Zhenya) Samoilova. “How to capture the festival network: Reflections on the Film Circulation datasets.” NECSUS_European Journal of Media Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2023, pp. 363-390. http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/19615.
Institutional history and self-definition
This exhibit invites researchers to conduct a comparative media analysis of histories and descriptions published on four official festival sites: Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Karlovy Vary.
Each of these organizations were founded in the same approximate historical period, and maintains archives and a public website that includes a festival profile and historic accounts. However, their self-presentation differs, sometimes significantly. Below are some guiding questions that can help provide insight for researchers, and could also serve as an activity in an undergraduate film and media studies class.
What does the front page of each website look like? What information / text, and what images are presented? Looking at them side by side, what initial differences emerge?
How much detail is presented about festival histories? Why might this be?
Does the festival history include a general, ‘big-picture’ account, highlight key moments over the years, or both? What kind of logic of selections seems to underly the choice and arrangement of historical information?
What sorts of media is used to illustrate festival history - ie. event or site photographs, archival documents, event posters or artwork, film posters or artwork, film stills? Which objects, sites, and people are depicted? To what effect?
The festival profile or ‘about us’ page tends to distill decades of history, and a plurality of ever-evolving functions, into a concise narrative. This can be particularly illustrative: which facts / statistics are spotlighted? What type of language is used (verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. - what connotations and emotion do these words carry?) What is the overall impression that the text conveys?
What is the site architecture like? How would a user navigate through historical information on the website? To what extent is the site visitor guided to these pages? What does this reveal about the importance of history for the organization’s self-identity and contemporary public brand?