Kirsten Stevens

Enthusiastic amateurs: Australia's film societies and the birth of audience-driven film festivals in post-war Melbourne

Abstract The global film festival’s origins in the post-Second World War era are often considered uniquely European. Yet this period also saw the arrival of a distinctly non-European event. Emerging in 1952 from the Australian film society movement, the Melbourne Film Festival developed as a different type of celebration and in response to its particular local context. Unlike events in Cannes, Venice or Berlin, the MFF was a grassroots celebration, run by film enthusiasts for film enthusiasts. This article examines the development of the Australian film society movement, the origins and operation of MFF as an audience-led festival and, through close examination of the event’s genesis, offers an intervention into the current understanding of the international film festival’s development and spread.

Special section: Inside looking out – film festival reports

Look about. From big cities to rural centres, tourist towns to sheep farms, film festivals are everywhere. Hardly a weekend now passes without some celebration lighting up screens somewhere around ...

From film weeks to festivals: Australia’s film festival boom in the 1980s

ABSTRACT This paper examines the rapid spread of urban film festivals in Australia from the 1980s onwards. Up to the 1980s, film festivals in Australia were limited to only a few events in the country’s capital cities. Yet, by the end of the 1990s an exponential increase in the number and diversity of events had occurred. While this rapid growth seemingly fits within existing international observations regarding the global spread of film festivals throughout this period, specific local factors, including the wider mix of film exhibition activities operating in Australia in the preceding decades, influenced how the nation’s film festivals multiplied and developed. This paper draws on significant empirical research to analyse the rapid growth of film festivals in Australia through the 1980s. In doing so, it seeks to address two goals. First, to provide more concrete evidence of the rapid global proliferation and diversification of film festivals in the 1980s through the inclusion of the Australian experience. And second, to open up a discussion around an under examined aspect the nation’s film appreciation and exhibition history, specifically that relating to film festivals and non-theatrical film exhibition.

Distribution and film festivals: Editorial introduction

A year on from our first instalment of the special issue exploring film distribution and film festivals in Australasia, the state of the local film industry, within Australia at least, seems to have shifted. After a long drought, in 2015 Australian films seemingly found their audience. That crisis of distribution, which shaped our introduction to this topic back in issue 9.1, momentarily eased with a large slate of locally made films finding their way to a range of screens around the country. From the blockbuster heights ofMadMax Fury Road to the romantic Australiana of The Dressmaker, Blinky Bill The Movie and The Water Diviner, traversing the road movie suicide drama Last Cab to Darwin to the biggest non-IMAX doco, That Sugar Film and the emerging new focus of family-friendly hits based on the success of Paper Planes and Oddball, 2015 was a bumper year. What’s more, with these films appearing in a range of cinemas, audiences were finally convinced to spend their dollars on viewing something locally made with

From Film Weeks to Festivals: The Spread of the Urban Film Festival After 1980

84 million expended on local fare. Reports claim that Australian films had achieved an impressive 7.7% share of the national box office by the end of the 2015 (Hawker 2016). While Gardner (2016) warns against the hyperbole of statistics and impressive looking figures released alongside the 2015 successes, there is no denying that over the last year Australian films have managed to gain the attention and perhaps win back a little of the trust of domestic audiences. These gains were in the context of minimal structural changes in the distribution process. The theatrical distribution market has become so competitive that even relatively commercially orientated projects such as Kill Me Three Times and Strangerland have been released on video-on-demand as the primary release platform, after short festival seasons, highlighting distributor’s wariness. Yet, while the successes and interest generated through 2015 might paint a rosier picture compared to this time last year, the reality of the Australian industry and the state of existing distribution strategies for locally made films are still in turmoil. Already new Federal Government funding cuts to Screen Australia set for 2016 threaten to undermine some of the progresses made. While the fact that local films found a willing audience in 2015 offers no guarantees that these audiences will return in 2016 or beyond. The technological changes affecting all aspects of the cinema trade and film industry continue to disrupt established business models and new avenues and ways of thinking about film production, circulation and modes of consumption are still required to ensure the relevance and visibility of Australasian productions into the future. This third instalment of our special issue on Distribution and Film Festivals continues the themes and challenges raised in our earlier issues. Looking at both present and past, it explores the history and continuation of distribution strategies and film festival operation

A Festival for Every Occasion: Niche Programming, Event Culture, and Vertically Integrated Film Festivals

This chapter examines the rapid spread of urban film festivals in Australia from the 1980s onwards and, through this, explores what impact the growth in film festivals had on broader issues of film exhibition. An exponential increase in festival activities through the 1980s coincided with declines in other non-commercial film culture activities, including film societies and various other film culture activities supported by national and state-based organisations. Examining how this changing exhibition landscape, along with the influence of broader urban renewal initiatives, influenced the development of new festivals through the 1980s and 1990s, this chapter reflects on the effects of globalisation of the regional festival scene and further links developments in Australia to the global proliferation of festivals during this period.

Growth and Change: Curator-Led Festivals, Fragmenting Audiences, and Shifting Film Exhibition Cultures

This chapter considers the rapid proliferation of film festivals in recent years, questioning how sustainable the format is in the face of event saturation. Engaging with the growing debate over the sustainability of unchecked festival growth, this chapter examines the rise in specialised events that has characterised the film festival phenomenon. It argues that the diverse range and ubiquitous nature of these events collectively form an exhibition system with the potential to usurp the role of art-house and speciality theatres within the Australian context. As a kind of ‘new cinema,’ this chapter considers how festivals may be reshaping the future of film exhibition and what elements of the format need to evolve to ensure that such a new cinema is sustainable.

Enthusiastic Amateurs: Origins of Australia’s Film Festival Movement

This chapter charts the maturation of Australian film festivals through the period from 1965 to 1983. Analysing the film festivals in Melbourne and Sydney, the chapter traces the increasing professionalism of the Australian events and examines their early adoption of festival directors as curators. Continuing the chronology of festival development, the chapter also identifies the emergence of several new film festivals throughout Australia’s major cities over this period, as well as a wider expansion of film culture and specialist exhibition activities through the 1960s and 1970s. Examining the relationships between the newly emerging film festivals and film culture activities, as well as between Australia’s festivals and the international festival regulator FIAPF, the chapter highlights the unique qualities of Australia’s developing film festival movement.

Programming Perceptions: Film Festivals and the Construction of Taste

From the development of Australia’s first film festival, the 1952 Olinda Film Festival, this chapter traces the evolution of the Melbourne (MIFF) and Sydney (SFF) film festivals. Emerging in the early years of international film festival development, MIFF and SFF represent distinctly different festival experiences compared with events emerging in Europe contemporaneously. This chapter engages directly with assumptions that the early years of festival development were a uniquely European phenomenon, arguing instead that Australia’s engagement with the format suggests that festivals were a global response to the spread of cinephilia and the growing hegemony of Hollywood in the post-Second World War period.

Between Success and Failure: Crisis and Recovery at the Melbourne International Film Festival

Considering several recent advertising campaigns employed by the Melbourne International Film Festival, this chapter examines the emphasis festival marketing strategies place on the role of taste within film festival programmes. Drawing on the imagery and lexicon of festival promotional material, the chapter interrogates the construction of festivals as ‘good taste’ and ‘cultured’ events. It considers the value attached to festival screenings and their role in constructing categories such as ‘quality’ and ‘world’ cinema to examine how notions of taste and worth are produced by event programmes. The chapter explores how the privileged position of festivals as cultural events not only determines their place within local environments, but further constructs their audience and the ways in which they are understood.