Dynamics of World Cinema

In recognition of her scholarship on issues related to the study of film festivals, Prof. Dina Iordanova has been invited to join the Board of Directors of the Centre for the Moving Image which runs the Edinburgh International Film Festival. In 2011 the EIFF festival will run between 15 and 26 June as a non-competitive event.

The Times Higher Education 2010 World University Rankings has the University of St Andrews placed at Number 20 in the top 50 Arts and Humanities Universities. In other rankings (Guardian, Independent, Times, THE) St Andrews is consistently placed within the top five UK universities.

In other rankings (Guardian, Independent, Times, THE) St Andrews is consistently placed within the top five UK universities, with Philosophy being one of its most most highly ranked subjects.

Dina Iordanova gave a talk entitled 'Festivals Need Film/ Film Needs Festivals' at the Euro-Festival workshop organised by Istututo Cattaneo and the University of Bologna in Bologna, Italy on November 25, 2010.

This was also an excellent opportunity to visit the DAMS (film studies) department at the University of Bologna - the oldest, largest, best-established and most respected one in the country- and make important

contacts in the city where the venerable Cinema Ritrovato cinephile event takes place.

To Interested Reviewers of Film Festival Yearbook 2

Thank you for your interest in reviewing Film Festival Yearbook 2: Film Festivals and Imagined Communities (2010). 

Review copies of Film Festival Yearbook 2 have been sent to various internationally renowned journals with global circulation. If you would like to review the book for a journal, please download a list of journals with the link below and contact your preferred journal directly.  

 ffy2reviewers_journals.doc 

TALK

28 April 2009

5:15 pm. Centre for Film Studies

Lecture Theatre, Ground floor, Arts Building, University of St Andrews

Prof. Stuart Cunningham, Queensland University of Technology; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation

Rates of Change: Digital Distribution as Disruptive Technology in the Film Industry

Abstract:

This paper looks at an aspect of the challenges to business models that have served established media industries like music, film, television, for decades: the eruption of digital distribution into the film industry in recent years.

Much debate in film, media and communication studies about industry structure and change is based on exaggerated oppositionalism: overly enthusiastic optimism versus determined pessimism over the potential of new technologies; assertions of 'fundamental crisis' in the strategies of the cultural industries versus re-assertions of the utter predictability that hegemonic capital will always already triumph. This is a depressing predicament and inhibits the discipline's claims to provide rigorous insight into industry change which is, after all, continuous. It is based on deep-seated values which often results in 'glass-half-empty/glass-half-full' debates which manage the challenging complexity of universes of data by dividing them into selective portions that confirm previously established positions.

Instead, we can ask a range of questions which are subject to at least some degree of agreed empirical confirmation or refutation: what are the operating models? What are the alternative models? What have been their histories and successes/failures? Is there evidence for more, or less, sustainable business strategies (including not-for-profit strategies)? At what rate is change occurring? With what different impacts in different sectors?

The empirical data on which the paper is based comes from a database of 200+ websites which offer digital distribution of film (and other screen) content. At a preliminary stage of analysis, these sites have been classified according to the following criteria:

 *   Year founded

 *   Main Type of content

 *   Business Model

 *   Internet Traffic Rank #

 *   Daily reach peak as % / Internet

 *   Available  success metrics

 *   Website User profile (countries of origin)

 *   Hotlink & speed rating

 *   Company HQ

The paper will analyse these businesses and enterprises in the context of the historical structure and modus operandi of the film distribution industry, one of the most stable and profitable sectors over the long duree of the twentieth century.

This presentation is part of The Leverhulme Trust-funded 'Dynamics of World Cinema: Transnational Channels of Global Film Circulation' project currently being conducted at St Andrews.

Bio:

Stuart Cunningham is Professor of Media and Communications, Queensland University of Technology, and Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (cci.edu.au). This centre draws on contributions across the humanities, creative arts and social sciences to help build a more dynamic and inclusive innovation system. He is author or editor of several books and major reports, most recently The Media and Communications in Australia (with Graeme Turner, Allen & Unwin, 2006), What Price a Creative Economy? (Platform Papers, 2006), Beyond the Creative Industries: Mapping the Creative Economy in the United Kingdom (with Peter Higgs and Hasan Bakhshi, NESTA, 2008) and In the Vernacular: A Generation of Australian Culture and Controversy (University of Queensland Press, 2008). He is at St Andrews during April working as a co-investigator on The Leverhulme Trust-funded 'Dynamics of World Cinema: Transnational Channels of Global Film Circulation'.

For tourists who went to St Andrews to enjoy their Spring Break this year, the Saturday, 4 April 2009, was a little bit less than agreeable due to the sudden fog enveloping the home of golf. Yet on the other end of this Scottish seashore town that same day, vigorous discussion has been going on for the whole day around matters of film festivals.

Supported by The Levehulme Trust and led by Professor Dina Iordanova of the University's Centre for Film Studies, the project 'Dynamics of World Cinema' looks into various transnational channels of global film distribution -- such as the film festival circuit, the spread of global blockbusters, diasporic film distribution, and Internet-enabled film dissemination -- and the dynamic patterns of interaction between them. 

The 'International Film Festival Workshop' took place at the Lawrence Levy studio at the modern Byre Theatre, hugged amidst the majestic medieval ruins and the old stone houses in town. It was a rare occasion bringing together over forty individuals from various academic fields with film critics (such as Richard Porton from the Cineaste in New York and Nick Roddick - Mr. Busy from Sight and Sound) and festival practitioners (like Irene Bignardi, former director of Locarno IFF). Festivals play an important role in the world of cinema, given the fact that about 2,000 film festivals take place annually around the world.  In a digital age, the attractions of 'liveness' continue to flourish, and film festivals provide intense, communal experiences valued by a growing number of cineastes.

The discussions, moderated by leading critics (e.g. Michael Gubbins, former editor of Screen International) and academics (e.g. Stuart Cunningham of the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia) evolved around festival programming, distribution, funding, digitisation/new media, and cultural policy.  It is expected that more and more related events and scholarly work in the field of film festival research will soon come along.

The next project is the inaugural volume of major new series put together by the 'Dynamics of World Cinema' team.  Entitled Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, this volume is the first major academic anthology devoted to this new field within cinema studies. It features articles related to the global proliferation of film festivals and focuses on the dynamics of the film festival circuit, including the roles of individual festivals as nodes on this complex network and the cultural policies that shape its channels of film distribution and exhibition. This inaugural issue is edited by Dina Iordanova with Ragan Rhyne, and includes essays by the two editors, Janet Harbord, Charles-Clemens Rüling, Rahul Hamid, Kay Armatage, Ruby Cheung, Ma Ran, David Slocum, Mark Cousins, Nick Roddick, Dimitris Kerkinos, Marijke de Valck & Skadi Loist, and William Brown, some of whom were also participants in the festival workshop.

The 'Dynamics of World Cinema' project has an interactive website at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/worldcinema, dedicated to posting the ongoing news and events of the project and its research output.  The project has an international advisory board, which brings together twenty-three prominent academics and practitioners from the world of film and media industries worldwide. The most recent existing project is the collaborative venture with Melbourne-based critic Adrian Martin (Monash University) whose students blog on a daily basis from this festival spot in Australia for our web-site. Check the project out at www.st-andrews.ac.uk/worldcinema 

Check out the following for the exciting news on film festivals in the latest issue of "Schnitt" - Germany's biggest film related special interest magazine: 

Is there a Future for Film Festivals?

"Schnitt" special feature curated by Lars Henrik Gass

Sure there is - but what could it look like? In recent years a lot of the circumstances that have contributed to the enormous multiplication of film festivals have changed. This leads to questions of today's relevance of film festivals. How do they justify their work, how do they react to changes in their economic environment or to different social forms of use of moving images?

In the extended special feature of the new issue of the Cologne-based "Schnitt" magazine, which will be published on April 8, 2009, eleven directors of some of the world's most important film festivals have sought answers to those questions. Curated by Lars Henrik Gass, director of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (April 30 to Mai 5, 2009), for the first time in this comprehensiveness the challenges that the internet, questions of commercialization and the financial crisis pose for modern film festivals are being discussed.

The special feature, spanning 45 pages, is printed bilingual in German and English. Contributors to this issue include Marco Müller (Director of the Venice International Film Festival), Cameron Bailey (Co-Director of the Toronto International Film Festival), Olivier Père (Artistic Director of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the Festival de Cannes), Sandra Hebron (Artistic Director of the London International Film Festival), Hans Hurch (Director of the Vienna International Film Festival, Viennale), Jean-Pierre Rehm (Director of FID Marseille), Silke Johanna Räbiger (Director of the International Women's Film Festival Dortmund|Cologne), Nathalie Hénon and Jean-François Rettig (Directors of Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid), Shane RJ Walter (Creative Director of onedotzero Festival), Adam Pugh (Aurora, Norwich) and Lars Henrik Gass ( Director of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen).

"Schnitt - Das Filmmagazin" is Germany's biggest film related special interest magazine and appears quarterly. Issue #54 will be published on April 8, 2009 and can be ordered internationally via This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Oberhausen, 6 April 2009

Sleeping through films is usually considered a major transgression, but sometimes it is surely helpful, claims Richard Porton in this light-hearted piece which appeared recently in the Dutch on-line publication FilmKrant. You can get to reading his essay on 'The Sleep of Cinematic Reason' by clicking here.

Richard took part in our Film Festivals Workshop on the weekend (4 April 2009) and did not seem to fall sleep even for a minute (neither did the other critics who took part). We are proud of the achievement of keeping all participants awake!