The New Topographies of Cinematograph in Europe

Markers of Provenance, Strategies of Access

In the previous chapter, I argued that the "national" in European cinematograph has become a second-order concept ("post-national"), in that it is now commonly mediated through the legislative and economic measures taken by the European Union to stimulate the audiovisual industries and promote their role in the preservation of its heritage and patrimony. In the movies themselves, references to the nation, the region and the local have also become second-order realities, whenever they function as self-advertisements for (the memorializable parts of) the past, for lifestyle choices or for (tourist) locations.

International Movie Festivals

The annual international movie festival is a very European institution. It was invented in Europe just before the Second World War, but it came to cultural fruition, economic stature, and political maturity in the 1940s and 1950s. From the time that then, the names of Venice, Cannes, Berlin, Rotterdam, Locarno, Karlovy Vary, Ober-hausen and San Sebastian have spelled the roll call of regular watering holes for the world's movie lovers, critics and journalists, as well as being the marketplaces for producers, directors, distributors, television acquisition heads, and studio bosses.

A Brief History of European Movie Festivals

The global perspective taken here on the festival phenomenon needs to be con-textualized by a brief reference to the history of the European movie festivals. They were, initially, highly political and nationalistic affairs.

How Do Festivals Work

Given the degree of standardization in the overall feel of movie festivals, and the organizational patterns that regulate how movies enter this network, it is tempting to ask what general rules govern the system as a whole. Can one, for instance, understand the movie festival circuit by comparing it to the mega art exhibitions that now tour the world's major museums?

Festival as Event

What is a (movie) festival? As annual gatherings, for the intention of reflection and renewal, movie festivals partake in the general function of festivals. Festivals are the moments of self-celebration of a community: they may inaugurate the New Year, honor a successful harvest, mark the end of fasting, or observe the return of a special date.

Distinction and Value-Addition

But this "rhizomatic" view probably paints too vibrant a picture of anarchic self-organization. Many invisible hands steer and administer the chaos of a festival, making sure there is flow and interruption, and making visible yet another architecture: that articulated by the programming of the movies in competition and built upon across the festival's different sections, special events, showcase attractions and sidebars.

Programming and Agenda Setting

Festival directors, their artistic deputies and section programmers have to be political animals. They know about their power, but also about the fact that this power depends on a mutual act of faith: a festival director is king (queen) or pope only as long as the press believes in his/her infallibility, which is to say, a festival director is only too aware of how readily the press holds him personally responsible for the quality of the annual selection and even for the prize-giving juries, should their decisions fail to find favor.