Film Festival. Communications & Media Research Paper

Film Festival: A Medium to Discover the Unfamiliar
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Film Festival
Background
The magic of a film is its ability to transport the spectators to new places where they discover the unfamiliar. At this time somewhere in the world, there is a high probability that an audience waits in anticipation as a film festival commences. The film festival offers the audience with the opportunity to participate in an “imagined community” and engage the film in a critical and creative environment (Hemert, 2013). It facilitates the flow of films around the world. Festivals offer viewers with the chance to learn new trends in the global cinema. The filmmakers get an opportunity to share their experiences with a diverse audience worldwide. Both the mass media and the delegates from the film industry elevate the selected movies to international acclamation via their approval. Hence, the festivals offer a chance for filmmakers to have their works in front of a live audience and have the movies appraised by professional critics. The filmmakers who get a chance to have their movies into a festival also receive media attention and publicity to both prospective buyers and agents.
One of the emerging trends in contemporary film festivals is funding. It has become common at the end of a movie for the audience to see multiple logos indicating different film funds that the filmmakers received to develop, produce, or post-produce the movies (Falicov, 2016). Filmmakers have found funds essential stamps of approval. A significant number of funding bodies are likely to award funds to a film project if they notice that the filmmaker received grants from the funds associated with film festivals. The film funds are critical because they assist directors from emerging film cultures who may not access funding from the state or private investors. Again, listing the funds at the end of the movie can facilitate access to exhibition venues as well as distribution channels associated with the film festivals. Additionally, film festivals are becoming cultural intermediaries where they shape the type of films which are promising and demonstrate a particular story. Hence, it is imperative to examine the role of film festival funding in the production of films and its impact in the films produced.
Introduction
The past two decades have been characterized by the explosion of the film festival (Papadimitriou & Ruoff, 2016). Film festivals have gone beyond mere exhibition of films. They now play an active role in the development of new projects by participating in the adjudication of film pitches, assisting in funding them and premiering the launching of the given films. A majority of the film festivals create numerous avenues for supporting promising films through the different cycle of filmmaking. Filmmakers receive funding for scriptwriting, production, post-production, and distribution of the final product.
Festivals have been instrumental in the promotion of films from the developing world (Pedersen & Mazza, 2011). When the film festivals assist in the production of the films in the underserved parts of the world, they offer an opportunity for the film festival curators to screen the new works. Moreover, the festivals create an avenue for film directors and producers to sell their work in a niche market which has a huge potential. The film festivals achieve this by identifying a film which fits the profile of their festival and funding it. This, in turn, assists in shaping the unique look of the festival. The result is the production of new movies which are unique and of high quality.
Although funding is available, it is essential for the filmmakers to establish the different requirements for each of these funds (Falicov, 2016). The filmmakers need to identify the regulations and procedures they need to follow if they seek to be awarded the funds. It is critical to note that each of the funds has their distinctive taste and types of movies they screen at their festival. The filmmakers should, therefore, decide if the funds are worthy to apply. Getting the right kind of funding is beneficial to the film production process.
The funding of festival films has various implications for the production of films. Firstly, it assists to represent the economic, legal and regulatory interests of the film industry. One of the main issues is compliance with copyright and intellectual property in order to fight piracy. Despite the hype of some of the largest films produced, a significant number of individuals prefer to obtain the same movies illegally. The ability of movie consumers to download them over the Internet has led to the loss of revenue to the filmmakers. Whereas the government has tried its best to fight piracy, it has been difficult to eliminate since movie piracy is constantly evolving. The film festivals have a huge role to play in sensitizing the players on ways of curbing piracy. Through funding, film festivals can educate the filmmakers in ways of dealing with the issue especially in this era of the Internet. Additionally, film festivals are critical in improving the standards of film production in the industry. The filmmakers who wish to attain “A-List” status undergo an accreditation process which enables them to gain more market (Falicov, 2016). Given that the accreditation process is rigorous, the standards of film production have increased due to the demand placed upon the film directors and producers.
However, film festivals could have some negative implications on the production of movies. The pressure to attain the “A-List” force the filmmakers to focus on premiering their works at the major film festivals in Europe and the United States at the expense of the film festivals in their home countries. The move may slow down the production of films in the home countries as the filmmakers focus on the developed countries. Additionally, filmmakers could customize the films to fit the demands of wealthy viewers like writing stories regarding marginalization (Ross, 2011). For instance, the producers could be required to make their stories more “authentic” by showing individuals dying of hunger in developing countries. Moreover, the film festival funds could create a group of filmmakers who appear to be more favored than the others. Certain filmmakers could end up getting a majority of the funds as others struggle to secure even single funding.
In order to paint a better picture of the role of the contemporary film festival in the production of the film, three film festivals will be examined. These include Rotterdam festival, Pusan film festival, and the FIRST film festival. The analysis of these film festivals will indicate how funding has played a major role in the development and production of films. It will also indicate the consequences of the funding to the movies produced while giving specific examples.
Rotterdam film festival and HBF
The most significant case this essay will discuss is HBF, the film funds based at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which is one of the earliest film festivals aimed for avant-garde and groundbreaking films from all over the world. Setting in 1972 by Hubert Bals, IFFR has dedicated to explore and support independent and experimental film making and emerging new filmmakers (Magazine Artslant, 2015). As one of the most important film events globally, this festival has famous for a fund called Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), the longest running international film fund (Ross, 2010). According to the official website of IFFR, the Hubert Bals Fund is “designed to help remarkable or urgent feature films by innovative and talented filmmakers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe on their road to completion” (URL). The grants this fund provided have supported cinema projects such as script development, low-budget digital production, post-production and the distribution of finished films (Ross, 2011), it helps crucially with realizing programs from various categories. Those beneficial films from developing countries are selected by the factor of their contents and artistic values, however the definition of countries that need support and the criteria of films getting this fund has become a controversial issue in recent years, meanwhile it is notable that what kind of effect may has on films produced under this practice.
Firstly, HBF has stated clearly that it does not support films from a certain region but an area defined by its economic resource (Ross, 2011). This classification uses DAC list (the Development Assistance Committee’s list) and is also contained by the government in the Netherlands, who wants to provide financial support to those least developing countries. On the contrary, the committee of HBF thinks that some countries rapidly developing on film industry may need aids more urgently, and China is a typical case according to Qizhi (Qizhi, 2015). There is no doubt that in the independent film production field of China, IFFR and HBF are famous for their tolerance and generosity, many directors since Kaige Chen has been funded as the first Chinese filmmaker on his early work Life on A String (1991, Mainland of China/ Germany/ UK), have constantly aided by this European fund. However, the funded film type is still limited after analyzing the list of films.
Just like most international-awards-winning Chinese cinemas, films presented on IFFR usually pay attention to rural topics or distinctive Chinese scenery matched with the imagination of committees (Dai, 2006), despite the publicity of which is not quite ideal in major Chinese markets. In his article, Qizhi points out that few Chinese filmgoers have been aware of this film fund. The taste of Chinese major audiences could be quite different from what the fund jury feel interested in, just like Ross said: “Although HBF does not expect the Latin American films to portray positive characters…it does expect them to represent minority or marginalized culture, something that is distinct and other from the western modes of existence”. While Latin American directors spoke out their opposition on the porno-misery, there are not so many official proofs of Chinese filmmakers against this preference on third-world poverty and misfortune can be found. Nevertheless, the impact of this aesthetic might have slowly transformed the style of the filmmaking aiming at international platforms from developing countries without our knowledge. As the international audience in IFFR has assumed the conditions of poverty and has anticipated on social structures of limited resource when watching HBF funded films, it is likely that a trend of producing such films will spread in the correspondent areas. Say for instance, Postman (You Chai) (Jianjun he, 1995, Mainland of China), the newly award-winning film The widowed witch (Chengjie Cai, 2017, Mainland of China) and the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s early film Mysterious Object at Noon (2000, Thailand) have all showed scenes in traditional social environments or scenarios of countrysides of Asia.
On the face of it, these works have been approved by their authentic creativity matched with the festival’s objective. Moreover, with the exposure on IFFR, quite a number of films have the opportunity heading to the bigger and more major film festival (Qizhi, 2015). While if analyzing further, this is a manifestation of third-world films catering to Western aesthetic value, it confirms certain expectations from the first world to the culture of applicants’ countries, the decision-making flow behind the fund has exposed many post-colonial relations (Ross, 2011). Furthermore, according to the policy of IFFR, film works supported by HBF will automatically be on the list of screening at the festival, and films selected for IFFR will have their world premiere there. This personal purpose is necessary to be considered since this relationship of the benefactor and beneficiary not only delaying the domestic distribution process, but also comes down to cultural hegemony issues.
Overall, International Film Festival Rotterdam does provide a creative platform and collect new and fresh individuals for the film business not just by financially supporting funds. There are also training sessions aiming at young film producers (Rotterdam Lab) and youth film critics (by organizing them writing festival booklet ‘Daily Tiger’). The invest-finding project Cinemart, similar to the HBF, enabling filmmakers launching their ideas and find connections to investors. These programs try to cover the whole business chain as comprehensive as possible, just like Ross said: “(HBF) has the ability to move the project from third-world production centres to the first-world international film festival circuit”. While in the meantimeit is likely that the relationship is examined by scholars as a ‘neocolonialism’ (Halle, 2010). Sometimes this will lead to filmmakers following the value of sponsors and focusing on the marginalized or unenlightened scenes for the satisfaction of wealthy viewers, which known as ‘poverty porn’ (Ross, 2011). Frequent requests on ‘authenticity’ from judges are also examining the creating flexibility of filmmakers been given the fund. As discussed above, such limitations of this program have been come up with by scholars as well.
Pusan film festival:
The Pusan International Film Festival (henceforth PI...