Film festivals serve a variety of purposes; as Elsaesser puts it, film festivals are simultaneously marketplaces, showcases, competitions, and an international body that frequently has an implicit or explicit political stance.[1] The largest and most prestigious film festivals such as Cannes have relinquished their historical nationalist politics in favor of more diffuse goals of “raising awareness” for a variety of issues, including refugee issues.[2] However, topical film festivals have taken their ideological places. LGBT+ film festivals, women’s film festivals, and others have proliferated – albeit of varying size and quality – as well as nation- and region-specific festivals. A particularly interesting example is the development of refugee film festivals, which showcase films about or by refugees from all over the globe.

To begin, a clarification of terminology is necessary. “Refugee” typically refers to people who have claimed asylum in a country not their own. For the purposes of this paper it will also be used to refer to displaced persons who are in the process of claiming asylum or who are displaced within their own countries, as the lived experience of such people can be very similar to the experiences of refugees as a whole, despite differences of region, language, or cause.[3] Refugee matters are managed in the international sphere by the United Nations High Council on Refugees (UNHCR). A separate organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), handles the protracted issue of Palestinian refugees. Refugee film festivals partner with UNHCR, national organizations, or NGOs, as well as working independently from any other charity. No festival partners with UNRWA, although films sponsored by UNRWA have circulated in the traditional film festival circuit.[4]

Perhaps the best known, as well as one of the longest running refugee film festivals, is the UNHCR Refugee Film Festival, which began in 2006.[5] Spread across six cities in Japan, it aims to bring the stories of refugees to Japan and inspire attendees to take action. Most other refugee film festivals over the past decade have followed a similar model, aiming to communicate previously unheard stories with the hope of eventually moving audiences to do something about refugee crises – see examples such as Refugees Welcome Film Fest, FilmAid, Refugee Week Film Festival, and others.[6] Importantly, many of these festivals take place in regions that have little physical contact with any refugee population, and whose regional audiences might otherwise see refugee problems as very distant from their own lives.

Refugee film festivals occupy a unique position in the broad network of film festivals. The implication of an identity-based event such as a women’s film festival is both that female directors and producers will receive recognition denied them by a patriarchal world, and that women will be able to attend and see themselves represented accurately and honestly on screen. The same holds true for festivals that aim to amplify the cinematic voices of most marginalized groups. Many refugees, by contrast, are confined to specific places around the globe and may never actually attend the festivals intended to celebrate them, if the festival even includes films made by refugees.

Refugee film festivals tend to be open about this, claiming to raise awareness about the suffering of refugees across the globe, as well as serving a fundraising purpose. Few focus on a specific refugee crisis. Australia’s Refugee Week Film Festival, for example, states on its website that its purpose is to “inform the public about refugees”, without indicating a specific refugee population.[7] Raising awareness is valuable, but unless it is linked to meaningful action, it simply becomes a self-congratulatory circle of half-hearted liberalism. This is not to say that all, or even most, of the refugee film festivals in the developed world fall into this trap. Indeed, Tascón offers a thoughtful exploration of how film can be a catalyst for changing a privileged spectatorship of suffering into an active experience of solidarity.[8] Nonetheless, the sheer number of refugee film festivals is in sharp contrast with the number of initiatives attempting to bring films to refugees. Regardless of the effectiveness of refugee film festivals for raising awareness and funds, refugees themselves are being left out of the cultural conversation.

This paper is not an attempt to silence these existing festivals or claim that they should not exist; rather, it is a study of whose voices are not being heard. I am less concerned with criticizing the failings of these well-intentioned institutions, and more interested in exploring where film festivals have succeeded in reaching the people they are celebrating. Answering this question requires taking a broader look at what constitutes a “film festival”. In order to understand film festivals as they occur in refugee camps, it is essential to move beyond a Eurocentric, or indeed a nation-centric, perspective. Films made by refugees are made from a transnational or “accented” perspective, and the content often aligns with the terminology of transnational or accented cinema more broadly.[9] The theoretical underpinnings of studying transnational films may well apply to studying refugee film festivals as transnational events, with all the messiness and conflict that entails.

This messiness extends to defining film festivals. Whereas traditional film festivals take place in designated venues, with pomp and circumstance, film festivals for refugees can be ramshackle constructions of inflatable screens and a single MC. Nonetheless, they are festivals in that they bring together multiple curated films for a public audience in a public sphere. Additionally, while many major film festivals title themselves by their location, refugee film festivals place the emphasis on the lack of location inherent in the refugee experience. An effective refugee film festival cannot have a permanent physical home because it aims to serve people who are living in a temporary status of displacement.

Furthermore, the external standards of what constitutes a “good” film festival cannot apply. Organization, glamor, and prestige are less essential than empowering the audience and fostering a cinematic dialogue, and to that end a successful film festival by and for refugees may be difficult to recognize from a traditional standpoint. Regional stars may have a place, as a symbol of the outside world standing in solidarity with the refugee population, but glamorous and exclusive events only serve to exclude the already-marginalized. What a well-intentioned outsider may consider to be a recognizable star – or, for that matter, a good film – may carry little meaning among audiences.

Along those lines, discussing a “circuit” of refugee film festivals is more or less meaningless. The most effective ways of reaching a transitory population are often themselves transitory, and the films may travel with the festival, such as in the case of Solar Cinema. Furthermore, as refugee camps may appear and disappear in a matter of months or years, pinning down any place as a “node” within a system of similar places that support festivals is a challenging task. Nonetheless, surrounded as such projects are by a crowd of supporters, activists, artists, and spectators, they are hardly isolated. The FiSahara festival has managed to stake its claim in the international human rights film festival circuit, but that special case is predicated on the semi-permanent nature of the camp. Because semi-permanent refugee camps are not desirable for either refugees or the country in which they reside, entry into the film festival circuit as it is traditionally conceptualized should not necessarily be desirable for refugee film festivals either.

In this paper, I will explore three examples, selected for the diversity both of their approaches and of their respective levels of funding and prestige. The first, Solar World Cinema, deals with refugees through an offshoot program serving people displaced by the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. Its mobile model is valuable for reaching transient and displaced populations. The next, Secret Cinema’s screening in the Calais camp, was a one-time event that aimed to raise awareness as well as alleviating suffering in a temporary and overcrowded camp. The final example is the most recognizable as a film festival; FiSahara, in the Sahrawi refugee camps of Algeria, has established itself on the global human rights film festival circuit in part due to the protracted nature of the Sahrawi refugee crisis. Taken together, these examples span a variety of regions – Asia, Europe, Africa – and meet a wide variety of needs through innovative practical strategies. Nonetheless, they have ethical and theoretical themes in common.

The mission of Solar World Cinema is, according to their website, to “democratize the access to cinema”, bringing “unseen films to unusual places”.[10] Solar Cinema does not specifically target refugees, instead partnering with local organizations to reach all kinds of remote populations that may not have access to cinema. However, their model is perhaps the most effective for reaching transitory and remote refugee populations. Vans equipped with solar panels tour regions as varied as Kosovo, Croatia, and the southwestern United States, unfolding or inflating a screen after dark and projecting films in locations from beaches to village squares. These cinemas are self-contained, sustainable, and able to project 10 hours on a single charge. They can project DVD, Blue-Ray, and video files through the systems, making exhibition easy and accessible.

Solar World Cinema has an explicitly human rights and environmental justice focus, so their regularly curated program aims to communicate environmental issues without being patronizing or moralizing. With the legacy of informative travelling cinema, especially in developing regions, it is essential to be critical of programmed content, but the practical model itself is undeniably an effective one. The selected program travels with each van and changes on a yearly basis. On occasion, when Solar Cinema partners with a particular festival, they put out a specific call for films around themes appropriate to the festival. Furthermore, satellite cinemas utilizing a similar model have sprung up. EcoCinema, located in Uruguay and Mexico, began as a Solar Cinema program and has since begun operating independently. FilmAid also runs a similar program, but distinguishes it from its associated film festival.[11] However, the one that is of particular interest for a refugee context is located in Nepal.

Unlike larger Solar World Cinema circuits, Solar Cinema Nepal actively curates films that deal with local issues. It was founded in 2012 and took on a new role after the 2015 earthquake that displaced approximately 2.6 million people within Nepal.[12] Solar Cinema Nepal aims to show films made by Nepali filmmakers in Nepalese villages, often focusing on practical and emotional ways to recover from the trauma of environmental catastrophe and resulting displacement. In addition, it collaborates with villages to create new films with similar themes. This strategy is akin to the model of “from, by, for” proposed by the Nigeria Slum Film Festival.[13] The festival takes on a fundamentally local flavor, communicating technical knowledge as well as emotional solidarity. These films can then be released online through digital platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, raising awareness in the global community.[14] This combination of local production and initial exhibition with global release in the digital sphere makes it an effective yet flexible model to apply to refugee crises in remote areas. However, in more established and accessible camps, such transportability and transience is no longer necessary.

In 2015, the well-known Secret Cinema group hosted a screening at the refugee camps in Calais as well as in partner cinemas around the world. The Calais refugee camp, or the Calais Jungle as it was informally known due to its poverty and hopelessness, was at its peak home to approximately 6,000 refugees from Iraq, Iran, and Syria, primarily young men.[15] Its poverty was a stark contrast to the surrounding affluence of the region, turning it into a cornerstone of refugee discourse in Europe. Secret Cinema’s goal was to simultaneously improve the quality of life for the refugees in Calais, raise funds for the Refugee Council, and be a pro-refugee voice in the broader discourses of asylum and human rights. Along those lines, the screening was framed as a protest; the website opens with a quote from Bob Dylan and invites attendees and supporters to use the hashtag #secretprotest to discuss the event. The film shown to the refugees was different from the film shown to the more privileged supporters of Secret Cinema; the “secret” film was Turtles Can Fly [2005, dir. Bahman Ghobadi], a drama about refugee experience, while the camp screened Dilwale Dulhania Le Jeyenge [1995, dir. Aditya Chopra], a popular Bollywood romance.

Secret Cinema is a well-established cinematic institution known for its unique and experiential style, which allowed it to garner support easily. Like the political moments that continue to stem from the official film festival circuit, program founder Fabien Riggal used his existing platform to bring attention to refugee crises. The program provided a kit for anyone interested in showing Turtles Can Fly in conjunction with the Secret Cinema event, resulting in simultaneous screenings in 20 countries around the world.[16] It is unclear how much the event raised financially.

In the camps, the reaction to the film was positive. An estimated 1,000 of the 3,000-4,000 refugees living in the Calais Jungle camp at the time attended the screening, which was publicized through Arabic- and Pashto-language flyers, word of mouth, and the simple curiosity caused by the process of setting up the inflatable screen. As the screen inflated, organizers began to play music to draw attention, and a Nigerian MC living in London named Afrikan Boy introduced the screening.[17] The result was a convivial, festival-like atmosphere as Riggal introduced the three-hour film.

In contrast to the “from, by, for” model proposed by the Slum festival in Nigeria, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jeyenge has no substantive ties to the camp at all and was specifically selected to be so.[18] Hindi-language films with Arabic subtitles are popular across much of the Middle East, and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jeyenge is one of the most popular Bollywood films of all time. The film was therefore chosen to be universally enjoyable while simultaneously not directly from one of the numerous cultures represented in the Calais camp.

This choice illustrates a critical challenge with programming film festivals for refugee camps with populations from multiple cultures. Short of the model of Solar Cinema Nepal, where films are made by other refugees, it can be very challenging to create a high-quality program that will still be genuinely enjoyable for an audience that may have very different tastes. Furthermore, if a film from one group is picked, the others may feel excluded. An outside programmer must work with people within the refugee camp to understand the tastes of the camp and the politics of its residents, as Secret Cinema did. When the refugee population is united by a common language or culture, this process is expediated, but still necessary.

However, the success of the Dilwale Dulhania Le Jeyenge screening points to the universality of cinema as a cultural unifier, as well as their propensity to temporarily relieve suffering. Fabien Riggal describes Secret Cinema’s mission succinctly: “as a cultural organization, we should react to this.”[19] There is no doubt that this reaction, while different from that of Solar Cinema Nepal, is valuable. Even though the film itself has no ties to the refugees, their opinions and tastes were considered when selecting the film, and the result was a success.

Less successful, however, was the lack of continuation. The Calais camp was razed a year after the Secret Cinema screening, but an estimated seven hundred refugees remain, now without even the marginal support provided by the camp. Furthermore, refugees continue to enter Europe; over a hundred thousand refugees and migrants entered Europe in the first half of 2017 alone. The problems that Secret Cinema aimed to address have not gone away, even as media attention has moved on. This is in part a result of the brand cultivated by Secret Cinema. Its episodic format lends itself well to screenings in different areas, but its brand also prioritizes the uniqueness of each screening experience. At some point, the choice was made to not continue the program, and nothing has come to fill its place.

A more enduring model is found in the FiSahara festival. Located in a semi-permanent refugee camp, it has a consistent location and reoccurs year after year. Also known as the Sahara International Film Festival, it takes place in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria, which have been in existence for over forty years.[20] Formed as a result of the Western Sahara War, the exact numbers of refugees and the amount of aid they receive is deeply politicized, but estimates indicate nearly a hundred thousand refugees live in the region.[21] This situation is anything but desirable; many of the people living in these camps were born there and have neither integrated into Algerian society nor returned home. It is also not unique – nearly twelve million people worldwide live in protracted refugee situations, including 5.2 million refugees from Palestine alone. Such situations warrant a different approach in terms of festival organization and programming.

Unlike the mobility of Solar Cinema and the short-term scope of Secret Cinema, FiSahara has both a consistent location and a consistent place in the calendar year, earning it a spot on the human rights film festival circuit.[22] This more traditional methodology has been discussed at length elsewhere, and I will not delve into it here.[23] However, there are elements of the FiSahara program that are worth discussing in this context.

In response to the extreme poverty and the forgotten nature of the crisis, the FiSahara festival started in 2003 with the goal of empowering the Sahrawi people through film. In 2011 it made that goal explicit by starting a permanent, year-round associated film school. Young Sahrawi refugees are making what FiSahara claims are the first uniquely Sahrawi films, which are then shown within the community as well as at the official festival.[24] The result is that Sahrawi refugees have possibly the best access to their own films of any refugee population in the world.

The school is year-round and offers two-year-long programs for its 18-25 year old students. It provides them with film and television education from a technical and artistic point of view.[25](1) It intends to preserve and share Sahrawi culture through film production, not just film exhibition and distribution. This is similar, albeit in a more formal context, to the work of Solar Cinema Nepal, which also encourages film production. However, unlike Solar Cinema Nepal, the FiSahara Film School offers stable, long-term classes in a single location with the possibility of further employment afterwards. This is at least partially due to the greater logistical opportunities afforded by FiSahara’s global reach and established location and offers meaningful economic as well as cultural impact.

Of these three examples of strategies to bring cinema to refugee populations, several logistical issues emerge. The location and probable permanence of the camps must be considered. A new and hopefully temporary camp like the Calais camp is more suited to one-time festivals or mobile festivals that can follow refugees if they need to move. Remote camps may require mobile solutions. In such a situation, showing films produced by the refugees can be logistically impossible, although week-long workshops could potentially produce valuable short films for exhibition in the camp and abroad, as demonstrated by Solar Cinema Nepal.

However, as Secret Cinema demonstrated, an outside programmer can still make conscious choices about the kind of cinema that will appeal in the specific situation, and engage in dialogue with members of the camp to help inform that decision. Such programming may be less innovative than the programming shown at a refugee film festival in an urban, privileged context, and it may be less relatable than content created by refugees, but it is still valuable to its audience. Choosing appropriate films requires a reorienting of taste – moving away from the privileging of art cinema within traditional film festival circuits.[26] A more cynical view would refer to this as catering to the lowest common denominator, but I believe a more positive reading is possible. It is enough for cinema to be a simply enjoyable experience. Furthermore, a wide variety of people, sometimes with nothing else in common, can enjoy the same film. In the context of refugee camps, which are often made up of people fleeing ethnic conflict, this simple joy can be undervalued but incredibly meaningful.

These kinds of positive experiences can be challenging to implement. A benefit of applying the Solar Cinema model to refugee film festivals is that it allows for the unpredictability of refugee situations. Refugee camps may vanish within a short period of time, or alternatively, may remain far longer than anticipated. A mobile cinema allows for continuous, flexible programming in a way that a one-off event like Secret Cinema does not. However, Secret Cinema has the advantage of a global following of dedicated fans; this external support is an essential piece of creating a sustainable program.

Beyond the concerns of program sustainability, these temporary refugee camps also draw significant resources from the surrounding community and can leave substantial traces upon the land. Any initiative within these camps should therefore try to be environmentally sustainable. Both Solar Cinema and Secret Cinema used inflatable screens that are easily constructed and removed. In areas where electricity can be minimal or non-existent, the Solar Cinema model becomes appealing. Powered simply by a van and a solar panel, these cinemas can provide festivals all over the world, going where the need is greatest without being a drag on already overstrained resources.

These resources are drained in part because many refugee situations take years to resolve. When refugee camps take on a semi-permanent status, it becomes easy to forget them. Part of bringing cinema to such situations is committing to a long-term, sustainable program such as FiSahara. These programs should be able to provide more for their audiences than just simple amusement; both FiSahara and Solar Cinema Nepal have associated film schools and provide a space for cinematic conversation within the community. FiSahara is able to have a more long-term program in part due to its consistent location, but the concept remains the same. Giving an authentic voice to protracted refugee situations helps keep them in the forefront of public consciousness and increases the likelihood that their situation will reach a resolution.

One technique for giving a voice to such situations is through film education. Film schools associated with festivals more broadly are not unheard of; festivals as prestigious as the Berlinale have associated production programs.[27] However, in a refugee context there can be both enthusiasm for the unique stories that can be told and a reasonable concern that organizers will stifle students’ creativity through a desire to encourage more “authentic” film, promoting autobiographical narratives over more imaginative ones. Ultimately, refugees are so silenced otherwise that a concern of stifled creativity cannot be said to be the most severe one. Such schools must, nonetheless, make a conscious commitment to keep production education both rigorous and liberating.

A further aspect worth discussing is that of curation. It goes without saying that members of the camp should help curate the festival, but each example discussed here has a different purpose to their curation. Secret Cinema wanted to create a happy experience for refugees while simultaneously raising awareness of their situation, hence their choice to show a different film in the camp than at sister screenings. By contrast, Solar Cinema Nepal envisions film as an educational tool for and by struggling villages. Neither of these aspects are necessarily less legitimate than the other; they simply fill different needs.

As mentioned earlier, curation of this sort requires stepping back from preconceived notions of what makes a “good” film. Not all films chosen to bring pleasure to stressed, overwhelmed refugees are going to be cinematic masterpieces – a label already often informed by colonialist and imperialist impulses. Furthermore, many films made by inexperienced filmmakers, such as the films produced by Solar Cinema Nepal, will have technical errors. Nonetheless, if they communicate something meaningful to their audiences, even just a simple message of hope and solidarity, they have succeeded.

Beyond practical aspects of production, exhibition, and curation, there is the larger issue of associated culture that comes with these kinds of festivals. Every festival cultivates some kind of brand around itself, from the glamour associated with the Cannes Film Festival to the counter-cultural image cultivated by festivals such as the Radical Film Network in Glasgow.[28] However, unlike such traditional festivals and like the refugees they serve, refugee festivals have no national allegiance. Instead, they moor themselves to either a distribution method (Secret Cinema, Solar Cinema) or to a region, rather than a country (FiSahara). Historically, more traditional film festivals have been a kind of national cultural export, inviting cosmopolitan international attendees to partake of a specific country’s cultural riches. These refugee film festivals, by contrast, attempt to provide comfort and solidarity to displaced peoples whose national affiliations have been violently taken from them. These examples still export culture; all of the festivals mentioned here invite external participation. However, the export is no longer tied to a specific nation-state, instead entering into dialogue with the home state, the host state, and the refugee experience.[29]

Furthermore, of the three examples discussed here, only one – FiSahara – fits in with the broader image of what kind of culture a festival “should” export. Secret Cinema is more of a distribution company than a festival coordinator, although they have been included in this paper due to their screening for refugees, and Solar Cinema is too physically and temporally unmoored to seem like a traditional festival. However, these are the most practical ways to reach millions of potential audience members, and in other ways – a curated selection of films shown for a large audience in a specific location – they are very much like festivals.

Exploring these kinds of initiatives from a theoretical perspective, therefore, requires either expanding the current definition of festival or creating an entirely new category for them. Certainly, a new category is possible – FilmAid adopts just such a split model[30] – but that excludes festivals that have the same goal and criteria but a more formal approach, such as FiSahara. Furthermore, other initiatives with the same goals may come to appear more like a traditional festival, drawing the boundaries of such a category into question. Therefore, I believe it is more efficient and effective to expand the category of “film festival” by including these transnational organizations under that large and respected label.

Furthermore, this act of inclusion lends these programs the precise kind of legitimacy that was discussed earlier. If the film community at large is willing to accept such initiatives as film festivals, they have passed a significant hurdle in the construction of their image, however unconventional. This theoretical extension therefore has very real practical benefits. Admittedly, such a labeling may be met with resistance, but it is worth the effort both to support these festivals and to welcome other creative offshoots of the traditional festival label.

However, if initiatives bringing films to refugees are labeled festivals, ethical concerns about power and privilege arise. While Secret Cinema undoubtedly created an enjoyable experience for refugees in the Calais camp, they also promoted their own brand. On the other hand, they also reached audiences that might not have attended a traditional refugee film festival. This kind of “do-good” advertising provokes a complex response. Promoting a for-profit company through service work is undeniably better than using the money to run a traditional ad campaign, but it still benefits a corporation first and foremost, and creates a risk that the company will exploit those it claims to serve. Refugees have very little social and economic capital, which makes it near impossible for them to defend themselves against such exploitation. By contrast, industry professionals and the overlapping consumer sphere have relatively significant socioeconomic power. Similar to the power imbalance possible when making films about refugees, creating cultural spaces for refugees can result in a kind of exploitative imperialism.[31]

The organizers, funders, and visitors of such festivals must therefore be aware of what constitutes exploitation and who is participating in such behaviors. The first aspect is consent; refugees must want a festival to take place and the festival should be organized to consume as few resources as possible. Additionally, refugees must be incorporated into all levels of the decision-making process, especially programming and advertising. Part of this is due to the diversity of refugee populations; there can be no one-size-fits-all model, especially in camps like the Calais Jungle where the residents are from a variety of linguistic, national, and cultural backgrounds. The other part is to allow refugees to have agency over a part of their lives, a valuable source of dignity amongst the instability and loss of control that characterizes many refugee experiences.

A further ethical consideration is that of publicity. Many refugees are uncomfortable with being filmed or photographed, or simply have been preyed upon by too many hungry media outlets.[32] On the other hand, funding does not magically materialize, and some kind of outside promotion is necessary for continuing funding. Secret Cinema’s model of simultaneous screenings is a helpful tool here; an event, united by a mission if not by physical space, that both raises awareness and relieves suffering. It is hardly the only model; another would be screening the films made by the community to wider audiences, like Solar Cinema Nepal. Additionally, festivals like FiSahara that adopt more traditional non-profit advertising methods excel when they make special efforts to adopt practices of cultural sensitivity and informed consent.

The number of refugee film festivals in the “developed” world indicates a very real passion to do something to relieve the suffering of refugee populations through cinema. This passion is incredibly valuable, but in its current incarnation cultural resources are kept within a relatively privileged sphere, rarely interacting with the people who most need them. Where these cultural resources result in broadening understanding and enacting social change, they are well-applied, but some of this passion must also be directed towards those directly experiencing refugee trauma. This paper has illustrated some of the strategies in place to do so, from inflatable screens and solar-powered vans to established film festivals and film schools. These examples open up interesting theoretical directions as well, potentially changing and broadening conceptions of film festivals.

A cynic would question if films even matter to people fleeing horrific circumstances and often struggling to meet their day-to-day needs. It goes without saying that film festivals are not the first line of humanitarian relief in a crisis, but they can be a welcome respite from a difficult and heartbreaking life. Assuming that refugees will not appreciate cinema veers dangerously close to colonialist ideas of the uncivilized “other”. Refugees come from all kinds of backgrounds and social classes, and there is no universal experience of displacement. (2) Additionally, the same could be said about any marginalized group that has communicated their plight and eased their suffering through the power of stories, and the only possible response to such a cynical view is the observed one; films do matter. In the words of an unnamed attendee of the Secret Cinema event, “we are happy because we sing, we dance, and we saw a long film”.[33]

Beyond the simple love of story, refugee film festivals stand to benefit a variety of refugee populations in a host of ways. Refugees hoping to settle in their current country of residence may welcome a chance to learn more about their new country, and their peers who wish to return may still find such cultural exchange interesting and valuable. Groups like the Sahrawi who feel abandoned by the outside world may see film and the associated trappings as a sign that they are not forgotten. Refugees who feel voiceless can see their own struggles played out in a cinematic context; depending on the resources available, they can start to tell their own stories. Healing from the trauma of displacement takes more than meeting physical needs; it takes cultural and emotional support, and film can be a starting place for this process.

The examples selected for this essay demonstrate a wide variety of techniques, goals, and levels of prestige. FiSahara resembles a traditional film festival in many ways, while Solar Cinema has neither a fixed location nor a fixed date. Secret Cinema prioritizes a cinematic event, while FiSahara and Solar Cinema Nepal have both moved into production as well as exhibition. Screens can be assembled solely for the purpose of showing a film, take the form of semi-permanent installations, or be entirely mobile and self-sustaining. Programming varies from the entertaining to the educational, and can be produced by members of the camp or by a completely different national cinema. This diversity calls into question ideas of curation, quality, and what constitutes a “film festival”. However, each festival carries the same underlying message; that films matter, and that bringing films to everyone is a worthwhile task that will benefit the global community. Despite all other differences, lovers of film can agree on that.

Notes

• Original text: “Con la idea de formar y dar opciones de empleo a los jóvenes saharauis; esta escuela servirá para preservar y difundir el patrimonio cultural saharaui, el castellano como segunda lengua y la participación en festivales de cine en los campamentos y en el extranjero.”

• Special thanks, here and throughout the piece, to Colorado College Refugee Alliance and Lutheran Family Services for providing training to interested parties on refugee resettlement and appropriate conduct.

[1] Thomas Elsaesser, “Film Festival Networks,” European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, University of Amsterdam Press, Amsterdam, 2005, 88.

[2] For an example, see Cannes’ all day event in 2016 which highlighted refugee voices in film. Sydney Levine, “Refugee Voices in Film: An All Day Event at 2016 Cannes Film Festival,” IndieWire, 5 May 2016, http://www.indiewire.com/2016/05/refugee-voices-in-film-an-all-day-event-at-2016-cannes-film-festival-287898/.

[3] “What Is a Refugee? Definition and Meaning | USA for UNHCR,” USA for UNHCR, https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/what-is-a-refugee/.

[4] An example is The Road to Silverstone. “UNRWA Film Receives Prize in International Festival,” UNRWA, June 13, 2013, https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-film-receives-prize-international-festival.

[5] “About the UNHCR Refugee Film Festival,” UNHCR Refugee Film Festival, 2017, http://unhcr.refugeefilm.org/2017/en/about/overview/.

[6] “Refugees Welcome Film Fest,” FilmFreeway, 2017, https://filmfreeway.com/RefugeesWelcomeFilmFest; “Community Outreach,” FilmAid, https://www.filmaid.org/community-outreach/; “Refugee Film Festival,” Refugee Week, https://www.refugeeweek.org.au/refugee-film-festival/.

[7] “Refugee Week Film Festival,” https://www.refugeeweek.org.au/about/overview/

[8] Sonia M. Tascón, Human rights film festivals: activism in context, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

[9] Hamid Naficy, An accented cinema: exilic and diasporic filmmaking, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

[10] “Our Mission,” Solar World Cinema, http://www.solarcinema.org/over/.

[11] FilmAid, https://www.filmaid.org/community-outreach/.

[12] Marita Swain, “IDMC » Nepal: One Year after the Earthquakes, an End to Displacement Is Still Years Away,” IDMC » Bosnia and Herzegovina: Internal Displacement in Brief, April 25, 2016, http://www.internal-displacement.org/library/expert-opinion/2016/nepal-one-year-after-the-earthquake-an-end-to-displacement-is-still-years-away/.

[13] Lindiwe Dovey, Joshua McNamara, and Federico Olivieri, “’From, by, for’— Nairobi’s slum film festival, film festival studies, and the practices of development,” JUMP CUT: A Review of Contemporary Media. 2013, http://ejumpcut.org/archive/jc55.2013/DoveySFFNairobi/index.html.

[14] “Solar Cinema Nepal,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnwW9N_uBcp1MOIOmPRqkuQ.

[15] Amelia Gentleman, “The Horror of the Calais Refugee Camp: ‘We Feel like We Are Dying Slowly’,” The Guardian, November 03, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/03/refugees-horror-calais-jungle-refugee-camp-feel-like-dying-slowly.

[16] “Secret Cinema Hosts Calais Camp Film Screening,” Reuters, September 13, 2015, https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-migrants-secretcinema/secret-cinema-hosts-calais-camp-film-screening-idUKKCN0RD0UO20150913.

[17] Dougal Wilson, “Dougal Wilson Reports on Secret Cinema’s ‘Secret Protest’ at the Calais Jungle Camp,” Creative Review, 19 September 2015, https://www.creativereview.co.uk/dougal-wilson-reports-on-secret-cinemas-secret-protest-at-the-calais-jungle-camp/?mm_5ab0f075eaa7a=5ab0f075eab29.

[18] Sabine Schwab, “Secret Cinema Held a Pop-up Film Screening #LoveRefugees,” International Business Times UK, September 14, 2015, https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/calais-migrant-crisis-secret-cinema-hosts-film-screening-refugee-camp-1519645.

[19] David Pollock, “Secret Cinema in Calais: ‘We Can Offer a Break from the Constant Reality of Living in Tents’,” The Guardian, September 11, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/11/secret-cinema-in-calais-jungle-fabien-riggal-secretprotest.

[20] Zohra Bensemra, “Sahrawi Refugee Camps in Algeria’s Arid South,” Reuters, March 04, 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-algeria-sahara/sahrawi-refugee-camps-in-algerias-arid-south-idUSKCN0W626J.

[21] “World Refugee Survey 2009: Algeria,” US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, 2009, archived 2013, https://web.archive.org/web/20130604153201/http://www.refugees.org/resources/refugee-warehousing/archived-world-refugee-surveys/2009-wrs-country-updates/algeria.html.

[22] “Members A – Z,” Human Rights Film Festival Network, April 2, 2018, http://www.humanrightsfilmnetwork.org/membersAZ.

[23] Dina Iordanova and Ragan Rhyne, eds. The Festival Circuit, Vol. 1, St. Andrews, Scotland: St. Andrews Film Studies, 2009.

[24] “Film School,” Fisahara, http://fisahara.es/escuela-audiovisual/?lang=en.

[25] “Objetivos,” Escuela De Cine Del Sahara, http://www.escueladecinedelsahara.org/?page_id=36.

[26] Mark Betz, “Beyond Europe: On Parametric Transcendence,” In Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories, 31, New York, NY: OUP USA, 2010.

[27] “Berlinale Residency,” Professionals, https://www.berlinale.de/en/branche/berlinale_residency/berlinale_residency_1.html.

[28] Steve, N. N. “Radical Film Network,” Radical Film Network, 17 June 2016, https://radicalfilmnetwork.com/.

[29] Naficy, An Accented Cinema, 2001.

[30] FilmAid, https://www.filmaid.org/community-outreach/.

[31] Kate Nash, “Exploring power and trust in documentary: A study of Tom Zubrycki’s Molly and Mobarak,” Studies in Documentary Film, 4:1: (2007), 21-33.

[32] Wilson, Creative Review, 2015.

[33] “Secret Cinema Hosts Calais Camp Film Screening,” https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-migrants-secretcinema/secret-cinema-hosts-calais-camp-film-screening-idUKKCN0RD0UO20150913.

Notes on Contributor

Sarah is a postgraduate student at the University of St. Andrews with an interest in
film made by and for marginalized groups, especially along lines of race, gender, and sexuality.
She approaches films not just as stand-alone artistic endeavors but also as part of a broader dialogue of representation and dignity. This paper is informed by her service work advocating for the rights and dignity of refugees in her community. She received her bachelor’s degree from Colorado College, cum laude, and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.

Bibliography

“About the UNHCR Refugee Film Festival.” UNHCR Refugee Film Festival. 2017. http://unhcr.refugeefilm.org/2017/en/about/overview/

Bensemra, Zohra. “Sahrawi Refugee Camps in Algeria’s Arid South.” Reuters. March 04, 2016. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-algeria-sahara/sahrawi-refugee-camps-in-algerias-arid-south-idUSKCN0W626J.

“Berlinale Residency.” Professionals. https://www.berlinale.de/en/branche/berlinale_residency/berlinale_residency_1.html.

Betz, Mark. “Beyond Europe: On Parametric Transcendence.” In Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories, 31-48. New York, NY: OUP USA, 2010.

“Community Outreach.” FilmAid. https://www.filmaid.org/community-outreach/.

de Valck, M. “Film festivals and migration.” The Encyclopedia of Human Migration, 3: 2013. DOI: 10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm234

Dovey, Lindiwe, Joshua McNamara, and Federico Olivieri. “’From, by, for’— Nairobi’s slum film festival, film festival studies, and the practices of development.” JUMP CUT: A Review of Contemporary Media. 2013. http://ejumpcut.org/archive/jc55.2013/DoveySFFNairobi/index.html.

“Film School.” Fisahara. http://fisahara.es/escuela-audiovisual/?lang=en.

Gentleman, Amelia. “The Horror of the Calais Refugee Camp: ‘We Feel like We Are Dying Slowly’.” The Guardian. November 03, 2015. Accessed May 06, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/03/refugees-horror-calais-jungle-refugee-camp-feel-like-dying-slowly.

Kim, So-Young. “’Cine-mania’ or cinephilia, film festival and identity question,” in New Korean Cinema, ed. Chi-Yun Shin and Julian Stringer. Edinburgh University Press, 2005.

Iordanova, Dina, and Leshu Torchin. “Film Festivals and Activism.” Film Festival Yearbook, 4. St. Andrews University Press, 2012.

Iordanova, Dina, and Ragan Rhyne, eds. The Festival Circuit. Vol. 1. St. Andrews, Scotland: St. Andrews Film Studies, 2009

Levine, Sydney. “Refugee Voices in Film: An All Day Event at 2016 Cannes Film Festival.” IndieWire. May 05, 2016. http://www.indiewire.com/2016/05/refugee-voices-in-film-an-all-day-event-at-2016-cannes-film-festival-287898/.

“Members A – Z.” Human Rights Film Festival Network. April 2, 2018. http://www.humanrightsfilmnetwork.org/membersAZ.

Naficy, Hamid. An accented cinema: exilic and diasporic filmmaking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

2016. N., Steve. “Radical Film Network.” Radical Film Network. June 17, 2016. https://radicalfilmnetwork.com/.

“Objetivos.” Escuela De Cine Del Sahara. http://www.escueladecinedelsahara.org/?page_id=36.

“Our Mission.” Solar World Cinema. http://www.solarcinema.org/over/.

Pollock, David. “Secret Cinema in Calais: ‘We Can Offer a Break from the Constant Reality of Living in Tents’.” The Guardian. September 11, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/11/secret-cinema-in-calais-jungle-fabien-riggal-secretprotest.

Prime, Rebecca. “Stranger Than Fiction: Generic Hybridity in the “Refugee Film”.” Academia.edu. http://www.academia.edu/20297170/Stranger_Than_Fiction_Generic_Hybridity_in_the_Refugee_Film_.

“Refugee Film Festival.” Refugee Week. https://www.refugeeweek.org.au/refugee-film-festival/.

“Refugees Welcome Film Fest.” FilmFreeway. 2017. https://filmfreeway.com/RefugeesWelcomeFilmFest.

Ruoff, Jeffrey. Coming to a festival near you: Programming Film Festivals. St. Andrews: Dina Iordanova, 2012.

Schwab, Sabine. “Secret Cinema Held a Pop-up Film Screening #LoveRefugees.” International Business Times UK. September 14, 2015. https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/calais-migrant-crisis-secret-cinema-hosts-film-screening-refugee-camp-1519645.

“Secret Cinema Hosts Calais Camp Film Screening.” Reuters. September 13, 2015. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-migrants-secretcinema/secret-cinema-hosts-calais-camp-film-screening-idUKKCN0RD0UO20150913.

“Solar Cinema Nepal.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnwW9N_uBcp1MOIOmPRqkuQ.

Swain, Marita. “IDMC » Nepal: One Year after the Earthquakes, an End to Displacement Is Still Years Away.” IDMC » Bosnia and Herzegovina: Internal Displacement in Brief. April 25, 2016. Accessed May 06, 2018. http://www.internal-displacement.org/library/expert-opinion/2016/nepal-one-year-after-the-earthquake-an-end-to-displacement-is-still-years-away/.

Tascón, Sonia M. Human rights film festivals: activism in context. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Tziomakis, Yannis, and Claire Molloy. The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Politics. Oxon: Routledge, 2016.

“UNRWA Film Receives Prize in International Festival.” UNRWA. June 13, 2013. https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-film-receives-prize-international-festival.

“What Is a Refugee? Definition and Meaning | USA for UNHCR.” Definition and Meaning | USA for UNHCR. https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/what-is-a-refugee/.

“World Refugee Survey 2009: Algeria.” US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. 2009. Archived 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130604153201/http://www.refugees.org/resources/refugee-warehousing/archived-world-refugee-surveys/2009-wrs-country-updates/algeria.html.

Wilson, Dougal. “Dougal Wilson Reports on Secret Cinema’s ‘Secret Protest’ at the Calais Jungle Camp.” Creative Review. September 19, 2015. https://www.creativereview.co.uk/dougal-wilson-reports-on-secret-cinemas-secret-protest-at-the-calais-jungle-camp/?mm_5ab0f075eaa7a=5ab0f075eab29.

Among the film festivals staged each year are some that seek to advance human rights, social or economic justice, environmental agendas, or promote intergroup understanding. These ‘activist’ film festivals are not staged to serve the needs of media industries, for only artistic or entertainment ends, or with the primary intent of turning a profit. Instead, they are hosted in an effort to increase public awareness about a particular issue, to build or strengthen the membership of a community, campaign or movement, or otherwise catalyze some form of political action. They are launched on the premise that the public exhibition of film has a role to play in these processes. Questions about the role that activist films or film festivals play in influencing political conditions are complex to answer: they are often ignored by those studying political cinema, with films circulated to elicit change examined only in relation to their form and content, or the intent of the filmmakers behind them, rather than their impact on actual audiences. For every film, there are “at least three stories that intertwine: the filmmaker’s, the film’s, and the audience’s”,[i] but the latter of these is the area that is often least examined within academic cinema study. Departing from this tendency, studies of activist film festivals often prominently address matters related to audiences, including an examination of the experiences accrued by festivalgoers, and the motivations behind attending a film festival in the first place. This important corpus of literature encompasses studies by academic researchers, some of them participant observers, as well as self-studies, best practice reports, personal reflections, and other materials generated by festival workers—the individuals who inaugurate, organize, supervise the operation of, or program films for activist film festivals.

Questions about how media messages stir people to action in the political arena are neither new nor only of importance to understanding the impact of cinema. In the literary, philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and historical fields theories abound regarding how media texts are received by those who are exposed to them, as well as how this affects their subsequent thinking or actions. Indeed, a comprehensive study of activist film screenings or festivals must be an interdisciplinary project and encompass such varied fields as the study of media audiences, psychology and group dynamics, and the formation and operation of social movements. Adding further complication, the scholarly findings regarding the impact of media messages on audiences are complex, require nuanced interpretation, and can be counterintuitive, thereby limiting their ability to counter the simplistic understandings of media effects often circulated and taken as fact in popular discourse. The latter have sometimes been accepted by advocates for politically engaged cinema as well, with some filmmakers or those behind activist film screenings or festivals assuming that an audience’s exposure to a particular message “inevitably leads to action”.[ii] By no means do I seek to argue that exposure to a particular media message cannot have a lasting effect on viewers, including spurring them to immediate actions in the political arena. There are some instances where this has happened.[iii] But it is simplistic to think that films will automatically have this kind of impact on viewers, or to assume that if viewers are motivated to act after viewing a media production they will have the avenues—the “political opportunities”—necessary to act in an effective way.[iv] In addition, it is simplistic to examine activist screenings or festivals only in regard to whether or not they lead those in attendance to engage in dramatic actions afterward. The best of the recent research on activist film festivals dispenses with such simplistic thinking, and instead presents a rounded understanding of audience experiences at events of this kind.[v] The claims made so far are provocative, but there are more themes in need of exploration.

Contributing to this body of research, in my study I seek to deepen our theoretical understanding of the audience at activist film screenings and festivals. I will argue, first, we should dispense with the idea that in this setting the only, or even the primary event is the screening of a film. Among those writing on activist film festivals there is an understanding that although cinema is a point of focus for events of this kind, it is only one of a festival’s facets, and other goings-on are of key importance. I will theorize some of the key elements operative in this regard. Second, I will discuss activist screenings and film festivals as a site where ‘a public’ or ‘counterpublic’ is formed, noting the importance of this in the building of a base of support for a particular viewpoint, or for mobilizing a political campaign or movement. And third, I will argue that activist film screenings and festivals are an important element in the cultural life of campaign work and social movements, and a site where new individual and movement-based identities are generated and expressed as cultural growth and experimentation occurs.

My methodological approach to this subject is interdisciplinary, drawing most purposefully on sociology-based studies of the practice of everyday life and social movements. These fields of scholarship do not provide insight into every aspect of activist film screenings or festivals, but they provide useful frameworks with which to examine how occasions such as these, that bring people together in a shared location, are an important feature of political campaigns and social movements. Usefully, the study of social movements provides us with four terms that allow us to refine our questions about what activist screenings or festival might ‘do’ and who the audience in attendance might ‘be’. First, those in attendance at occasions of this type could already be constituents, indicating individuals that are already active and invested in a particular campaign or social movement. Second, those present could be adherents, indicating individuals who are predisposed to the message of a film or the goal of the festival, but who have not yet taken any action on their beliefs. Third, audience members could be part of the bystander public, indicating individuals who have no opinion on the issues at hand. And fourth, they could be opponents, individuals who disagree with the message or stance of the film or festival.^[vi] Using these terms we can consider the relationship between an activist film screening or festival and those present. Can activist film screenings or festivals convince bystander publics to become movement adherents? Stir adherents to become active campaign or movement constituents? Can they change the minds of opponents, convincing them of the error in their thinking or actions? Or is the role of the activist film screening or festival primarily to reaffirm the thinking of those who are already campaign or movement constituents, sustaining their beliefs, thereby propelling them towards further action in the future? In theory, any of these scenarios is possible.

It’s Not (Only) About Film

Experiencing or witnessing injustice does not inevitably trigger action to end injustice. For this to happen a great deal of communication and conscious planning needs to occur, as existing grievances are transformed into a concerted effort to bring about change, a process that is most likely to be successful if it features collective action on the part of many people.[vii] Since the early days of filmmaking there have been those who argue that the cinema can mobilize people towards action in the political arena. In popular understandings, concepts such as ‘injustice’, ‘racism’, ‘oppression’, or ‘colonization’ are easily abstracted, stripping them of a connection to the lived experience of actual people. Film has the ability to counter this elision by providing a human face to these concepts, while depicting their operation or scope in the form of a comprehensible narrative. In the process, film offers a powerful way of fostering “hot cognition”, meaning that the representation of a condition or situation carries charged emotional overtones and is likely to incite affect on the part of audiences.[viii] Activist enterprises and campaigns or social movements commonly circulate two kinds of information, ‘technical information’, such as statistical data and reports that describe the big picture of a situation or case, and ‘personal information’ which gives a human face to an issue through testimony or personal profiles. Both forms of information are important, and “without individual cases activists cannot mobilize people to seek changed politics”.[ix] Film—and I would argue, documentary film in particular—is a powerful means for giving injustice a human face, as well as being a convenient way of duplicating and physically transporting representations of injustice for exhibition before geographically dispersed audiences.

As with other features in the repertoire of political struggle such as strikes, boycotts, protests, petitions, public meetings, or staged media events, the making and circulation of film is a modular activity that can be employed by all manner of struggles or campaigns. As the plethora of activist screenings and film festivals targeting political issues shows, these events are also a modular activity staged to advance any number of agendas, from environmental initiatives to liberation struggles or campaigns for racial, gender, or economic justice. The production and exhibition of media in this way is a means to circulate the “shared cultural understanding[s]” that are needed for collective action, while also assisting in the coordination of “autonomous and dispersed populations into common and sustained action”.[x] The intent of activist film screenings or festivals means that what occurs in these settings is different for those in attendance to the experience to be had in commercial, entertainment-centered film exhibition settings. The activist film festival is concerned with presenting “information and testimony” rather “than art and entertainment”,[xi] and seeks to create a “testimonial encounter” where festivalgoers “take responsibility for what they have seen and become ready to respond”.[xii] In this way, activist film festivals seek to draw festivalgoers “into a set of relationships that bind them differently were their activities not ‘activist’”, pressing them to emerge as a “responsible historical subject” who is both knowledgeable of the issues at hand, and functions as an agent for change in the political arena.[xiii]

Creating conditions where this is likely to happen is complicated, and a challenge for those behind the effort. Exposure to media messages, including those that educate on political matters, does not necessarily foster action. As media theorists Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton observed in the 1950s, “The interested and informed citizen can congratulate himself on his lofty state of interest and information, and neglect to see that he has abstained from decision and action… He comes to mistake knowing about problems of the day for doing something about them”[xiv]. In addition, we have to take seriously that audiences do not automatically respond to media productions in the way their authors intended, since “the film and the spectator simultaneously engage in two quite distinctly located visual acts that meet on shared ground but never identically occupy it”.[xv] The audience is pressed to ‘read’ a media message as it was intended by its authors, since the “message has a privileged position in the communicative exchange”.[xvi] Nonetheless, “As audience members we often find what we want, or need, to find in films, sometimes at the expense of what the film really has to offer others. Different audiences will see different things”.[xvii] Writing on human rights film festivals, Sonia Tascón offers an illustration of how festivalgoers may respond to a film in a less than optimal way. She argues that audience members can adopt “the humanitarian gaze”, a state where the viewer sees those onscreen as victims to be pitied for the suffering they endure, or admired if they struggle to “be more like us”.[xviii] Both responses primarily flatter the viewer, allowing them to feel superior to those onscreen while affirming a sense of their own righteousness; all the while short circuiting the development of a more equitable relationship between those who ‘look’ and those who are ‘looked at’.

Theorizing how this can be averted, Tascón argues that we should revisit the concept of the ‘film act’, as developed by radical Third Cinema filmmakers and their allies during the 1960s and 1970s.[xix] Third Cinema filmmakers and theorists Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino argue that the exhibition of a film has “little meaning if it was not complemented by the participation of the comrades, if a debate was not opened on the themes suggested by the films”, thereby moving viewers who were previously “considered spectators” to emerge as “participants”.[xx] Pondering this process, filmmaker Tomás Gutiérrez Alea writes, “we ask ourselves to what degree a certain type of show can cause the viewers to acquire a new socio-political awareness”, and how this awareness can become action “when viewers leave the movie theater and encounter once again that other reality, their social and individual life, their day-to-day”.[xxi] For filmmakers of the Third Cinema movement, the conventional channels for film exhibition were thought inadequate to their political goals, leading to distribution through “decentralized parallel circuits” where films might, for instance, be exhibited unannounced, guerilla-style in communities, parishes, universities or cultural centers, using a portable film projector and generator.[xxii] During these screenings, the film might be stopped at crucial moments so that audience members could engage in dialogue about the issues raised by what they were seeing onscreen.[xxiii]

For all screenings or film festivals the setting and accompanying off-screen events or activities are important. Termed “extra-cinematic” or “para-cinematic” events, the off-screen elements of a typical film festival include receptions, red-carpet entrances, press conferences, award ceremonies, or after-screening parties.[xxiv] Some from this list are also present in the schedule of activist film festivals, but they are typically overshadowed in importance by workshops, in-depth discussion and deliberation sessions, the presence of experts on political affairs, film subjects who testify to particular conditions,[xxv] or other activities that are “intended to make the connection to the social world in ways that other… film festivals do not”.[xxvi] In this way, the screening or festival site becomes a location where the meaning of films, as well as how audience members are encouraged to respond to them, are framed and negotiated, illustrating that these events need “to be understood not only in terms of the films they show, but also the… forms of practice played out within the spaces of the auditorium, foyer and so on”.[xxvii] Tascón argues that through efforts such as these, human rights film festivals seek to promote “an active and interactive relationship between life-world, film, and spectator”.[xxviii] Terming this the “festival effect”, she argues that off screen workshops, discussion sessions, and deliberation have the “the potential to excavate meanings and dimensions of that relationship not available through the individual consumption of images… that makes activist film festivals a place where a particular type of spectator is facilitated, one that may be less detached and prone to the expectation of seeing tragic victims”.[xxix] Along similar lines, festival director Igor Blažević argues that what distinguishes a human rights film festival from non-activist festivals “is not the films we screen, but what we ‘do’ with the films and the interpretive contexts we build for their screenings”.[xxx]

A means to understand the processes that are unfolding in such setting is offered by sociologist Erving Goffman’s theorizing of “social occasions”.[xxxi] He argues that a social occasion comes into being when a number of people share a “structured social context”, such as “a social party, a workday in an office, a picnic, or a night at the opera”.[xxxii] He contrasts socials occasions with “gatherings”, which are an instance where two or more people directly interact with each other, arguing that social occasions are broader events than gatherings, and can encompass many small gatherings.[xxxiii] Most commonly, one or more of those behind the staging of the social occasion are “responsible for getting the affair under way, guiding the main activity, terminating the event, and sustaining order”.[xxxiv] In doing so, they author a social occasion’s “distinctive ethos, an emotional structure, that must be properly created, sustained, and laid to rest”.[xxxv] At activist screenings or film festivals, the responsibility of doing this is largely (but not exclusively)[xxxvi] in the hands of those who organized it, programmed the films to be exhibited, and decided on the type, character, and scheduling of any off screen aspects. With many activist film festivals affiliated with civil society or nongovernmental organizations, these parent organizations play a central role in determining the ideological thrust, priorities, planned or intended outcomes or a particular festival. They do this with the aim of best advancing a festival’s “core mission, the motivation behind their screenings and what they want to achieve”.[xxxvii] A consideration in the structuring of an activist film screening or festival is that some social occasions are considered to be recreational and thought to be an end in themselves as “the individual avowedly participates for the consummate pleasure of doing so”.[xxxviii] Other categories of social occasions are considered serious in character, and “seen as merely means to other ends”.[xxxix] Most of the time, attending the cinema is considered a recreational activity, even though popular cinema is ideologically loaded and contributes to the formation of political and cultural hegemonies. Those who seek to use the cinema as a means of pressing home a particular political agenda must ensure that those present in the audience understand that the occasion is serious, and a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

Illustrating how festivals can be framed, film festival organizers Matthea de Jong and Daan Bronkhorst argue that there are four possible approaches when staging a human rights film festival, approaches that mirror four common approaches to human rights advocacy more generally.[xl] These are, first, film festivals that seek to attract the widest possible audience in an effort to inject human rights principles into society at large. Second, those that seek to foster a deliberative environment that serves as a forum for rigorous debate about human rights issues, while catering to specialized audiences that may include policy makers. Third, those that are designed to foster protest actions and activism, and present human rights discourse as a model for broad social change. And fourth, those that adopt a dispassionate stance to offer a forum for the airing of divergent views on human rights and related matters. Most human rights film festivals contain some mixture of these approaches, with the strongest trajectories influencing the overall character of a festival—including the kind of promotional and outreach efforts undertaken, the locations used, presence or absence of activist workshops, and who is likely to be in attendance. These decisions have consequences regarding an event’s outcomes. If the goal of a festival is to convert opponents or attract bystanders to a particular cause, this will require different strategies than those employed to engage those who are already issue adherents or constituents. Similarly, a festival with an openly activist stance is unlikely to be attended by political opponents, since studies show that media audiences tend to select information that is “consistent with attitudes and beliefs and ignore or avoid information that is discrepant”.[xli] As de Jong and Bronkhorst argue, the first of these types of festivals will seek to reach the widest possible audience and “opt for open-air screenings at popular places”, while a deliberation-focused festival might “pick venues that work best for each group” of its target audience and activist-focused festivals gear “to using their festival as a platform for action, facilitating workshops on film making or non-violent activism, distributing petitions or providing suggestions on how to further promote the observance of human rights”.[xlii] On a practical level, the organization and timing of a screening or festival will determine what is likely to transpire at a festival. Timing a festival program in such a way that it leaves little time for post-screening discussions, the use of fixed-seating auditoriums that make interaction between those present difficult, or access considerations, such ticket prices or the choice of screening venues that prohibit or make unlikely attendance by some people within the community, can prevent an festival from fulfilling its mission as well as intended.

‘A Public’ or Hegemony Opposing ‘Counterpublic’

All film screenings or festivals that bring together a group of viewers facilitate the formation of ‘a public’ (as opposed to ‘the public’ which is all people in a society),[xliii] defined by social theorist Michael Warner as “a concrete audience, a crowd witnessing itself in a visible space, as with a theatrical public. Such a public also has a sense of totality, bounded by the event or by the shared physical space”.[xliv] The character of the public that forms varies in intensity and in the connections between its members, and a public can be formed simply by people showing up and being aware of the others around them. The ability of a populace to assemble in this way is integral to the operation of the public sphere,[xlv] and if deprived of the ability to form publics we are not “capable of being addressed, and capable of action, we would be nothing but the peasants of capital”.[xlvi] For a vibrant public sphere to exist, people need credible information about occurrences in the world, and the “rights of political organization, speech and assembly; it needs deliberation”.[xlvii] Activist film screenings and festivals serve as such a site. When hosted in a high-profile site such as at a mainstream commercial cinema or multiplex, museum, park or stadium, a screening or festival gains prominence and status, elevating its standing in the public sphere. This confers status on the films featured within the festival’s program, and on the viewpoints or arguments presented, thereby powerfully signaling that “one has arrived… that one’s behaviour and opinions are significant enough to require public notice”.[xlviii] For an organization sponsoring an activist screening or film festival, this can also mean temporarily moving its base of operation from a modest work space of the kind that is commonly occupied by perennially underfunded activist organizations, to an accoutrement-rich environment in a high-traffic, city center location, further signaling the importance of that organization and its agenda within the broad public sphere. Indeed, in light of shrinkage in the U.S. public sphere as participation in membership organizations and other public affiliations declines,[xlix] and as many activists increasingly turn to clicktivism, the ongoing importance of activist screenings or film festivals as a site for the formation of a public must not be underestimated.

An activist screening or film festival that nurtures counter-hegemonic ideas or seeks to serve the needs of a subaltern constituency fits the definition of a ‘counterpublic’, indicating that it has a “conflictual relation to the dominant public” and occupies a “subordinate status” vis-à-vis mainstream ideas.[l] Illustrating this, Skadi Loist and Ger Zielinski argue that LGBTQ film festivals are an extension of social movement efforts for gender equality and positioned to offer “interventions into hegemonic representational regimes”.[li] So engaged, they serve as “a space where a group of individuals could meet and create a community… they [are] counter-public spheres”.[lii] The study of social movements proposes that for political advocacy or social movement work to develop, an “oppositional consciousness” must be developed.[liii] For this to happen, Sharon Groch contends, people usually need a physical space where they can assemble “to see themselves as a group [and] find a common interest with other members of the group”.[liv] Solanas and Getino argue that the exhibition of radical cinema can create a space of this kind, with every screening carving out “a liberated space, a decolonized territory” (author’s emphasis).[lv] According to Solanas and Getino, a person who decides to attend a guerilla film screening, “was no longer a spectator… he became an actor, a more important protagonist than those who appeared in the films. Such as person was seeking other committed people like himself, while he, in turn, became committed to them”.[lvi]

The formation of such a space requires that those in attendance be drawn into engagement with others around them. Goffman argues that some social occasions are structured to promote “mutual accessibility”, with those present adopting a posture of “informality and solidarity” as they recognize that they and the others around them belong to the same group, a recognition that is heightened “if this group be one that is disadvantaged”.[lvii] This is an enabling feature in the formation of what he terms an “open region”, which is a physically bounded place “where ‘any’ two persons, acquainted or not, have the right to initiate face engagement with each other for the purpose of extending salutations”.[lviii] Society at large hosts a variety of open regions, such as at parties and in bars or other settings “where participants have a right… to engage anyone present”.[lix] Noting the importance of mutual accessibility to the film act, Solanas and Getino report that one aspect of it is “disinhibiting” those present through the inclusion of ice-breaking musical performances, poetry readings, and the involvement of “a program director who chaired the debate and presented the film and the comrades who were speaking”.[lx] An example of this in operation in a contemporary context is provided by descriptions of the Canada-based Cinema Politica screening series: “everyone talks—from the cranks and curmudgeons to the naïve feel-gooders and recent converts, to the calm and idealist yet slightly cynical frontline veterans working the crowd”.[lxi]

These conditions enable ‘enclave deliberation’ where those present incubate new ideas or express perspectives that are shunned in other settings. They can also foster feelings of personal and group empowerment as those present see themselves and the group they belong to as efficacious causal agents in moves towards greater justice in society, and during collective deliberation sessions hear their beliefs given “meaning, coherence, and significance”.[lxii] As this happens various trajectories are in operation. Studies suggest that in settings where those present believe themselves to be surrounded by like-minded others, they will attribute greater weight to the comments or experiences that are aired than they would in a setting where they see those around them as different from themselves.[lxiii] With regard to the exhibition of film, there is evidence that media messages can have a strong effect on viewers when they talk about the message they have been exposed to amongst themselves afterwards.[lxiv] This has been termed an “intermedia effect”, as exposure to a media message “leads to interpersonal communication among peers, which in turn influences behaviour change”.[lxv] The intermedia effect seems to have particular bearing with regard to the circulation of educational media, which can “cause people to engage in peer communication as they seek to make sense out of what is happening”.[lxvi] Here it is important to distinguish between, first, an audience discussion of the issues raised by a film, which is a common feature of many film festivals during question and answer sessions, workshops, or dialogue sessions, and second, those in attendance making a tangible decision to engage in some form of subsequent action. A discussion of the issues raised by a film can provide insight into the existence of an injustice, or clarification as to why a particular course of action is needed, but for action that will bring about change to begin those involved must migrate from a discussion stage to making a decision about a course of action they commit to taking—even if this course of action is something as open-ended as agreeing to meet again at a later date, or requires only low-level engagement, such as an act of clicktivism or the signing of a petition. Interestingly, studies of group dynamics suggest that individuals who make decisions as part of a collective process are more likely to stick to any decision that they do make.[lxvii] Even decisions that are made quite quickly in a group setting can affect the long term conduct of an individual, since the setting “seems to have a ‘freezing’ effect which is partly due to the individual’s tendency to ‘stick to his decision’ and partly to the ‘commitment to a group’”.[lxviii]

Dovetailing with these arguments, research on the conditions that lead people to join movements suggests, “Although it is individuals who decide whether or not to take up collective action, it is in their face-to-face groups, their social networks and their institutions that collective actions is most often activated and sustained”.[lxix] In a useful counterpoint to this argument, social movement theorist James Jasper argues that there are two ways that social movements commonly grow their numbers.[lxx] First, this occurs through the recruitment of ‘intimates’, these being individuals who are already members of social networks that overlap with movement participants, such as a personal connection to friends, families, or co-workers. And second, through the recruitment of ‘strangers’, indicating individuals who have no personal connection with those involved in a movement. A method by which strangers are drawn to political work is the circulation of “cultural messages transmitted by means of… anonymous media”, but it is intimate personal connections that are the most common method of recruitment to a movement.[lxxi] In the setting of the activist screening or film festival elements of both of these recruitment processes are in operation: the presentation of anonymous media on the screen is coupled with the bringing together of a public in such a way that an individuated experience of film spectatorship is supplemented by face-to-face deliberation and decision making. The aforementioned studies therefore seem to suggest that activist screenings or film festivals have the potential to be impactful sites for orientating those in attendance towards particular courses of action. However, there is no single, rigid formula regarding how viewers will respond to what they see or hear in the setting of an activist film screening or festival since all present do not experience the event in the same way. Instead, at social occasions “multiple social realities can occur in the same place”.[lxxii] Some of those present may commit or re-commit themselves to a role as a full-fledged campaign or movement constituent, others may be swept up in the moment and commit to taking actions they will never actually complete, while still others may “thin out” their involvement in the occasion, delivering only the minimum level of involvement that the decorum of the occasion at hand seems to demand.[lxxiii]

Cultural Changes ‘Below the Surface’

A tenet of activist screenings or film festivals is that deliberation is fostered among those present, as issues are discussed and expanded upon or campaign tactics and strategies are developed and decided upon. Ongoing deliberation and decision-making of this type is integral to activist work. But the deliberation and decision-making that occurs in these settings is not only about tactics, strategies, or campaign goals. It is also deliberation on the part of those present as they decide on their own relation to these issues, and to activism itself. The emergence of an engaged ‘responsible historical subject’ necessitates that the festivalgoer embrace a political and moral standpoint regarding what they believe is right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable, and to thereby decide to ‘take a position’. The cultural transformation that occurs as this happens is colloquially described as ‘consciousness raising’ or ‘empowerment’, terms that record a change in the thinking, beliefs, or confidence and feeling of self efficacy of those involved, rather than changes to political conditions per se. This transformation is noted when those behind activist screenings or film festivals argue that “Cinema is pre-eminently the medium that has the ability to further expand the moral imagination”,[lxxiv] or that festival attendance provides “inspiration for active participation in advocacy and social justice”.[lxxv] These remarks highlight an introspective reevaluation of the festivalgoer’s relationship to self and activism. It is common to think of social movements in terms of “ideologies, tactics, issues, campaigns, strategies, organizations”,[lxxvi] thereby paying insufficient attention to the cultural transformations that are occurring as individual and collective identities are revised and generated, and “changes in values, ideas, and ways of life” occur.[lxxvii] Along with political meetings, education sessions, rallies, or similar politics-elaborating occasions, activist film screenings and festivals are a site where these changes can occur. They are a site where social capital is generated, “by fostering new identities and extending social networks”, as well as, potentially, through the forging of “lifelong identities and solidarities”.[lxxviii] The cultural dimension of activist work often goes unrecorded since dramatic events such as public protests or campaign victories are the side of activist work that is most commonly presented through media channels or in historical accounts. The often unseen importance of cultural transformation indicates that when in comes to campaigns and social movements, like an “iceberg… much of the action [is] happening below the surface”.[lxxix]

Along similar lines we should not discount the importance of activist screening and film festivals and similar occasions in sustaining the involvement of those who are already campaign or social movement constituents. The involvement of an individual in political work is almost always provisional, and their recruitment is in a sense never wholly complete since it likely needs ongoing reaffirmation. One way that this occurs is through the routine circulation of all manner of electronic and other media, such as informal media exchanges in the form of the “telephone calls, E-mails, and fax communications, and the circulation of newsletters, pamphlets and bulletins” that bind movement participants together.[lxxx] While ephemeral media exchanges such as these take place on a day-to-day basis, more complex media texts such as feature length films also sustain and solidify shared values among campaign or movement constituents, with public screenings or festivals a site where this occurs. The problems that can come with ‘preaching only to the choir’ are obvious, but there is also the risk expressed by actor-activist Harry Belafonte that “if one stops preaching to the choir, they may stop singing”.[lxxxi] Indeed, the analogy of a choir is interesting for the study of film, since there are parallels between the performance of songs linked to social movements and the exhibition of political cinema. Just as songs such as “We Shall Overcome” or “This Land Is Our Land” are indelibly linked, respectively, to the U.S. struggle for civil rights and protests against social inequality, films can become widely understood and circulated markers for particular understandings of political struggle, as they crystallize and bring to the screen representations of injustice or memorialize acts of dissent, protest, or rebellion. Thus, song and films have in common that they are cultural artifacts that can repeatedly bring people together in a shared space to remind them of the possibilities of struggle, keep alive histories and bodies of knowledge, and offer inspiration and solidarity across time or geography.

Conclusion

There are many more questions to ask of activist screenings and film festivals and the audiences who attend them. Once a screening is over and the public or counterpublic that formed at the exhibition site disbands, how is an ongoing political engagement best sustained? When a public or counterpublic forms at a screening, are its members seeking a deep engagement with the matters at hand, or is it possible that one of the attractions of cinema viewership that it allows one to feel part of a public while also maintaining a sense of ‘strangerhood’ that keeps the engagement with those around you at a low level? There are also historical questions to ask. The Third Cinema movement’s thinking regarding ‘the film act’ was rooted in the ideologies of the radical social movements of a particular historical moment. That moment is not longer with us, so how do ideas from that period translate into the particular conditions of our present? Indeed, in light of the historical context we presently occupy, concepts such as enclave deliberation must be critically examined. The formation of counterpublics and the deliberation they support can be hugely empowering for those involved, as strongly held beliefs or ideas are aired and reinforced. But as recent U.S. history shows enclaves can also become an echo chamber bereft of self-criticism or an awareness of other ideas, and lead to the uncritical consumption of fake ‘realities’ and propaganda messages generated by disreputable political actors.

For those involved in the day-to-day practice of organizing and hosting activist screenings or film festivals, the study of these events provides both practical advice and guidance on more philosophical matters that can be employed to ensure these occasions fulfill their intended purpose. For film scholars and filmmakers, research on activist screenings and film festivals offers important insight into how and where political cinemas can impact actual political conditions. But more than this is available in examining these occasions. Activist film screenings and festivals are a microcosm where features of our broader media, social, and political lives can be witnessed, experienced, and considered. Therefore, the study of activist screenings and film festivals provides insight into features of everyday life, from our rituals and social occasions, to how political consciousness-raising can be fostered, or how campaigns and movements for change are built and sustained.

Notes

[i] Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2010), 94.

[ii] Leshu Torchin, “Networked for Advocacy: Film Festivals and Activism”, in Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism, ed. by Dina Iordanova and Leshu Torchin (St. Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2012, 1-12), 1.

[iii] See Lyell Davies, “Activism Off-Screen and the Documentary Film Screening”, in Activist Film Festivals: Towards a Political Subject, ed. Sonia Tascón and Tyson Wils (Bristol, UK/Chicago, USA: Intellect, 2017, 39-57) 43; Steve James, “We Aren’t Sorry for This Interruption…”, in Screening Truth to Power: A Reader on Documentary Activism, ed. Svetla Turnin and Ezra Winton (Montreal: Cinema Politica, 2014, 57-60) 59; or Everett M. Rogers, “Intermedia Processes and Powerful Media Effects”, in Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, ed. Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (Mahwah, New Jersey & London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2002, 199-214) 208.

[iv] Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics   (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1994.

[v] See Dina Iordanova and Leshu Torchin (ed), Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism (St. Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2012); Dina Iordanova (ed), The Film Festival Reader (St. Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2013); Sonia M. Tascón, Human Rights Film Festivals: Activism in Context (New York: Palgrave MacMillen, 2015); Sonia M. Tascón and Tyson Wils (ed), Activist Film Festivals: Towards a Political Subject (Bristol, UK/Chicago, USA: Intellect, 2017).

[vi] John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, “Social Movement Organizations (from ‘Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory’”, in The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts, ed. Jeff Goodwin and James M. Casper (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003, 169-186), 175.

[vii] Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics.

[viii] William A. Gamson, Talking Politics (Cambridge & New York: University of Cambridge Press, 1992), 32.

[ix] Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1998), 21.

[x] Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics, 9.

[xi] Igor Blažević, “How to Start”, in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival: A Handbook for Festival Organizers Including Case Studies of Prominent Human Rights Events, ed. Tereza Porybná (Prague: People in Need, 2009, 14-25), 15.

[xii] Leshu Torchin, “Networked for Advocacy: Film Festivals and Activism”, 2-3.

[xiii] Sonia Tascón, “Watching Others’ Troubles: Revisiting ‘The Film Act’ and Spectatorship in Activist Film Festivals”, in Activist Film Festivals: Towards a Political Subject, ed. by Sonia Tascón and Tyson Wils (Bristol, UK/Chicago, USA: Intellect, 2017, 21-37), 23.

[xiv] Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton, “Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organized Action”, in Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, ed. Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White (Glencoe: The Press and Falcon’s Wing Press, 1957, 457-473), 464.

[xv] Vivian Sobchack, “Phemomenology and the Film Experience”, in Viewing Positions, ed. Linda Williams (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1994, 36-58), 53.

[xvi] Stuart Hall, “Encoding/Decoding”, in The Cultural Studies Reader, ed. Simon During (New York & London: Routledge, 1993, 90-103), 91.

[xvii] Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary, 97.

[xviii] Sonia Tascón, Human Rights Film Festivals: Activism in Context (New York: Palgrave MacMillen, 2015), 7.

[xix] Sonia Tascón, “Watching Others’ Troubles: Revisiting ‘The Film Act’ and Spectatorship in Activist Film Festivals”.

[xx] Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, “Towards a Third Cinema”, in Movies And Methods: Volume 1, ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1976, 44-64), 61.

[xxi] Alea, Tomás Gutiérrez. “The Viewer’s Dialectic”. In New Latin American Cinema: Volume 1, Theory Practices, and Transcontinental Articulations, edited by Michael T. Martin. Detroit: Wayne State University, 1997, 108-133. (1997:110). Alea

[xxii] Octavio Getino, “Some Notes on the Concept of a ‘Third Cinema’”, in Argentine Cinema, ed. Tim Barnard (Toronto: Nightwood Editions, 1986, 99-108), 103.

[xxiii] These ideas did not begin with Third Cinema in the 1960s and antecedents for some of these practices can be found, for instance, in the activities of workers’ film groups in the 1920s and 1930s (see William Alexander, Film on the Left: American Documentary Film From 1931-1942 [Princeton New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981]; Ralph Bond, “Formation of Film Societies”, in British Cinema: Traditions of Independence, ed. Don MacPherson [London: British Film Institute, 1980, 115-117]; Bert Hogenkamp, “Worker’s Newsreels in the 1920s and 1930s”, Our History [Pamphlet 68. London: The History Group of the Communist Party, 1977, 1-36]; Joris Ivens, The Film Camera and I. [New York: International Publishers, 1969]. But Third Cinema practitioners cogently theorized these approaches, influencing radical filmmakers internationally (see Bill Nichols, Newsreel: Documentary Filmmaking on the American Left [Arno Press: New York, 1980]).

[xxiv] Vanessa R. Schwartz, It’s So French! Hollywood, Paris, and the Making of Cosmopolitan French Film Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 72.

[xxv] Off screen elements may extend well beyond the timeframe and primary location of an activist film festival, as the festival tours to secondary locations such as schools and other non-theatrical locations, and where it catalyses “invisible and constantly growing interactions and synergies between all actors and agencies… throughout the year” (Mariagiulia Grassilli, “Human Rights Film Festivals: Global/Local Networks for Advocacy”, in Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism, ed. Dina Iordanova & Leshu Torchin [St. Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2012, 31-47], 40). This may also happen through the use of video-on-demand services or other platforms that form an interlinked web for content distribution, thereby providing an unprecedented level of exposure to media messages and inaugurating “a new era for activism” (Dina Iordanova, “Film Festivals and Dissent: Can Film Change the World?” in Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism, ed. Dina Iordanova & Leshu Torchin [St. Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2012, 13-30], 22).

[xxvi] Sonia Tascón, “Watching Others’ Troubles: Revisiting ‘The Film Act’ and Spectatorship in Activist Film Festivals”, 33.

[xxvii] Lesley-Ann Dickson, “‘Ah! Other Bodies!’: Embodied spaces, pleasures and practices at Glasgow Film Festival”, Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies (12.1, 2015, 703-724), 705.

[xxviii] Sonia Tascón, “Watching Others’ Troubles: Revisiting ‘The Film Act’ and Spectatorship in Activist Film Festivals”, 31.

[xxix] Ibid 33.

[xxx] Igor Blaževic, “Film Festivals as Human Rights Awareness Building Tool: Experiences of the Prague One World Festival”, in Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism, ed. Dina Iordanova and Leshu Torchin (St. Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2012, 109-120), 112.

[xxxi] Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings (New York: The Free Press, 1963).

[xxxii] Ibid 18.

[xxxiii] Ibid 18.

[xxxiv] Ibid 18.

[xxxv] Ibid 19.

[xxxvi] Those who launch an activist screening or film festival do not have exclusive governance of the social occasion that subsequently unfolds since invited guest speakers or workshop organizers as well as individual audience members play a role in directing the thrust of what happens at a festival, particularly if the event has been designed to foster open-ended, participation-rich engagement by those present. But those behind a screening or festival are the primary structuring force behind most events of this type.

[xxxvii] Igor Blaževic, “Film Festivals as Human Rights Awareness Building Tool: Experiences of the Prague One World Festival”, 111.

[xxxviii] Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings, 19.

[xxxix] Ibid 19.

[xl] Matthea de Jong and Daan Bronkhorst, “Human Rights Film Festivals: Different Approaches to Change the World”, in Activist Film Festivals: Towards a Political Subject, ed. Sonia Tascón and Tyson Wils (Bristol, UK/Chicago, USA: Intellect, 2017, 105-120), 114-117.

[xli] Mary Beth Oliver, “Individual Differences in Media Effects”, in Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, ed. Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (Mahwah, New Jersey & London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2002, 507-524), 513.

[xlii] Matthea de Jong and Daan Bronkhorst, “Human Rights Film Festivals: Different Approaches to Change the World”, 117.

[xliii] Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong, Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global

Screen (New Brunswick and London: Rutger’s University Press, 2011).

[xliv] Michael Warner, “Publics and Counterpublics (abbreviated version)”, Quarterly Journal of Speech (National Communication Association, 88.4, 2002, 413-425), 413.

[xlv] Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1998).

[xlvi] Michael Warner, “Publics and Counterpublics (abbreviated version)”, 415.

[xlvii] Todd Gitlin, “Public sphere or public sphericules?” in Media, Ritual and Identity, ed. Tamar Liebes and James Curran (London & New York: Routledge, 1998, 168-174), 168.

[xlviii] Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton, “Mass Communication, Popular Taste, and Organized Action”, 461.

[xlix] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

[l] Michael Warner, “Publics and Counterpublics (abbreviated version)”, 423-424.

[li] Skadi Loist and Ger Zielinski, “On the Development of Queer Film Festivals and Their Media Activism”, in Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism, ed. Dina Iordanova and Leshu Torchin (St. Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2012, 13-30), 50.

[lii] Ibid 50.

[liii] Jane Mansbridge, “The Making of Oppositional Consciousness”, in Oppositional Consciousness: The Subjective Roots of Social Protest, ed. Jane Mansbridge and Aldon Morris (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2001, 1-19).

[liv] Sharon Groch, “Free Spaces: Creating Oppositional Consciousness in the Disability Rights Movement”, in Oppositional Consciousness: The Subjective Roots of Social Protest, ed. Jane Mansbridge and Aldon Morris (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 2001, 65-98), 65.

[lv] Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, “Towards a Third Cinema”, 61.

[lvi] Ibid 61.

[lvii] Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings, 131.

[lviii] Ibid 132.

[lix] Ibid 135.

[lx] Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, “Towards a Third Cinema”, 62.

[lxi] Liz Miller and Thomas Waugh, “The Process of Place: Grassroots Documentary Screenings”, in Screening Truth to Power: A Reader on Documentary Activism, ed. Svetla Turnin and Ezra Winton (Montreal: Cinema Politica, 2014, 35-44), 42.

[lxii] Viktor Gecas, “Value Identities, Self-Motives, and Social Movements”, in Self, Identity, and Social Movements, ed. Sheldon Stryker, Timothy J. Owens and Robert W. White (Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, 93-109), 101.

[lxiii] Cass Sunstein, Republic.com (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001), 70.

[lxiv] Everett M. Rogers, “Intermedia Processes and Powerful Media Effects”, in Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, ed. Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (Mahwah, New Jersey & London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2002, 199-214).

[lxv] Ibid 209-210.

[lxvi] Ibid 212.

[lxvii] Kurt Lewin, “Frontiers in Group Dynamics: Concept, Method and Reality in Social Science; Social Equilibria and Social Change”, Human Relations (1.5, 1947, 5-41), 35.

[lxviii] Ibid 37-38.

[lxix] Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics, 21.

[lxx] James M. Jasper, “Recruiting Intimates, Recruiting Strangers: Building the Contemporary Animal Rights Movement”, in Waves of Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties, ed. Jo Freeman and Victoria Johnson (Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1999, 65-84).

[lxxi] Ibid 65.

[lxxii] Erving Goffman, Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings, 20

[lxxiii] Ibid 139.

[lxxiv] Matthea de Jong and Daan Bronkhorst, “Human Rights Film Festivals: Different Approaches to Change the World”, 109.

[lxxv] Mariagiulia Grassilli, “Human Rights Film Festivals: Global/Local Networks for Advocacy”, in Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism, ed. Dina Iordanova and Leshu Torchin (St. Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2012, 31-47), 43.

[lxxvi] Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 11.

[lxxvii] Ibid, 7.

[lxxviii] Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, 153.

[lxxix] Elisabeth S. Clemens and Martin D. Hughes, “Recovering Past Protest: Historical Research on Social Movements”, in Methods of Social Movement Research, ed. Bert Klandermans and Suzanne Staggenbord (Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press, 2002, 201-230), 212.

[lxxx] Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, 18.

[lxxxi] Leshu Torchin, “Networked for Advocacy: Film Festivals and Activism”, 6.

Notes on Contributor

Lyell Davies teaches cinema and media studies at The City University of New York. His research explores documentary cinema and communication rights activism. A filmmaker, his documentaries have aired on US public television and screened at film festivals around the world.

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