This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the global landscape of documentary film festivals. Contributors from across the globe offer in-depth analysis of both internationally renowned and more alternative festivals, including Hot Docs (Canada), Nyon (Switcherland), Yamagata (Japan), DocChina, Full Frame (US), Belgrade (former Yugoslavia), Vikalp (India), and DocsBarcelona (Catalonia, Spain), among others. With a special focus on historical and political developments, this first volume draws a map of documentary festivals operating today, and then looks at their origins and evolution. This volume is organized in three sections: the first addresses methodological problems film historians and social scientists face when researching documentary film festivals, the second looks at the historical development of this circuit within the wider frame of history of world and national cinemas, and the third reflects on how politics find their way through festival programs and actions. Curatorial, organizational, industrial and political changes occurred in the festival realm addressed in this book help better understand how these affected documentary production, distribution, curation, exhibition and reception up to this day.

The first book to approach documentary film festivals from a global, historical and multi-disciplinary perspective Approaches key challenges for festival organization, framed in key topics in current media studies (transmediality, industrial aspects and dynamics of production and distribution, curatorial practices, cross-genre hybridization, articulation of new socio-political spheres and movements, etc.)

Autorentext
Aida Vallejo is Associate Professor at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Spain.

Ezra Winton is a Visiting Scholar at the ReImagining Value Action Lab at Lakehead University, Canada.

Inhalt

1. Introduction: Documentary Film Festivals; Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton.- 2. Defining Documentary in the Festival Circuit: A Conversation with Bill Nichols; Aida Vallejo.- Part I: Research and Methods.- 3. Film Festival Research Workshops: Debates on Methodology; Skadi Loist.- 4. The Data-driven Festival: Recordkeeping and Archival Practices; Heather L. Barnes.- Part II. Histories and Origins.- 5. The Rise of Documentary Festivals: A Historical Approach; Aida Vallejo.- 6. The Film Festival as a Vehicle for Memory Officialization: The Afterlife of WWII in the Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film Festival, 19542004; Dunja Jelenkovic.- 7. Forging a Cultural Elite: Nyon and the Age of Programmers; Christian Jungen.- 8. Finding a Position on the Global Map of Film Festivals: The Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival; Eija Niskanen.- Part III: Politics and Policies.- 9. The Independent and Underground Film Festival: The Case of DOChina; Tit Leung Cheung.- 10. Mainstreaming Documentary and Activism at Toronto's Hot Docs Festival; Ezra Winton.- 11. The Development of Documentary Film Festivals in India: A Small-media Phenomenon; Giulia Battaglia.- 12. Found in Translation: Film Festivals, Documentary, and the Preservation of Linguistic Diversity; Antía López-Gómez, Aida Vallejo, María Soliña Barreiro, and Amanda Paz Alencar.