Activist Film Festivals

Towards a Political Subject

Edited by Sonia Tascon, Tyson Wils

Publication date:

05 December 2016

Publisher

Intellect Books

Dimensions:

229x178mm
7x9"

ISBN-13: 9781783206346

Film festivals are an ever-growing part of the film industry, but most considerations of them focus almost entirely on their role in the business of filmmaking.
This book breaks new ground by bringing scholars from a range of disciplines together with industry professionals to explore the concept of festivals as spaces where the sociopolitical identities of communities and individuals are confronted and shaped. Tracing the growth of activist and human rights-focused films from the 1970s to the present, and using case studies from San Francisco, Brazil, Bristol and elsewhere, the book addresses such contentious topics as whether activist films can achieve humanitarian aims or simply offer 'cinema of suffering'. Ultimately, the contributors attack the question of just how effective festivals are at producing politically engaged spectators?

'In their volume, Activist Film Festivals: Towards a Political Subject, Sonia Tascón and Tyson Wils bring together a range of academics and practitioners to explore the sociopolitical potential of activist film festivals. They state that their book was ‘born of the hypothesis that different platforms for political activism may produce different audiences and that film festivals (...) having an activist orientation need to be considered more closely as they “envelop” a spectator differently’ (p. 3). With this interesting hypothesis in mind, each of the contributors to this volume takes a closer look at one or more activist film festivals. The result is a valuable addition to the literature on festivals, activism and spectatorship – and the complex relationships between the three.'