On Marijke de Valcks Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to - PDF document

On Marijke de Valck’s Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia By Raghed Charabaty – October 04, 2017 In her 2007 monograph Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephelia , Dr. Marijke de Valck takes on the birth of the film festival in Europe, and the role that its paradoxicality has played in making it not only an inter-European nation-building tool but also a global site of passage, and both an antithesis to the hegemony of Hollywood but also its press and media facilitator, thereby turning the film festival into a successful and prolific organism. Dr. de Valck is an associate professor in media studies in the Department of Media and Culture at the Universiteit Utrecht in the Netherlands, and holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam where her research cross-examined globalization, film studies, and cultural studies. Her background and interest in the intersection of art, sociology, and anthropology allowed de Valck to integrate the methodological approach of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) into the study of the rise of film festivals in Europe. Drawing on geopolitical factors from the pre-Second World War era, de Valck first lists and contrasts the tactical and almost paramilitary reasons that lay behind the creation of major film festivals, starting with Venice in 1932 as a fascist stronghold, Cannes as a Franco-British, anti-fascist effort strongly supported by the United States, and later the Berlinale as an anti-Soviet effort spear-headed by the American military. By becoming the new and highly influential springs of culture (then and now), film festivals were instrumental in navigating and swaying the different hot and cold wars that swayed the European continent. De Valck points out that it wasn’t until later that the festival abandoned its role as a local European nation-builder, and started to become conscious of its position wedged in between Europe’s borderless avant-garde cinema (dwindling at that point with the introduction of sound in film), and Hollywood’s firm grip on the global distribution stage. Its focus quickly turned from national identity-building and engaging with European political disputes to competing with both Hollywood and the avant-garde culture for cinematic supremacy. Ultimately, as de Valck claims, the film festival struggled and overcame to cement itself as the true keeper of cinematic value, at least in appearance, of the film world by absorbing underground culture into its programming (usually in the form of experimental/special

programming such as Cannes’ Quinzaine des Réalisateurs , Berlin’s Forum des Jungen , and the birth of niche experimental/ethno-centric/diasporic/women-focused festivals), and also by embracing Hollywood’s glitz and glamour, thus elevating its prestige and simultaneously allowing Hollywood into a higher-end European market. How successful was this absorption of non-mainstream cinema into the film festival? Do the special programs in major film festivals today continue to be truly avant-garde in spirit, or has special programming been compromised in order to meet the Hollywood mainstream halfway? Alternatively, is the ‘avant-garde vs. mainstream’ or rather ‘independent vs. studio’ debate still as relevant today in the face of studio-made independent films taking over festival programming and the ‘indie’ label? In the end, the film-festival that gained A-list status, as granted by the International Federation of Film Producers association, became much more than a political and entertainment event. Because of its new position on the international stage, the festival began to act as a central hub for filmmakers and film-buyers, but most importantly earned the honor of becoming a true “rite of passage” for the participants involved in its occurrence. De Valck speaks to the festival as being a self-sufficient entity comprised of equal constituents as per the Actor Network Theory, which does not distinguish in importance between the human and non-human participants, ranging from the mere festival go-er, to the stars and paparazzi, the journalists and the critics, the amateurs and students, the media and the cocktail parties, red carpets, workshops, converted theatres, dedicated screening rooms, architecture, and even the immediate city-scape surrounding the event. As such, each ‘actor’ within the network knows exactly how to behave and respects their role in contributing to the life of the event, all within the span of a few days before the festival vanishes. It is this observation of the film festival as a central point of gathering temporarily in a space that led de Valck to explore the centrality of the spatial-temporal axis to the film festival and its relation to the festival’s ritualistic function. As an ephemeral phenomenon that takes over different spaces by enhancing or subverting their functions (like engaging with theatres but also with non-theatrical screening spaces, reviving dormant spaces, activating urban centres, or even transforming the once unknown beaches and hotels of Cannes into an international film hub), a film festival necessitates a value offering to the industry and its host city in order to warrant such an attack on its space- time.

De Valck lays out three key approaches that successful film festivals employ in guaranteeing their survival: “[the festival’s] substitution of commercial distribution with subsidized festival exposure; its translation of culture into value through competition and awards; and its recent turn to industrial tasks” such as the offering of workshops and training sessions as part of the festivities. Indeed, the worldwide festival distribution circuit has become an equal alternative in value to commercial distribution (i.e. press coverage to film sales, distribution deals, bidding wars, and marketplaces). It has also become the place where film quality and content (i.e. aesthetic and political culture) compete for awards and prizes (i.e. meaningful monetary rewards and international prestige) which generates the much sought-after qualities of juried prestige. And finally, the educational and applied activities of the festival (i.e. training sessions, workshops, masterclasses, residencies, youth talent labs including the Berlinale Talent Campus, and Cannes’ Cinéfondation residence) draw in young and aspiring creatives into a world of knowledge, networking, and personal involvement with leading figures in the industry, forming a platform for those who found success in the film industry to pass on this (valuable) knowledge, thereby ensuring the festival’s value as a space for critical discourse and esteemed learning opportunities in the industry. In relying on these three strategies, the festival has built for itself an unshakable foundation that allows it to continue to exist and expand globally. With that being said, de Valck raises a question that parallels the paradoxical nature of the modern film festival: While the festival offers to local productions and independent films a platform for global exhibition and opportunities for international success only afforded to big budget productions, it failed drastically at supporting, creating, or even overseeing a sustainable industry for continuously producing the same kind of independent films that eventually become the artistic highlights of the festivals. For example, governments will find themselves funneling their limited budgets into the touristic festival event instead of investing in content creation and local film productions, thus stifling the birth of a local independent film industry. In that sense, is the film festival a successful phenomenon and an important keeper of artistic and cultural value, or is it merely a safe experiment that evolved from older post-War needs to cater to a growing and globalized world economy?