Movie Festival Networks

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.