Master thesis
Film festivals in the digital age: a time for change?
-The case of the International Film Festival Rotterdam
MA Heritage Studies: Preservation and Presentation
of the Moving Image
University of Amsterdam
March 18, 2016
Supervisor:
B. (Bas) Agterberg
Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
Faculty of Humanities
University of Amsterdam
Second Reader:
Dr. E. L. (Eef) Masson
Chair Group Media and Culture
Faculty of Humanities
University of Amsterdam
Table of content
Introduction
31. Organizing the art world
8 1.1 The art system as a social system 91.2 A note on values, functions and aesthetic communications 11 1.3 Production, distribution and reception 13
2. Digitization and film festival distribution
15 2.1 The International Film Festival Rotterdam 152.2 Digital distribution 18
2.2.1 Collective and individual film distribution 19 2.2.2 Old concepts in new contexts 23
2.2.3 Media abundance and scarcity 28
2.2.4 Convergence and a new kind of programming 31
3. The art system in the digital society
35 3.1 The role of film festivals in the digital age 353.2 Crossing borders: new communications in the economic, socio-political and educational system 37
Conclusion
40Bibliography
44Introduction
Digitization has been a broadly discussed topic in academic research within film studies since its emergence in the late 1970s. Already in the 1980s journalists were convinced that digitization would soon take over the world’s cinemas. Within a few years, they said, digital film production and projection would be the norm (Bordwell and Thompson 2010, 713-714). But what does digitization mean? On a mere technological level, digitization can be described as
“the technology that converts the analogue image, sound or text into a uniform signal of digits and bits which it stores and transmits electro-magnetically or optically. Indifferent to the nature of the source, the electronic signal only ‘rematerializes’ at the point of reception, once it has passed through the dedicated interfaces of screen, monitor or amplifier.” (Elsaesser 1998a, 14)
This definition refers to digitization as the process of transforming analogue images or sounds into digital data. When speaking about digitization more generally, the term often refers to a broader cultural shift from the usage of analogue means of production, distribution and reception, towards a growing dominance of digital means and content in the society. Both definitions alone do not show that digitization has any impact on the essence of film or cinema. Rather, it can simply be seen as the next step in the ever-ongoing technological developments film is depending on. What difference does it make if the image comes from an electronic signal or from a physical print? From this technological point of view, as Thomas Elsaesser argues, digitization changes nothing. The aim to trick the viewer’s eye with special effects, for instance, may be fulfilled more convincingly through digitization, but it has always been the core idea of film (Elsaesser 1998b, 204).
Digitization, however, did not only get a technological transition rolling, but developed into a “cultural metaphor of crisis and transition” (Elsaesser 1998b, 202). In this sense, digitization refers to a number of cultural shifts that mark the time since the emergence of digital media. These shifts may not be exclusively caused by changes from analogue to digital film production, distribution and reception, but they are, as Elsaesser argues, causing a “debate involving a change of the status of the moving image” (Elsaesser 1998b, 202). Thus, this new status of moving images caused by digitization, is related to cultural shifts within a society. Therefore, the “digital age”, as it appears in the title of this work, refers to the time in which technological developments towards digital media represent major cultural shifts that affect today’s society. In this sense, the term “digitization” will be used in this work as a metaphor, representing these cultural shifts.
There are different cultural shifts that are caused by digital technologies. Henry Jenkins, for instance, claims in his book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2006) that
digital media lead to a convergence of media content. He sees media convergence as something driven by the users of new media, rather than as a technological endpoint in which all media, be it the telephone, the TV, the computer or the camera, merge into one single medium. Convergence, he argues, refers to the same content that circulates among different media, driven by the users’ active participation, be it by sharing, archiving or producing audiovisual content online (Jenkins 2006, 3). A few years later, Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman published their book Networked: The New Social
Operating System (2012). By looking less at the content and more at the cultural usage of digital
media, the authors claim that new media that are made for individual usage rather than for a group, enable people to interact and network on a new level. This new interaction is what the authors describe “networked individualism”. David Bolter and Richard Grusin, on the other hand, rather focus on media historical concepts in their work Remediation: Understanding New Media (1999). New media, they argue, have the main purpose to refashion and rethink older media, which results in a greater media awareness. Chris Anderson, journalist and economist, published the groundbreaking blog article “The Long Tail” (2004), which was later transformed into a book. The possibility of an unlimited supply of media via the World Wide Web, he claims, results in a broader availability of not only mainstream “hits”, but also rather alternative niche products. This way, different kinds of demands can be satisfied more evenly.
All of these media historical concepts approach the technological transition on different levels, be it on a social level, such as Jenkins’s and Rainie and Wellman’s works, on a rather economic level, such as Anderson’s concept, or on a broader level of media history, such as Bolter and Grusin’s book. However, what all of these different concepts have in common is an indication of the cultural changes that digital technology entails.
Of all art forms, film might be the one that is affected by technological changes most explicitly. As Walter Benjamin already indicated in the 1930s, the medium is especially characterized by its mechanical form and therefore always dependent on technological development (Benjamin 1969 [1936], 217-220). When seeing digitization as a cultural metaphor, thus, film can be an explicit indicator for the shifts this metaphor is representing. Digital technologies affect a number of players in the film world. Digital film and cinema have taken over a great part of the film industry, whereas 35 mm prints and other analogue formats, that were the norm for many decades, seem to exist as a mere niche product today (Fossati 2011, 61). Most cinemas, for instance, convert and replace analogue projectors into digital ones, in order to be capable of showing new digital films. More and more filmmakers start shooting with digital media if they want to keep up with the high-quality standard of contemporary visual and audible stylistics (Bordwell and Thompson 2010, 713). Many film archives, despite fighting for the maintenance of obsolete analogue film, have to add digital ways
of storage to their equipment and tend to digitize obsolete film prints in order to save the content from oblivion (Meyer 2005, 15-16). Film festivals are facing an increasing number of films, due to the user-friendly digital production means and a resulting increase of amateur and newcomer productions (De Valck 2012, 118). However, when looking at the cultural changes of digitization, it is especially the last institutional environment that presents a fruitful subject for a closer analysis.
There are several reasons why this is the case. First of all, film festivals are events that do not only include screenings of films, but that actively organize talks, discussions and workshops and embed their program within a thematic context. Therefore, they have the possibility to critically reflect on the changes film is facing, discuss old and new ways of film production, distribution and reception, and communicate new concepts and points of discussion directly to the public (De Valck 2007, 196). Although movie theaters and other cultural institutions might organize these debates and workshops as well, it is especially film festivals that plan these events and additionally reach a relatively broad audience. This is not least the case because film festivals have the character of an event, which, on the one hand, provides them with a “greater promotional budget” (Peranson 2008, 24). This way, they are able to invite renowned speakers and create costlier and more extravagant screening situations. On the other hand, this tendency results from social developments of the late 20th century, specifically from what Pine and Gilmore call “experience economy”. This term refers to the desire of today’s society to be part of an experience rather than merely consuming a product or enjoying a service (Pine and Gilmore 1998, 98). The event-character, in line with a spatial and temporal limitation of the festival, as Marijke de Valck argues, “put [the visitors] in the mood for ‘discoveries’” (De Valck 2012, 125). Therefore, film festivals also have the possibility to include discussions and create viewing situations the audience is unfamiliar with and can nevertheless count on a high number of attendees. This way they have the possibility to reach a wider audience than film theaters might do throughout the year.
Second, film festivals provide a fruitful object of study because it is a rather young field of studies that still requires more detailed research. There is already a handful of major works on film festival studies, such as Marijke de Valck’s historical approach Film Festivals: From European
Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia (2007). More detailed studies, however, are mostly restricted to one
single festival and its very individualistic characteristics. The number of film festivals today increased immensely and with it the range of films they show (Peranson 2008, 23). From queer film festivals, over animation film festivals, to short film festivals and film heritage festivals. All the different kinds of film festivals vary so widely that it is hard to build or apply one general theory that suits all. Therefore, this work can be a fruitful contribution to the existing works in the field of film festival studies.
In order to combine the study on film festivals with a study on the cultural changes that are caused by digitization, this work aims to answer the following research question: How do cultural
changes that emerge in the digital age change the sociological role of film festivals?
After specifying the cultural changes and outlining what is meant with the “digital age”, one needs to explain, furthermore, that film festivals indeed play a role in European societies, in how far this role has changed and what it is that makes it a sociological one. In general, as Mark Peranson states in his article about film festival models, they “create the atmosphere for the appreciation of film as art” (Peranson 2008, 24). They offer a distribution space for films that are unlikely to be distributed in theaters outside the festival. Therefore the festival is often the only chance for the films to be shown to an audience. Although this has always been the core idea of a film festival, its role went through some crucial changes, as Marijke de Valck outlines in her historical study on 4 of the leading film festivals in Europe, the film festivals of Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Rotterdam. Following the three historical phases that she introduces, early film festivals were especially representatives of national cinemas and therefore had a strongly political function. In the second phase, film festivals started to select films based on their artistic relevance rather than their nationality (De Valck 2007, 64). The last period of film festivals started with a global spreading and increasing numbers of festival foundations. Consequently, festivals define themselves not by their nationality or artistic significance anymore, but by thematic programs and diversity, including a new thematic focus on the changing media landscape (De Valck 2007, 68). The role of film festivals therefore converted from one as a mouthpiece for nationalistic and political ideals, to a supporter of artist films and non-mainstream cinema, and finally to an artistic event that expresses the taste and preferences of individual programmers that are cherished for their selection.
Film festivals are, thus, dynamic entities and subject to cultural transformations. In the digital age, I argue, film festivals experience another shift that is primarily expressed in new ways of programming. As this work will show, film festivals turn into showplaces that critically reflect on the technological and resulting cultural changes in the digital age, enabling the visitor to reflect on the changing media landscape from a more objective point of view. This, in return, can have a broader sociological effect, meaning that film festivals can not only impact the festival visitor’s point of view on media and media usage, but these new conceptions can also be fruitful for changes in other fields, such as politics or economics.
Therefore, I choose to follow a sociological approach in this study that does not only show how technologies and resulting cultural changes affect the programming of film festivals, but also how film festivals can, due to these changes, influence other fields in the society, namely the educational, the socio-political, as well as the economic ones. As a main source for this approach, I
will use Hans Van Maanen’s work How to Study Art Worlds (2009). It is especially useful as it offers a functional approach, meaning that it presupposes that art has a certain function within the society and that distributing organizations, in my case film festivals, are the primary centers where these functions can be realized.
I choose the IFFR as a case study for two reasons. The first reason is a rather practical one. The festival aims to be transparent for the public, meaning that it publishes literature, such as annual reports, mission statements and financial overviews, online and makes it thereby easily accessible. The second reason concerns the festival’s status compared to other festivals. In many cases, so-called “A” festivals, such as the festivals of Cannes or Berlin, are less open to structural changes. These “A” festivals define themselves primarily as prestigious events that attract world stars and the most important filmmakers every year. While being primarily places for celebrities, red carpets, photographers and prestigious awards, these festivals are less concerned with the integration of innovative forms of programming than with the maintenance of their status in the global festival circuit (De Valck 2007, 167). The IFFR does also attract a considerable number of audiences and has certainly claimed its space in the international festival circuit. However, it concentrates less on the attendance of celebrities, but rather on a thematic and innovative film selection (De Valck 2007, 167). Therefore, it seems to be more open to changes and subsequently more daring regarding new forms of programming. This forward-facing character makes it an excellent subject of studying the changing role of film festivals.
Chapter one positions the theory of Van Maanen within the broader field of art sociology. Thereby, I will first highlight the main characteristic notions on other art sociological theories, and subsequently explain in how far Van Maanen’s system theory differs from these preceding theories. In the subchapters I will go more into detail about the crucial notions of Van Maanen’s theory, namely the art system as a social system, notions on the values and functions of art and the differences between processes and structures of the production, distribution and reception domain. Chapter two applies this approach on the film festival world and the IFFR in particular. I will outline four crucial patterns that appear in the technological system due to digitization, examine how these patterns affect the film system and analyze how the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) adopts or responds to these changes. Chapter three will place the results of the previous chapter within the broader context of social systems. The first sub-chapter thereby serves as a clear answer of the research question, whereas the second sub-chapter looks at the interrelations between the art system and the other social systems.
1. Organizing the art world
There are many art sociological theories organizing the different entities that are operating and interacting in an art world. In the early 1980s, Howard Becker made himself one of the most influential sociologists of the 20th century when he established his theory of art worlds. He states that different art worlds exist separately for different art disciplines, such as film, theater or music. The agents organizing these worlds are art institutions, on the one hand, and human agents, such as artists, on the other. Their “collective activity” is the prerequisite for the production of artworks. This process of production ranges from the mere idea of an artwork, via the supply of material, such as paint, cameras or musical instruments, to the appreciation of the finished product by an audience (Becker 1982, 2-6). The actions of these agents involved in the collective activity are influenced by their conventions as well as external factors, such as economic or political developments. It is also overall societal themes that determine their activity, such as nationalism or gender equality (Becker 1982, 42; 165).
Pierre Bourdieu introduced a more complex theory for art sociology in the early 1990s, based on different concepts that cumulate in one theory, outlined in The Field of Cultural Production: Essays
on Art and Literature (1993). He divides the society into different fields, among which the cultural
field with the art field as a sub-field. This field of art is driven by 4 different field mechanisms: Power relations determine the status of the different players. The habitus, meaning the educational and social background of players of the field, determines the entity and creation of artworks. An autonomous or heteronomous motivation determines whether an art field strives to gain symbolic capital, such as prestige and cultural value, or economic capital, such as a financial profit. Subsequently, a field can dominate other fields, meaning it has an orthodox position, or it can be dominated by other fields, in which case it has a heterodox position (Bourdieu 1993, 29-41).
Bruno Latour and Nathalie Heinich, in sharp contrast, turned away from such hierarchical approaches and laid the ground for actor-network theories from the late 1990s onwards. They neglect notions of static worlds or fields and aim for a study of flexible networks rather than fixed structures and processes. According to them, different actors in a network function as nodal points. By interacting with other nodal points, the actors bond with each other and constantly build and un-build different kinds of networks. The art world is for actor-network theorists, thus, a flexible construct and can take on different shapes, depending on the connections that are being made between different actors. It is thereby irrelevant whether these actors are institutional organizations or human individuals (Latour 2005, 21-25).
Marijke de Valck already made a first attempt to apply art sociological theories to film festival studies and uses especially actor-network theories for her study on film festivals as a global network. The advantage of these theories is, she argues, that they do not distinguish between human and non-human actors. Neither do they include hierarchies nor any distinctions between actors and networks. Rather, they look at the processes as “circulating entities”, which enables film festival studies to include all actors of the film festival circuit on the same level, be it in the form of the Hollywood system, local cinemas or film professionals (De Valck 2007, 34). For this study on the role of film festivals, however, actor-network theories are less convenient, as it is not the institutional and personal relations defining the festival circuit that I am interested in, but the role of a film festival as one entity, namely as one distributing art institution.
Just as the institutional theories by Becker and Bourdieu, actor-network theorists found another way to organize the art world, but none of them looks at the artwork as a product that can have an impact on individuals or even at the society. Combining these institutional approaches with a philosophical study of the values and functions of art, Hans van Maanen is the first who looks behind the border where the other theories stop: the realization of the values and functions of art in the society.
1.1 The art system as a social system
Van Maanen uses Niklas Luhmann’s system theory as a starting point, stating that society can be divided into different systems. Systems are, according to Luhmann, entities whose structures are certain communications. Whereas actor-network theorists neglect differences between institutions, people or processes, system theory completely turns away from any notions of physical “actors” as such. It is not people or institutions who organize a system, but communications (Luhmann 1995, 131). Before looking at the nature of these communications, a few more notions on systems will be made.
The systems operating in the society are the political-juridical, economic, educative, and the art system, each consisting of different sub-systems. According to Luhmann, every system consists of communications with different structures. This means that, for instance, the social system communicates in a different way than the political-juridical system. In Luhmann’s system theory, different systems are furthermore defined by an “operative closure”, meaning that interaction between different systems only takes place via few channels and only in one direction – from other systems towards the art system (Luhmann 1995, 22). The effects communications in, for instance, the
economic or the political-juridical system can have on the art system, are, as Luhmann argues, rather trivial. This makes the art system appear disconnected from the other systems (Luhmann 1995, 391).
What Van Maanen adds to Luhmann’s notion of operative closure is that, on the one hand, processes of the art system are conditioned by the other systems and, on the other, the art system can also develop elements that can be adopted by other systems (Van Maanen 2009, 112). Communications taking place in the economic or political-juridical system, for instance, can have a crucial impact on the way in which communication takes place in art systems. The political-juridical system includes, for example, laws or regimes that provide certain patterns for the art system, too. Intellectual ownership and copyright questions are one example from this system that form part of art politics and therefore influence the production and distribution processes in the art system (Van Maanen 2009, 222). The economic system conditions the art systems primarily in the form of sponsorship, subsidies or patronage (Van Maanen 2009, 220). The educational system includes patterns defined by schools, universities or other educational establishments that provide opportunities for art production or distribution, such as art schools (Van Maanen 2009, 286). Furthermore, the art system can influence the ways of communication that take place in the economic, political-juridical or educational system, too. This additional notion to Luhmann’s concept of operative closure is a crucial one for this study: the research question suggests that film festivals have a role within the broader society. Speaking from an art sociological point of view, this means that they can have an impact on other systems.
Fig. 1 Overview of the art system and its relation to other systems (Van Maanen 2009)
Another system that is conditioned by and that conditions other systems is the technological system. Van Maanen consciously excludes this system from his study and only mentions it as a
“conditioning system of aesthetic processes” (Van Maanen 2009, 208). Other theorists do merely mention technological changes as constantly transforming condition for social changes, but they do not treat it as a proper system. I argue that the technological system is indeed a proper system, because just as the other systems, it shows its own structures of communications that interrelate with the other systems, namely technological communications. Whereas in the art system, for instance, it is artworks that mediate certain values to spectators, in the technological system it is technologies, such as the TV, new media, the computer, the internet or the telephone that mediate or communicate content to its users (Van Maanen 2009, 208). It is especially an interesting subject for a study of film as a sub-system of the art system, as film is by definition a technological medium and therefore sensible to technological changes (Benjamin 1969 [1936], 217-220). Before going more into detail about the impact of the technological system, I will first make some general notions on communications as they take place in the art system.
1.2 A note on values, functions and aesthetic communications
As already indicated above, for Van Maanen communication refers to the realization of certain values and functions of art. Thus, it is the main task of art to fulfill certain values and functions in a society. More specifically, art can only be defined as art if it fulfills values and functions. Although the terms “values and functions” are often used together, it is important to note that there is a crucial distinction between the two, as they work on two different levels of an art system (Van Maanen 2009, 149).
Van Maanen defines values of art as the “typical experiences art is able to generate in the act of reception” (Van Maanen 2009, 149). Values are therefore a quality that the artwork itself entails. Van Maanen distinguishes between three different kinds of values an artwork contains: intrinsic, extrinsic and semi-intrinsic values. Intrinsic values are qualities that can exclusively be generated through art. They have a direct impact on the mental status and can therefore contribute to one’s identity. A major intrinsic value is an “aesthetic experience”. One might, for instance, be intellectually challenged when visiting an exhibition or a concert of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Extrinsic values, on the other hand, do not impact the mental status and can also be realized by experiences other than art. Visiting an exhibition, to stay within the examples, also contains the quality to spend a day out and visiting a concert offers the opportunity to meet friends. Semi-intrinsic values are not unique to art, but they do have a direct impact on our mental status. While reading a novel, for instance, people can gain historical knowledge, which serves the general education and therefore the mental status.
However, this information cannot only be provided by reading the novel but also by, for instance, listening to a lecture (Van Maanen 2009, 150).
Functions, on the other hand, are the benefits the society can get out of an aesthetic experience. A function is, to put it in Van Maanen’s words, “the use of the realized value” in a broader context (Van Maanen 2009, 151). The value of an artwork therefore enables it to fulfill a function in the society. One very common function of art is, for instance, to boost the economy or to educate or enlighten the society (Van Maanen 2009, 151). Functions of art can be, just as values, intrinsic, extrinsic and semi-intrinsic. The realization of these values and functions of art, be it intrinsic, extrinsic or semi-intrinsic, is the structure of communications as they take place in the art system and by Van Maanen called “aesthetic communication” (Van Maanen 2009, 194).
The question of what art does has mainly been part of art philosophy, represented in works by Plato, Kant and Gadamer. However, Van Maanen is not the only and certainly not the first sociologist defining the value of art. McCarthy et al., for instance, published a research paper on the social benefits of arts, asking for a greater appreciation of the intrinsic benefits of art and trying to increase its status and value for the society. The “benefits” of art can, according to them, be divided into three kinds. First, personal benefits, including the personal pleasure one experiences when visiting an exhibition or going to the cinema. Second, intrinsic and instrumental benefits, including benefits “that have a spill-over effect on the society”. The third group includes benefits that have an effect on other social systems, such as economic boost (McCarthy et al. 2004, 69). The value of art is therefore already since the early 2000s a major topic for art sociologists, also when applying for funding and subsidies from the government. However, it was Hans van Maanen who first embedded this philosophical notion on art in an art sociological theory.
When using the term “values” in this work, I refer to the intrinsic, extrinsic and semi-intrinsic values of artworks for an individual or an audience group. Also the term “function” will be used in Van Maanen’s terms, referring to the effect of art on other social systems. When speaking of the “role” of film festivals in particular in the course of this work, I refer to the function not of a single art work, but of an art distributing organization, thus approaching it on an institutional level.
However, in the light of this work one furthermore needs to define what it is that makes film a medium that allows for aesthetic communication. In very early film theories, film was considered to be a mere representation of reality and aimed to affect the viewer with attractions and strong effects. It was, in a way, primarily an entertainment and informational medium. Walter Benjamin, for instance, claims that film, exactly because of its technical reproducibility, is naturally in state to provide information about the social and ideological structure of its time (Benjamin 1969 [1936],
217-220). Later theorists, in contrast, argue that the medium film entails more than technology and information. Christian Metz, for instance, argues that the cinematographic “apparatus” does not only include the projection equipment, the film roll itself and the cinema hall, but also the filmic text, meaning the illusion of a world, as well as the “mental machinery of the viewer”. These last two points make clear that film is more than just a technological medium: the structures of images and narratives presented in films are affecting the mental status of the viewer, as they activate imaginary or unconscious desires of the viewer (Metz 1982, 52-54). I am not going too deep into psychoanalytical studies at this point, but theories like Metz’s concepts show that film can, thus, have a direct impact on the mental state of the viewer. This makes film a medium that is able to generate aesthetic communication.
1.3 Production, distribution and reception
The early art sociological theories of the 20th century by Becker and Bourdieu primarily focus on patterns defining the production domain. Entities operating here – be it in the form of agents, players, actors or networks – are in all cases institutions or individuals who produce artworks, based on their conventions, their habitus, or actors and institutions they form a network with. Studies of the production domain therefore always circle around the actors and institutions themselves, their “ways of conceiving and making aesthetic works”, as well as the “types and numbers of aesthetic works” that result from the production processes (Van Maanen 2009, 12).
Although few notions are made about the reception domain, there is a consensus that this domain is closely related to the production domain. Becker, as well as Bourdieu, for instance, started to include notions on audience groups in their theories. Becker states that the appreciation of an artwork is an important element in art sociology. Despite this notion, he includes the distribution and reception in the production process (Becker 1982, 2). Bourdieu and Luhmann, as a second example, go a step further and state that the perception by the audience is influenced by and influences the production process of artworks. Studies involving the reception domain, then, deal with the “types and numbers of aesthetic experiences of social groups” (Van Maanen 2009, 12).
In most of these theories, the distribution of art is also looked at, but not as a dominant domain with proper processes and actors. Van Maanen’s theory is therefore the first one that focuses mainly on the distribution domain. As he is looking at the realization of values and functions of art, thus, aesthetic communications, he aims to build a theory about how art functions in the society. While studies on the production domain deal with the artwork and studies on the reception domain with audience structures and processes, Van Maanen’s theory looks at the “in-between”, namely the
encounter of artwork and audience, and states that this is the place where aesthetic communication is made possible. Distributing organizations therefore have a mediating role, which, as Van Maanen states, “is not meant as passing something on”, but they work rather as “translation centres […] for works of art as well as for potential audiences” (Van Maanen 2009, 143).
The “translation” of artworks does, thus, take place on the distribution domain. However, as Van Maanen states and as it will become clear in the following chapter, the three domains cannot always be strictly separated. The selection, which is part of the distribution process, is, for instance, dependent on the form of the products on offer and therefore on structures and conventions of the production of artworks. The distribution and the reception domain are even harder to separate. This is because a specific way of distributing artworks is already planned with a certain wish of how the public should receive the artworks in mind. Therefore, the following chapter concentrates on the distribution of films by film festivals, thus the programming, but at some points aspects from the production and the reception domain might be touched, too.
2. Digitization and film festival distribution
Hans van Maanen manages to create a theory that can be applied to different kinds of disciplines and levels. In his work he refers to examples coming from the world of visual arts, theater, film and music, and in doing so, he includes cinemas, theaters, museums, as well as artists and performances. However, as a former dramaturge he comes from a theater background and therefore primarily refers to theaters and theater performances as major examples. Although festivals are named as distribution organizations, he does not focus on film festivals as an exemplary place for aesthetic communication. The challenge to apply this theory on film festivals is, that the variety of artworks presented at festivals is very high. In 2004, for instance, the International Film Festival Rotterdam included 782 projects in its selection, not only varying in terms of genres and length, but also in terms of presentation, ranging from regular film screenings and debates to installations, performances and exhibitions (IFFR 2004, 18). What makes a study of the values of film distributed at film festivals vulnerable is the fact that each of the 782 films or projects contains different values, which makes it difficult to generalize concepts about the value of films. Therefore, the following chapter is less concerned about the different values of particular films, but rather about traditional and untraditional values of film and cinema in general.
2.1 The International Film Festival Rotterdam
The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) was founded in 1972 by Hubert Bals (1937-1988). Hubert Bals was not only the founder of the festival itself, but also the leader of a bigger movement taking place in the Dutch film landscape in the 1960s and 1970s. This movement is accompanied by the “establishment of an alternative circuit of art-house cinemas and a specialized distribution company, called Film International” (De Valck 2007, 170). It was the intention to liven up the Dutch film culture which was, compared to other European countries, far behind. Furthermore, the secondary status of Rotterdam to the city of Amsterdam was aimed to be improved on a field that does not compete with the Dutch capital, but that rather co-exists without interfering in Amsterdam’s cultural attractions. The success of this new film culture is also the result of the personality and the skills of Hubert Bals, who already from the festival’s foundation onwards aimed to show films that are “engaged, artistic and stylistically innovative” (De Valck 2007, 170).
Other than the festivals of Cannes, Venice or Berlin, the IFFR was not founded within a political or national context during the pre- or post-war era, but at a time when the ontology of film festivals turned into one of thematic orientation, namely the “age of programming” (De Valck 2007,
19-20). As De Valck argues, from the late 1960s onwards, festivals started to program their selected films themselves, “presenting auteurs, new waves and discoveries, but also creating ‘specialized’ and ‘thematic’ sections” after years of a limitation by political or economic boundaries (De Valck 2007, 174). Supporting “high quality” films started to become more important than the national or political background (De Valck 2007, 165). As the IFFR was founded with the idea to represent a new, unique Dutch film culture, it developed as a festival that concentrates on thematic programming. This new focus is also emphasized by the fact that the IFFR was established by a passionate film lover, rather than by people or foundations with national or political interests. As programmers did not have to deal with an existing national and political image that restricted their choices, they experienced a new “freedom” in programming. Therefore it was easier to match the preferences of the audience and the selected films, resulting in the emergence of a new kind of audience, the “cinephiles” (De Valck 2007, 181). Today, the IFFR is one of the biggest public film events of the country charging admission (De Valck 2007, 163).
Although the festival constantly went through structural changes, as the following sub-chapters will show, the context in which it was founded is still visible today. As the IFFR nowadays states on its website, it especially aims to focus on “innovative filmmaking by talented newcomers and established auteurs as well as presenting cutting edge media art” (IFFR). Except for the new focus on media art, this statement does not differ from the very first mission formulated on the 1970s. The festival landscape around the IFFR, however, has changed since then. One competing festival, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, formulated a similar mission, representing “documentaries that are interesting from a stylistic point of view, or are particularly innovative, relevant to social issues and successfully manage to communicate with their audiences” (IDFA). The Berlinale includes, among other things, “new discoveries and promising talents from the German film scene in Perspektive Deutsches Kino, avant-garde, experimental and unfamiliar cinematography in the Forumand Forum Expanded, and an exploration of cinematic possibilities in Berlinale Shorts“ (Berlinale). Today, this focus on innovation is therefore not unique to the IFFR anymore, but became a central aim of most major film festivals. However, as the following chapter will show, the way in which the IFFR approaches the idea of innovative filmmaking has indeed developed into a unique characteristic.
Next to innovation, the IFFR also has a strong focus on films from developing countries, such as countries in Africa, Asia, Latin-America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe. In order to strengthen this focus and to honor the founder after his death, it initiated the Hubert Bals Fund in 1989. This fund offers financial support of in total €500.000 for films that are produced in developing countries. The fund can be awarded at different stages, be it for script and project development, for
the production phase or for post-production (Hubert Bals Fund). The HBF also reserves a budget particularly for European and Dutch producers who collaborate with producers from developing countries (IFFR). The financial resources for this fund come from international funding organizations aiming at the solution of global issues on the one hand, such as the Hivos organization, the Dioraphte foundation and the Lions Club L’Esprit du temps. On the other hand, it is financed by governmental bodies, such as the Creative Europe Media program by the European Union and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (IFFR 2015c, 34). The fund does not only provide financial support for film projects, but can attract other financiers who might want to support a certain project. This is because the HBF is today one of the biggest international film funds. It is increasingly used as a marketing brand and therefore it can function as a “quality label” not only for the audience, but also for other financial supporters (Ross 2011, 261). The Hubert Bals Fund was the first major invention of the IFFR and developed into one of the two backbones of the festival.
The second backbone that still exists today is the CineMart, a professional film market taking place during the festival. A selection of new and young filmmakers can present their projects and ideas for future projects at the market and build relationships with other professionals, such as financiers or distributors. In the last years about 400 projects were sent to the IFFR each year from which 25 were selected for the market (see Appendix A). Professional guests from the film industry, such as sales agents, distributors or producers, are invited to look for projects they would like to support or collaborate with in the future. The festival sees itself as a mediator that organizes, among other things, one-on-one meetings between filmmakers and other players in the film festival circuit. In 1983 the IFFR was the first film festival introducing this concept. Today, the majority of all film festivals adapted it and developed their own film industry market (IFFR 2007, 34).
In both cases – the invention of the CineMart as well as the establishment of the Hubert Bals Fund – the IFFR took over the role as a pioneer. The invention of a film market at a festival was not an invention by the IFFR, but the concept of the organization of it, such as organized one-on-one meetings and a selected match between producers and financiers, was indeed unique for the IFFR and later adopted by other major film markets, such as the Marché du film at the festival of Cannes. The HBF is the oldest international film fund still existing today and copied by other festivals, such as the World Cinema Fund of the Berlinale, established in 2004 (Ross 2011, 261). By inventing such initiatives as part of the festival, the IFFR created an image as the innovative festival, not only in terms of the selection of film style and content, but also in terms of the overall structure and organization.
Although both of these inventions are primarily aimed at the support of film production, they show that the IFFR is responding rather quick to changes in the film landscape and inclined to try out new concepts. While the establishment of these two backbones is not necessarily related to
technological changes, there are other, smaller initiatives of the IFFR showing that the festival is applying this innovative character on the level of film distribution, too, and that it responds with such experiments to the cultural changes digitization is causing. In the following three sub-chapters I will outline these experiments of the IFFR from 1996 onwards. Some of these survived for a long time and are still part of the core festival program, others were shut down after only one festival edition. All of them, however, help to analyze how the technological changes in the age of digitization changed the programming of the film festival and subsequently make clear how the role of the IFFR changed.
The visual schemes appearing throughout this chapter show circles colored in different tones on a timeline, each color tone referring to a specific group of initiatives the IFFR has taken in the domains. The color and number of the circle corresponds to the color and number in the legend underneath. As the number of initiatives is too high to explain each of them within this work, a short description of each initiative can be found in alphabetical order in Appendix D. Some circles are bigger than others. These bigger circles mostly refer to initiatives that were repeated for a great number of festival editions in a row. Some bigger circles, such as Cinema Reloaded, were not repeated but still represent a big milestone in the festival’s history as they were either a major symbolical innovation, or they received a great amount of attention both in the IFFR’s annual reports or in other secondary literature.
2.2 Digital distribution
For the following analysis, one needs to define the term “digital distribution” in the technological system, in order to see what communications in the digital age look like and how they influence the structures of the art system and film festivals in particular. Digital distribution, on a mere technological level, refers to the delivery of content via bits and bytes, instead of via printed material. In the context of film, this delivery takes place, on the one hand, in the cinema, where the content of a film is digitally projected on a big screen. On the other hand, digital projection also allows the content to be delivered via other media than the big cinema screen. These new media, including mobile phones, smart phones, the computer, laptops, tablets, mp3-players, etc. are today able to reproduce bits and bytes so that they can deliver digital content, too (Jenkins 2006, 4-5). With the invention and popularization of the internet, this content is able to flow via all these different media: films can be downloaded on computers, dragged on a smartphone and watched in the train or at home. Analogue film distribution, on the other hand, include older forms of distribution, meaning the analogue projection of prints in dark screening halls, where the viewer is sitting in front of a big screen with a collective group of people.
The following four sub-chapters will discuss four major cultural shifts that are caused by digital developments in the technological system. These shifts contain new ways of communication. After introducing a change, I will show how these new communications spilled over to the film system as sub-system of the art system. Eventually I will demonstrate how the IFFR responds to these new communications.
2.2.1 Collective and individual film distribution
One of the most discussed concepts that define new digital media refers to a transformation of the notions on the “individual” and the “collectivity”. This shift can possibly best be summarized by what Rainie and Wellman call “networked individualism” (Rainie and Wellman 2012, 6). On the one hand, most new media are dominantly directed towards the individual, thus made for the usage by a single person. The screen of the mobile phone, for instance, offers primarily interaction space for one individual. When using the computer, it is also most likely that one does that on his own instead of with a group. Many sociologists state that these new media isolate people from physical relations with other individuals. With the invention of, for instance, the smartphone, people get help from online applications in every situation in life, be it in order to play games as a leisure activity, to count the calories people burn during jogging or to provide them with a recipe for dinner (Rainie and Wellman, 6). A recent study by mobileinsurance.com has shown that, on average, people spend 90 minutes a day staring at their phone, which is 23 days a year and 3,9 years of their life (mobilestatistics.com). People don’t have to ask their fellows for help anymore, as the little screen can tell them everything they need.
Yet, as Rainie and Wellman argue, “social isolation” is far from what is happening in today’s society. The internet developed virtual platforms on which users can connect with other users, communicate, share content and enter debates. As a result, they are stronger connected than ever before, though as individuals, not as a physical group (Rainie and Wellman 2012, 6-7). And the authors are not alone with their argument. Henry Jenkins, for instance, appoints to “collective intelligence”, arguing that virtual communities that share knowledge on online platforms about one specific topic, story or event provide the members of the group with a higher amount of knowledge than it would be possible without these platforms. This is because members from all over the world with different pieces of knowledge can supplement each other’s level of information (Jenkins 2006, 26-27).
This discussion about the replacement of physical interaction by virtual connections spilled over to the art system, especially on the level of film distribution and reception. Theatrical distribution of film refers to the conventional form of watching a movie in the 20th century. It is, as Richard Maltby, Melvyn Stokes and Robert C. Allen argue, a social experience (Maltby, Stokes and Allen 2007). When going to the cinema, one is always part of a group. The group of friends people meet to see a movie together, on the one hand, and the whole audience as a collective group on the other.
The internet, however, has opened the opportunity to access short video clips, advertising clips, trailers, user-produced content and full films online from home via the computer or laptop. Watching a film at home on the computer is not only convenient, but also cheaper, as one doesn’t need to travel to the next cinema and purchase an expensive ticket (De Valck 2012, 121). This entails a different viewing situation, as people are not accompanied by a big group of strangers, but rather see a film alone or with few friends. Especially after Susan Sontag’s publication of her article in the New York Times Magazine, in which she predicted the “death of cinema”, resulting from a “death of cinephilia”, a common fear of new media devices that are aimed at an individual rather than a collective use has made its way to the academic field of media studies. For Sontag, “to be kidnapped [by the storyline and characters of a film], you have to be in a movie theater, seated in the dark among anonymous strangers” (Sontag 1996). This is not least because in a living room or a bed room, the spectator is in a familiar environment, with many things that distract and pull him or her away from the story. With the emergence of video and television, she argues, film became more and more a medium for home-entertainment, resulting in the shutdown of many movie theaters and, subsequently, in a death of cinema. Online distribution is another form of home-entertainment and, following Sontag’s argument, would then push forward the “death of cinema” (Sontag 1996).
This fear found many representatives, but just as many opponents. The argument of cinema as a social experience can easily be turned around. Theorists like Julian Hanich argue that it is exactly the collective, social value of theatrical distribution that keeps the cinema-going culture alive. Sitting in a dark room with people one has no other connection with than the same taste of films and who laugh, cry and scream at the same time is, according to Hanich, the reason why people go to the cinema (Hanich 2014, 338). Hanich, thus, claims that film does not only have a social value, but also an emotional one which can be strengthened by the collective experience rather than by an individual one.
Both arguments are, in a way, correct. On the one hand, alternative digital ways of distribution have certainly changed the film distribution landscape. This can be seen in the increase of online platforms offering films, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime or several online TV channels. Even cinemas start their own on-demand platforms online, such as the Curzon Home Cinema, a website offering a
number of films to stream for a small fee, run by the UK Curzon Cinema chain (Curzon Home Cinema). On the other hand, it seems that these new forms of distribution are not necessarily a threat for theatrical film distribution. In the Netherlands, for instance, cinema attendance increased in 2015 with a total number of cinema visitors of 32,951,335 by 7% compared to 2014. This is even the highest number since 1967 (NVBF and NVF 2016, 1-2). The increase of cinema attendance therefore argues against a “death” of cinema. I therefore argue that digital online distribution does not exist
instead of cinema, but along with cinema. I do agree that the “social” aspect of the film experience is
not provided on digital online platforms, at least not in the way Hanich describes it. However, using Rainie and Wellman’s argument, it might merely be repositioned on a virtual level. Viewers might not be in a collective, physical group during, before and after the film, but they have possibilities to evaluate and discuss the film via online platforms, share and collect insider knowledge, get recommendations for similar movies and access other people’s reviews.
This twofold way of film distribution has also entered the festival world. Figure two shows which new initiatives the IFFR took in the past 20 years in terms of physical, offline distribution (group one) and online film distribution (group two). It is restricted to the festival’s initiatives that are organized as physical events outside the festival days, on the one hand, and the festival’s ways of online distribution, on the other hand. As the graphic unveils already at the first glance, the IFFR constantly enhances its distribution strategies on the physical as well as on the virtual level, without favoring one or the other. Initiatives such as www.tigeronline.nl, cinemalink.tv, IFFR in the Cloud and Tiger
Releases Online are all initiatives to stream whole films on online platforms with the IFFR quality
label. These channels are most likely being used by individuals at home, in the train or in the bus. Physical events, such as Tigers on Tour, festival editions in Groningen, Amsterdam, even New Delhi,
Paramaribo and Curacao are, on the other hand, watched at a cinema with a collective group,
representing the conventional form of film distribution.
In addition to the conventional awards, such as the Tiger Award and other awards provided or supported by sponsors, the IFFR also introduced a separate award for online distributed films, the
New Arrivals Award, in 2007. The Big Screen Award, on the other hand, explicitly aims to support
traditional distribution venues, by awarding the winner with a contract with the distributor Amstelfilm and therefore ensuring its theatrical distribution.
What becomes clear is that the digital forms of distribution are not replacing theatrical events, but co-existing with them. Since the last few years, however, this co-existence seems to be approached in a new way, indicated by programs like the IFFR Live program. Films that are part of this program are shown at the Rotterdamse Schouwburg and live broadcast to about 45 movie theaters throughout Europe. This means, a visitor at the cinema in Glasgow can follow the screening in
Rotterdam by not only seeing the actual film, but also the Q&A afterwards that takes place at the Rotterdamse Schouwburg. Moreover, audience questions can exclusively be asked via Twitter, from all audience members in the 45 cities, and are projected on the screens in Rotterdam (IFFR 2015b, 15). With this form of distribution, it is not so much the “networked individualism” people experience, but rather “networked collectivism”, as it is indeed not individuals communicating in the virtual space, but physical audience groups.
The fact that these different audience groups are spread over Europe puts this collectivism also into a global perspective. The traditional cinema experience has earlier been a “local” experience, thus, it was a number of local residents that form a social group together when going to the movies. The IFFR Live program connects these local audience groups globally, bringing residents throughout Europe together in one film experience. This “globalization” of the festival can also be seen when looking at group one of figure two. Although all of these initiatives are physical events, they could also be divided into local or national initiatives and global ones. Programs like the Festival Weekend
Maastricht, the IFFR Pocket Edition Groningen and the Cinema Sandwich, for instance, are national
tours of the festival’s films. The Mini Festival New Delhi, IFFR flies Paramaribo and the IFFR Edition
Curacao bring these films to global audiences. Although these programs are not a response on the
cultural changes that came with digitization, but rather made possible through simple technical advantages of digital cinema, such as the easier transportation of digital films compared to heavy analogue film reels, they create global, physical audience groups that belong to one festival. The IFFR
Live program can then connect these groups.
The IFFR as distributing and event-driven institution seems not only to copy the patterns from the technological system and extend its conventional distribution channels with digital ones, but it also challenges the new ways of distribution and the resulting cultural changes. By innovative programs such as IFFR Live, the organization does not only question the limitations of cinematic distribution of film, but also poses triggers for new ways of interaction with new media, namely one towards a “networked collectivism”.
1: Festival Weekend Maastricht 1: Tiger TV 2: IFFR Pocket Edition Groningen 2: Radio Channel
3: World Cinema Tour 3: Weblog
4: Tiger Releases 4: www.tigeronline.nl 5: Festival Weekend Amsterdam 5: Video and Audio Stream 6: Mini Festival New Delhi 6: New Arrivals Award
7: Tigers on Tour 7: www.cinemalink.tv
8: IFFR flies Paramaribo 8: YouTube channel IFFR
9: Rialto 9: IFFR in the Cloud
10: Rotterdam en Route 10: Tiger Releases online
11: Cinema Mondial 11: IFFR Live
12: Cinema Sandwich 13: IFFR Edition Curacao 14: Jameson Film Experience 15: Big Screen Award
Fig. 2: Online film distribution and live events (IFFR 1996-2015)
2.2.2 Old concepts in new contexts
In 1999, media theorists Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin published a groundbreaking work on media change and the emergence of new digital media. According to them, media change is characterized by a concept called “remediation”, which refers to the “representation of one medium in another” (Bolter and Grusin 1999, 45). New media, therefore, incorporate old forms of media, but old media can incorporate new media, too. Throughout history, they argue, newer media tend to refashion, enhance and comment on older ones. This takes place across different media, such as film trying to refashion theater, or photography aiming to be more realistic than paintings, etc. The
emergence of new media follows the same concept: online platforms, such as YouTube or Netflix, that are accessible via the computer or smartphones, refashion film traditionally distributed in the cinema, E-book readers refashion print books and the Mp3-player refashions the walkman (Bolter and Grusin 1999, 17).
This concept of remediation is dependent on two media historical characteristics, immediacy and hypermediacy. Which one of the two dominates can vary in different periods. Immediacy, on the one hand, is the aim of newer media to make themselves invisible, meaning that the medium itself urges to disappear and be unnoticeable for the user. In the case of modern flat-screen TVs or touch-screen smart phones, producers try to construct the medium as flat as possible, so that the only thing visible for the viewer is the content on the screen itself (Bolter and Grusin 1999, 5-6). Hypermediacy, on the other hand, can take on different forms. For instance, one medium can be hypermediated in the way that it shows a number of other media. A computer screen displaying a number of different “windows”, is an example of hypermediacy. Another example is perspective painting, that seems “unreal” or hypermediated to the spectator. Theme parks containing different attractions and events within one event are also a form of hypermediacy. In the end, it “makes us aware of the medium […] and […] reminds us of our desire for immediacy” (Bolter and Grusin 1999, 34).
Bolter and Grusin are, however, not the first theorists noting than older media reappear throughout history. Walter Benjamin states in his famous essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936) that film and photography are mechanically reproducible art forms and can therefore exist in the form of several copies. When seeing a film in the cinema, for instance, people do not see the projection from the hard drive or film print that was shot, cut and spliced by the filmmaker, but a reproduction of it. As the content remains the same and as it is not noticeable for the viewer whether it is the original or not, the film can be distributed at different places, at different times and within different contexts. What is “in danger” to disappear, when art can be reproduced mechanically, is, according to Benjamin, its “aura”, thus the historical, social and cultural background in which a film was originally produced (Benjamin 1969 [1936], 218-219).
In a way, film festivals can be places of remediation, too, as they show many different contents in many different ways and with many different media at one event. At the same time, they strive to disappear as an “interface”, thus letting the visitors be immersed in the festival experience (De Valck 2007, 38). Especially the IFFR is putting the whole city of Rotterdam in an exceptional state, hanging flags with tigers throughout the city and starting collaborations and deals with not only movie theaters, but also hotels, restaurants, or cultural meeting places, so that guests can send the whole day at festival venues, be it to watch a film, have dinner or sleep. With a small IFFR cabin at
Rotterdam central station selling film tickets, they even seem to allow the visitors arriving by train to start the festival immediately after arrival (IFFR 2015b, 22).
The concept of remediation takes place at festivals on the level of programming, too, especially when looking at the re-appearance of old media in a new environment. One very common way is to present “the old” in a contemporary environment in the form of retrospectives. Retrospectives are not a phenomenon exclusively caused by digitization. It is a phenomenon that festivals started programming already in the 1980s, when no one was certain about the development of digital means yet (Stringer 2003, 94). Julian Stringer did extensive research on the emergence of retrospectives at the London Film Festival, which presented its first one on, among others, silent Hollywood classics in 1981. The London Film Festival screened the films with special musical accompaniment, in a prestigious, old theater with the tickets available only for a short period and for variable ticket prices. As Stringer argues, recreating these old distribution spaces in line with the new, digital ones of the 21st century, is more than just a screening of old films, of which people already know that they are worth watching (Stringer 2003, 83).This way, they try to recreate the same atmosphere in which these movies were produced and watched in their original time. Speaking in Benjamin’s terms, they try to recreate the aura of the original artwork. They also combine this screening with a kind of “exclusivity”, making it a “superspecial” event (Stringer 2003, 85).
Figure four shows different thematic film programs and panels the IFFR organized throughout the past 20 years. All of these programs address old (group one) or new (group two) forms of film distribution. This visual outline shows that many times when a program that addresses new kinds of cinema or the future of film festivals themselves is organized, a parallel program that refers to the past is organized as well. There are several points in the festival’s history when this becomes clear. In contrast to the innovative Exploding Cinema program in 1996, for instance, the IFFR organized programs like the First Festival Regained and Taschenkino, and started screening restored versions of old films – all of which do either address old films themselves or old ways of distribution and reception. The initiative of Screening Restorations, for instance, was the first attempt of the IFFR to create retrospective viewing atmospheres as those of the London film festival. In 1996, the IFFR screened a restoration of the film La Belle Dame Sans Merc (1920) and re-created the distribution situation of the 1920s with musical live accompaniment (IFFR 1996, 19).
The same is done in 1999, when the Digital New Wave program showed digitally produced films with innovative styles. One year later this program is followed by From Scratch, focusing on experimental and innovative styles as well, but then including physical, analogue films. The discussion and interview series about future relations between cinema and other media What (is) Cinema? was created only one year before the start of the festival’s retrospective Cinema Regained. Other
contrasting programs were organized from 2006 until 2008, with programs like Happy Endings and
Still 16, which reminded of old analogue film formats and critically addressed the new ways of
distribution. On the contrary, the program Happy Beginnings and the New Arrivals Award address the possibilities of digital online distribution. Also the experiment in 2007 when 109 performances and
installations were included in the program, opposed to 44 performances and installations in 2007 and
31 in 2009 was clearly an attempt to test what a festival of the future could look like, in contrast to programs like Still 16 (IFFR 2007, 18).
The IFFR, thus, “remediates” older forms of film and film distribution, recreating the aura of older film formats in general, in one contemporary event that at the same time displays new and future forms of film and film distribution. This kind of remediation of old formats can entail new values. What changes is the fact that people experiencing former viewing situations they are not familiar with anymore or have never been familiar with, see these experiences with a different background and different conventions than the ones the film was originally made for. They might therefore approach older formats more critically, because they do not take it for granted. This also works the other way around: when extending one’s experience with older concepts, one might engage more critically with the newer ones.
For example, in the 1930s seeing a 35 mm silent film in a small cinema with live piano accompaniment had functions such as spending a night out, being emotionally affected by the storyline or extending the knowledge of the spectators. In the 21st century, recreated screenings like this have different values. An 82-year-old person, for instance, could be emotionally affected less by the storyline and the content, but rather by the memories this reconstructed situation triggers. For younger people, such an experience would create an awareness of what it meant to go to the movies 100 years ago. It could cause a more critical view on today’s digital technology and therefore affect daily ways of engaging with new media. Retrospectives do therefore not only add cultural value to film festivals and emphasize the “importance of some titles rather than others” (Stringer 2003, 83), but, I argue, they also have a social impact as the new presentation of old artworks has different values for today’s society than it has for the society in which the old artwork was presented originally. These new values of old media can be, for instance, enlightenment about former distribution experiences or the benefits from watching a film in a social group versus watching films online. To put it in Benjamin’s terms, old media presented in contemporary environments can make the audience aware of the original aura of an artwork. Looking at the role of the film festivals, one can say that they are not only showing films anymore because of their content, style and artistic specialty. Film festivals increasingly take the media specificity and media change into account, not only using new media, but also reflecting on them.
In a way, the IFFR offers space for physical hypermediacy, as different media and different distribution situations are brought together in one single event. This hypermediacy, as Bolter and Grusin argue, results in a greater media awareness. As the IFFR tries to immerse the visitors in the festival in a way, that they are surrounded by the festival’s programs and activities day and night, it aims to make the “interface” transparent, invisible for the visitor, meaning the visitor doesn’t consciously enter and exit the festival surrounding, but is constantly in the middle of it. However, due to the direct juxtaposition of old and new forms of distribution, the audience is able to see old distribution situations in the context of new ones, which can create a new form of media awareness of both old and new media (Bolter and Grusin 1999, 19). This enables them to reflect on this media change objectively, which can influence the spectator’s mental structures and therefore have a function within the broader society.
1: First Festival Regained 1: Exploding Cinema
2: Taschenkino 2: Digital New Wave
3: Screening Restorations 3: What (is) Cinema? 4: From Scratch 4: Artist in Focus
5: Cinema Regained 5: Exposing Cinema
6: Still 16 6: New Arrivals Award
7: Happy Endings, When Festivals are Over 7: Happy Beginnings
8: Starting from Scratch 8: 109 Live Performances and Installations
9: Kino Climates 9: IFFR Live
