Shaping Film Festivals in a Changing World: Practice and Methods
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (2025), 304 pp.
Contains bibliogr. pp. 269-293, index
ISBN 978-90-485-5573-4 (pdf); 978-94-6372-557-6 (print)
"This volume is a collective attempt on the part of a community of academics, film festival curators, and archivists to come to terms with practical and intellectual challenges of the pandemic and post-pandemic realities affecting cultures of film festivals. The collection draws contours of critical inquiry orienting current film festival research and practice to explore new directions in archiving and decolonizing practices and big data analysis in the post-Covid-19 context and beyond. The four-part study gathers the voices of academics and practitioners who engage in a dialogue to articulate critical areas for both study and practice of film festivals, and identifies conceptual tools to address them: “Archival Turn,” “Decolonizing Film Festival Studies,” “Post-Covid-19 and Film Festival Studies” and “Data Visualization and Film Festival Research and Practice.” (Publisher description)
Introduction / Dorota Ostrowska and Tamara L. Falicov, 11
PART 1. ARCHIVAL TURN
1 The Red and the Black : The State and the Privateers, Different Approaches to Organizing Film Festivals / Piers Handling, 31
2 Archival Research and Festival Studies’ Historiographical Narratives / Antoine Damiens, 41
3 Film Festivals as Affective Economies : Methodologies for Following Buzz as Film Festival Affect / Jonathan Petrychyn, 57
4 Film Preservation, Archives, and Film Festivals in Latin America / Juana Suarez, 67
PART 2. DECOLONIZING FILM FESTIVAL STUDIES: PRACTICE-BASED/PRACTICE-LED AND COLLABORATIVE METHODOLOGIES
5 Positionality, Immersive Methodology, and Collaboration in Film Festival Research / Estrella Sendra, 81
6 Immersion, Reflection, Triangulation : Festival Research Methods in Small and Precarious Cinemas / Jasper Vanhaelemeesch, 97
7 Providing Needed Space for Caribbean and Diaspora Filmmakers in Miami / Jonathan Ali, 113
8 On Studying Film Festivals and Migration: Borderlands and Beginnings / Rachel Johnson, 117
9 Unraveling Curatorial Dilemmas : Practice-Led and Auto-Ethnography in the Study of Human Rights Film Festivals / Alexandra-Maria Colta, 135
PART 3. POST-COVID-19 AND FILM FESTIVAL STUDIES
10 Programming under COVID-19: London Film Festival 2020 / Maria M. Delgado, 151
11 Steps to a Greener Film Festival Studies : A Multidisciplinary Subfield and the Environmentalist Turn / Ger Zielinski, 165
12 Festivals Must Not Only Nurture Audiences : They Must Create Them Too / Hebe Tabachnik, 179
13 Tell Me Why You Care? Film Festival Cultures, Ethics, and Aesthetics of Care / Dorota Ostrowska, 185
14 Film Festivals in the Time of COVID-19: A Programmer’s Perspective / Jim Kolmar, 199
PART 4. DATA VISUALIZATION AND FILM FESTIVAL RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
15 Studying Film Circulation : Moving Film Festival Research to an Evidence-Based, Global Perspective / Skadi Loist, 211
16 From the Field to the Database : Combining Methods in Film Festival Research / Aida Vallejo and Maria Paz Peirano, 229
17 Independent Film and the US Festival Circuit / Brendan Kredell, 251
PART 1. ARCHIVAL TURN
1 The Red and the Black : The State and the Privateers, Different Approaches to Organizing Film Festivals / Piers Handling, 31
2 Archival Research and Festival Studies’ Historiographical Narratives / Antoine Damiens, 41
3 Film Festivals as Affective Economies : Methodologies for Following Buzz as Film Festival Affect / Jonathan Petrychyn, 57
4 Film Preservation, Archives, and Film Festivals in Latin America / Juana Suarez, 67
PART 2. DECOLONIZING FILM FESTIVAL STUDIES: PRACTICE-BASED/PRACTICE-LED AND COLLABORATIVE METHODOLOGIES
5 Positionality, Immersive Methodology, and Collaboration in Film Festival Research / Estrella Sendra, 81
6 Immersion, Reflection, Triangulation : Festival Research Methods in Small and Precarious Cinemas / Jasper Vanhaelemeesch, 97
7 Providing Needed Space for Caribbean and Diaspora Filmmakers in Miami / Jonathan Ali, 113
8 On Studying Film Festivals and Migration: Borderlands and Beginnings / Rachel Johnson, 117
9 Unraveling Curatorial Dilemmas : Practice-Led and Auto-Ethnography in the Study of Human Rights Film Festivals / Alexandra-Maria Colta, 135
PART 3. POST-COVID-19 AND FILM FESTIVAL STUDIES
10 Programming under COVID-19: London Film Festival 2020 / Maria M. Delgado, 151
11 Steps to a Greener Film Festival Studies : A Multidisciplinary Subfield and the Environmentalist Turn / Ger Zielinski, 165
12 Festivals Must Not Only Nurture Audiences : They Must Create Them Too / Hebe Tabachnik, 179
13 Tell Me Why You Care? Film Festival Cultures, Ethics, and Aesthetics of Care / Dorota Ostrowska, 185
14 Film Festivals in the Time of COVID-19: A Programmer’s Perspective / Jim Kolmar, 199
PART 4. DATA VISUALIZATION AND FILM FESTIVAL RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
15 Studying Film Circulation : Moving Film Festival Research to an Evidence-Based, Global Perspective / Skadi Loist, 211
16 From the Field to the Database : Combining Methods in Film Festival Research / Aida Vallejo and Maria Paz Peirano, 229
17 Independent Film and the US Festival Circuit / Brendan Kredell, 251
