The Hindered Drive toward Internationalisation: Thessaloniki (International) Film Festival

Originally a site for the promotion of the Greek film production, the Thessaloniki Film Festival, founded in 1960, gradually evolved to showcase international cinema, with a special emphasis on Balkan film. By focusing on the festival’s international aspirations, this account highlights certain under-researched parts of its history during which the festival offered parallel, competitive or not, programs of non-Greek films. In exploring this history, this article foregrounds tensions among key stakeholders, and maps these over the country’s broader sociopolitical dynamics, as well as in relation to broader developments in the European and international film festival scene

‘And the winner is …’

With a commitment to artistic excellence film festivals are set apart from regular exhibition venues and commercial interests. Although one of the festivals’ key functions is to add value, few academics have carried out empirical research on festival prizes and prestige. In this article we aim to contribute to the understanding of film festivals as a network of cultural capital by reconstructing what happens behind the scenes of the Joris Ivens competition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, analyzing, among others, jury reports and interviews with jurors. In our analysis we draw attention to the various subjective and contingent elements in the selection process as well as to the influence of the festival context in setting (expert) evaluation standards. We identify recurring elements in the jury deliberations and, following our findings, argue that festivals are not mere barometers of changing norms, but forces that drives, shape and legitimize change