By Cassice Last and Sophie Hopmeier
During the last decade, film festivals have gained momentum within both public and academic debate as their practices and strategies have come under scrutiny from various theoretical perspectives. Film festivals stimulate the emergence of innovative approaches within film studies, historiography and theory, and, as a result, are now an established field of research and study –forming and training new cohorts of festivals’ practitioners and organisers.
This issue of Frames, entitled Film Festivals: Aftermaths and Beyond, seeks to draw attention to the relationship between film festivals in practice and as a discourse, with a focus on a reciprocal influence and ongoing dialogue between these two polarities, and on how they impact one another. Articles and POVs in this issue question how the film festival circuit determines the fate of a film and how stakeholder dynamics influence the functioning of film festivals, as well as exploring the role of regional and sub-regional film festivals and circuits in shaping the understanding of world cinema.
In addition to this thematic issue, we are pleased to be able to publish a selection of essays, in several formats, from the Institute for Global Cinema and Creative Cultures workshop celebrating the legacy of the seminal Japanese actress, Setsuko Hara (1920-2015), which was held at the University of St Andrews on Feb 5th, 2018.
We would like to thank our guest editor, Professor Dîna Iordanova, Professor and founder of the Department of Film Studies at The University of St Andrews, for her generous and deeply insightful contribution to this issue. As always, we are extremely grateful for the support of our dedicated editorial team and for their superb work on this issue.