‘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