Falicov T The Routledge Companion To Latin American Cinema - (PG 285 - 297)

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THE INTERLOCKING
DYNAMICS OF DOMESTIC
AND INTERNATIONAL
FILM FESTIVALS
The case of Latin American and
Caribbean cinema1
Tamara L. Falicov
Editors’ introduction
Although the international film festival circuit, a largely European invention, has
been around since the 1940s, a new paradigm for production and circulation of Latin
American films has emerged over recent decades that forms a unique creative and
financial symbiosis between regional and global film festivals and the films they
promote. It is worth recalling that these European festivals, which serve as film distri-
bution markets, have for decades exerted a dominant influence on the kinds of Latin
American films that get screened outside of the region. In the post-World War II
period, it was simply recognition through competitive awards that opened doors for
Latin American filmmakers and their producers (Lima Barreto’s O Cangaceiro [1953]
Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.
and the films of Argentinian Leopoldo Torre Nilson in the 1960s).

Since the 1980s, however, various festival funds have been established at Cannes,
Berlin, Toulouse, Rotterdam, and San Sebastian, to name only the most prominent,
which support particular types of productions in the region. The chapter picks up
from the work of Luisela Alvaray in the previous chapter, as Tamara L. Falicov,
tracing the origins of the new North–South relationship that has gained promi-
nence in film festivals since the 1980s, examines in depth some of the festivals
within Latin America that have established connections with major markets. She
focuses on both the economic incentives that shape regional production through
the mediation of festivals, as well as the range of collaboratives that have emerged
around homegrown festivals in Latin America. The essay concludes by focusing on a
relatively new phenomenon: the increasingly tighter knit among film festivals both
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D'Lugo, M., López, A. M., & Podalsky, L. (Eds.). (2017). The routledge companion to latin american cinema. Taylor & Francis Group.
Created from iaide-ebooks on 2022-08-02 09:28:54.
International film festivals
within and outside of Latin America that forge alliances, and in some cases merge
the festivals.
Falicov contends that the system has become progressively more interlocked and
porous, while always already structured within a system of hierarchies. Thus, film
festivals are not only networked together; they are increasingly intertwining, and ini-
tiatives from European film festivals are newly grafted on to the “legitimated” Latin
American ones such as the ones described.
Introduction
Film festivals make up a network with nodes and nerve endings, there is capillary
action and osmosis between the various layers of the network, and while a strict
ranking system exists, for instance between A-and B-festivals, policed by an inter-
national federation (FIAPF), the system as a whole is highly porous and perforated.
(Thomas Elsaesser 2005: 74)
Global film festivals have proliferated since the 1940s, and over time have become woven into
a broad transnational yet highly stratified network. The concepts of “network” and “circuit”
have often led scholars to invoke the anatomical metaphor employed by Thomas Elsaesser to
clarify the relation of parts of the complex film festival system. As Aida Vallejo points out,
“[i]t is important to understand festivals not as sum of events at the same level, but rather as
interconnected where there are power dynamics and hierarchies” (Vallejo 2014: 22).
Taking Elsaesser’s useful metaphor as a point of departure, one might say that the
large arteries are the Class A festivals, mainly from Europe, such as Berlin, Cannes, and
Rotterdam, but also the Toronto Film Festival in Canada, Sundance in the US, and Busan
in South Korea. These festivals matter to Latin American filmmakers not only because
access to screenings and awards clearly provide critical visibility, but also because the
adjoining industry activities include small grant competitions for Global South filmmakers
(such as the Hubert Bals Fund in Rotterdam and the World Cinema Fund in Berlin), as
well as training programs, screenwriting labs, co-production markets, and post-production
competitions and other opportunities. Perhaps more importantly, as this essay will argue,
filmmakers from the periphery gather at film festivals in the Global North not only to gain
access to financing and foreign distribution rights for their work; they also attend training
sessions and development workshops to further network connections, refine their cultural
capital, and have the potential to become further attuned to what kinds of film aesthet-
ics tend to be favored in a European context. Gonzalo Maza calls this comprehension of
aesthetics that are successful in Europe the “Hubert Bals effect,” which, typically, first- and
second-time directors and producers must confront when they are making films they wish
to be adjudicated in Global North venues.
This chapter will present an overview of the history of European film festivals that regu-
larly screen Latin American films and the ways in which, historically, this has marked the
beginning of a North–South relationship. In addition to discussing the large, Tier A festi-
vals, the essay will examine some of the festivals within Latin America that have established
connections with major markets. I will conclude by focusing on a relatively new phenom-
enon: the increasingly interlocking, transnational nature of film festivals both within and
outside of Latin America that forge alliances, and in some cases merge the festivals.
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Tamara L. Falicov
It is important to underscore the evolving nature of the relation between European and
Latin American festivals and the film cultures they reflect. Historically, that relationship
has at times been fraught with tension, such as during the period of the 1960s–1970s, when
films from Latin America were “better known in Europe than in Latin America” (Bolivian
director Jorge Sanjinés, cited in Hanlon 2010), much to the chagrin of progressive Latin
American filmmakers. This was the period when Latin American cinema became “chic”
for the Europeans; it coincided with a dangerous political climate in some parts of Latin
America, marred by horrific censorship and repression in various military dictatorships in
the region. Thus, organizing and attending political film screenings were potentially life-
threatening activities.
Attention will also focus on the scale of “homegrown” Latin American festivals. They
form part of a smaller network of national film festivals that helps fortify national film
industries. Scholar María Paz Peirano details a number of Chilean festivals, for instance,
and highlights the unique attributes to these lesser-known festivals, such as the Festival
Internacional de Lebu (LECIL Bio Bio, Lebu International Film Festival), which originally
screened work in a natural cave close to the sea (Peirano 2016: 124). More generally, larger
festivals, such as Guadalajara or BAFICI (Buenos Aires International Independent Film
Festival), are linking up with programs in European festivals and thereby creating another
global festival convergence, or node, on the film festival circuit. Consideration of these
relations will provide a more accurate sense of the increasingly interlocking, transnational
nature of film festivals both within and outside of Latin America and their potential impact
on the evolving nature of production and distribution of films from the region.
Historical perspectives
There are at least three distinct phases in the evolving relation of Latin American films
at European film festivals: (1) an early period, running from 1937 through the mid-1960s,
when major European film festivals invited sometimes token Latin American films and
where these films received accolades; (2) the rise of militant cinema in the region that
opposed the art house criteria of the festivals of the early phase, and consequently gener-
ated alternative festivals in Europe and Latin America (Viña del Mar, Chile, Havana, the
Sodre Documentary and Experimental Festival in Uruguay, Festival de Mérida, Venezuela);
and finally (3) the intensification of international co-productions through the activities of
international funding groups associated with European festivals (Rotterdam, Toulouse, San
Sebastián, Berlin, etc.).
The initial phase begins with recognition of Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa
at the Venice Film Festival (1937) for his work on Fernando de Fuentes’s Allá en el Rancho
Grande (Over at the Big Ranch, Mexico, 1936). In the immediate post-World War II period,
another Mexican film, Emilio Fernández’s María Candelaria (1943), won a special noncom-
petitive prize at the recently revived Cannes festival. Fernández’s La perla (The Pearl, 1945)
won two more awards for Gabriel Figueroa’s cinematography, at the Venice Film Festival in
1947 and the U.S. Golden Globes in 1949.
It was not until 1950 that Luis Buñuel’s masterpiece, Los olvidados (The Young and the
Damned), won a special jury prize at Cannes. In 1953, the film O Cangaceiro directed
by Lima Barreto for Vera Cruz studios was the studio’s most successful film, grossing 30
million cruzeieros ($1.5 million). The film played at that year’s Cannes Film Festival,
winning the Best Adventure Film Award, thereby making it the first Brazilian film to
win a prestigious European festival prize (Rist 2014: 120). In the case of Argentina, the
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contemporary director credited with making the strongest impression abroad at inter
national film festivals was Leopoldo Torre Nilsson. He was an art house auteur whose La
casa del ángel (The House of the Angel, 1957) screened at Cannes and La caída (The Fall,
1959) at Berlin. In 1961, he was awarded a prize at Cannes by the FIPRESCI for La mano
en la trampa (The Hand in the Trap). Torre Nilsson’s successes at these events point to
one of the essential criteria of European film festival juries of the period: the lionizing of
film auteurs and, in the instance of Figueroa, the artistic creativity that is closely aligned
with the auteur. In each of these instances, it may also be argued that one of the points of
attraction is the imagery of the exotic and the violent as cultural markers for films from
the region. This focus on what is an art cinema criterion will, in fact, be challenged in the
coming decades, specifically by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino.
During the late 1960s and 1970s, left-leaning Latin American filmmakers used cinema
as a tool to call attention to and resist a string of horrific military dictatorships in Brazil,
Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and others. These directors made low-budget,
anti-imperialist cinema that formed a body of work and a network of filmmakers known as
the New Latin American Cinema movement (NLAC). In their widely circulated manifes-
tos and statements of theory on behalf of a new kind of film language, these artists spoke of
“imperfect cinema” (Julio García Espinosa, Cuba), “Third Cinema” (Fernando Solanas and
Octavio Getino, Argentina), and “an aesthetic of hunger” (Glauber Rocha, Brazil). Their
films were seen by European film curators and critics, who selected Brazilian Cinema Novo
films such as Ganga Zumba (Carlos Diegues, 1963) and Vidas Secas (Barren Lives, Nelson
Pereira dos Santos, 1963), the latter of which played at Cannes, and whose director won
the OCIC (International Catholic Organization for Cinema) prize in 1964 (shared with
Jacques Demy’s Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Umbrellas of Cherbourg). La hora de los hornos
(The Hour of the Furnaces, 1968), the most emblematic case of a “Third Cinema” film, won
the top prize at Italy’s Pesaro Film Festival in 1968. This has become a venerated event in
contemporary Latin American cinema history given the improvised mass street protest fol-
lowing the film’s screening, when Solanas was carried on the shoulders of the crowd and
viewers engaged in street fights with police (Achugar, cited in Burton 1986: 228). In 1976,
the Mexican film Canoa (Canoa: A Shameful Memory, Felipe Cazals, 1975) won the Silver
Bear Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
While attention given to this radical political cinema by European festivals provided
important visibility to films made under dangerous conditions, there were filmmakers and
curators in countries such as Colombia, Chile, and Cuba, among others, also committed to
“decolonizing” their conditions by relying less on European film festivals for recognition.
The focus on homegrown film festivals was one reaction against the predominance of those
exhibition spaces in Europe. As Mariano Mestman observes:
from the second half of the 1960s onwards, the creation of meeting spaces for Latin
American and African political filmmakers in their own region meant an incipi-
ent distinctive feature in relation to previous periods when the most usual meeting
place (if any) were European Festivals or Exhibitions.
(Mestman 2002: 48)
He points out that “the wording used by the Chilean Valparaíso-based newspaper La Unión
(August 3, 1967) to title its review on the 1967 Viña del Mar Festival illustrates the pre-
vailing spirit: ‘Viña displaces Europe as a meeting point for Latin American Filmmakers’”
(Mestman 2002: 49).
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Tamara L. Falicov
Thus, concurrent with the rise of the New Latin American Cinema movement was
the founding of national and pan-continental film festivals where filmmakers would
gather as a form of counter-hegemony and a space in which to dialogue. Political meet-
ings and Latin American film screenings included Viña del Mar, in Chile (1969) and the
Festival of New Latin American Cinema (Festival de Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano) in
Havana (1979). Cuba’s Festival of New Latin American Cinema, in particular, became
a central hub and meeting ground for those Latin American filmmakers fleeing in exile.
This festival became a sanctioned, institutionalized space for directors and moviego-
ers to meet and dialogue, debate political issues facing filmmakers at that time, screen
films, and orchestrate roundtable discussion as a form of solidarity against the Hollywood
majors, principally.
By the 1980s, however, and driven in part by the neoliberal turn in regional cultural
politics, film aesthetics became less radically doctrinaire and more centered on “quality
art house” cinema. With the increasingly limited state funding for national cinema, the
financing quest subsequently moved abroad. As a result, a rise in co-productions and the
emergence of savvy producers the likes of Mexican Bertha Navarro from Tequila Gang
Productions (Guillermo de Toro), Lita Stantic (Argentina), and others entered the scene,
who helped obtain funding projects vis-à-vis government agreements that were signed
into law with companies in Spain, France, Germany, and Canada in the 1980s. By 1997,
the Spanish government organized a reunion of national film institute heads for various
Latin American countries (including Portugal) to create a co-production film finance pool,
Programa Ibermedia (see Alvaray’s Chapter 17 in this volume) in order to promote Ibero-
American co-production and collaboration.
Financial opportunities for Latin American directors abroad, mainly in Europe, opened
up theoretical debates about the kinds of aesthetics that most facilitated crossing borders
and appealed to multiple audiences. Film scholars have grappled with definitions of “global
art house cinema” (Galt and Schnoover 2010; Falicov 2013) and a “realignment of national
cinema in new global contexts” (D’Lugo 2013) to further understand which art house films
cross borders with more facility than others. Nowadays, film festivals are less of a political
site for sharing oppositional cinema, and more often spaces for quality cinema to be show-
cased, thus building a national brand for the festival with the goal of making this temporal
event unique and distinctive in some way. These “festival films” (see Falicov 2016 for more
on this definition) also have a greater chance of obtaining film funds from festivals, to
which we now turn.
Transnational funding and interlocked circuits in

contemporary film festivals
Increasingly, film festivals throughout the world are adding supplementary industry activi-
ties such as funding competitions for Global South filmmakers, training programs for
first-time directors, and others. Such benefits lend prestige to the filmmakers, who receive
them and also may be a good fit for the festival’s brand.
The Hubert Bals Fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam was the first such
fund founded in 1988 after the director of the festival lobbied the Dutch government for
funds to support filmmakers from the developing world. He died a few months later, not
knowing the fate of what he dubbed the “Tarkovsky Fund.” Thus, the Hubert Bals Fund
was created posthumously and named in his honor. Financed by government development
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aid, along with a large NGO, a foundation grant, and funds from the national lottery, the
fund provides development aid money to support filmmakers in emerging film cultures
“expressing and preserving their cultural diversity” (Bhalotra 2007). Films that are selected
for festival development grants, for example, are given the “inside track” to be considered
for selection as a “premiere” at the festival. Film premieres are the central currency for film
festivals, and it has become standard practice for Variety magazine to review every film at its
world premiere (Ruoff 2012: 5).
Festival funding is important to first- and second-time filmmakers since it symbolizes
distinctive “seals of approval” by the festival juries and administrators, who are mainly
responsible for selecting films to receive financial support for their production. Despite
the small monetary amounts involved, these financial awards actually matter, especially
in countries where local currencies are weak against the euro. But, more importantly, they
often translate into large symbolic capital in that they can open the door to other cash
awards and entrée into other film festivals. They help a film rise above the rest and gain a
foothold in the transnational festival circuit. This privileged status cannot be overstated; in
an age supersaturated with film festivals and markets, it can make a very definitive differ-
ence in whether a film gets noticed, screened, and distributed, or not.
In recent decades, with the global proliferation of film festivals, the involvement of
the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) has increased in
importance in terms of that organization’s mandate to represent the economic, legal, and
regulatory interests that film and TV production industries in five continents have in com-
mon (FIAPF n.d.). They have created a ranking system for film festivals around the world.
Each film festival, if they are interested in being classified for “A-list” status, must undergo
an accreditation process. According to film scholar Minerva Campos, the ability to host
world premieres at film festivals helps ensure and maintain the ranking of the top film
festivals. She found that film festivals such as those at Cannes, Berlin, and Mar del Plata
had to program a minimum of 14 world premieres in order to maintain their “A-list” status
(Campos 2012: 12). These premieres help further a festival’s stature as a “main player” in
the field. Thus, there is a never-ending quest on the part of programmers and other staff
members to continually find sources of premieres.
One method to help foster new, fresh material with potential for world premieres in the
future is to develop a film funding initiative or host a co-production market/forum whereby
the film festival becomes a participant in funding and later in promoting and premiering
projects it has helped produce. Campos argues that post-production initiatives are part of
the “premieres” pipelines that festivals such as San Sebastián know will give them first look
on the projects that they helped to finance (Campos 2012).
One of the implications of this pressure to find new material to satisfy the “A-list” des-
ignation is that Global South filmmakers may then opt to premiere their works at major
European film festivals, thereby relegating second- and third-tier works to film festivals in
their home countries (De Valck 2007: 71). Manthia Diawara concurs, stating:
Since the best African films are screened at European and American film festivals
[e.g. Le festival trois continents in Nantes, France, the Milan Festival of Africa, and
others] not to mention the ones that get into the Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and
London film festivals, filmmakers no longer look to FESPACO [the Pan-African
Film Festival in Ouagadougou] for the premiere of their films.
(Diawara 1994: 386)
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Tamara L. Falicov
Another implication of these film funds is that there is an inherent power dynamic that
lies between the European/Asian/North American (minus Mexico) funders and those from
the Global South seeking funds to begin or complete a project. Scholars have examined
this relationship as one of neocolonialism (Halle 2010: 312), and one of Global South
filmmakers having the “burden of representation” (Branston 2000: 171) to write storylines
about marginalization for the benefit of wealthy viewers, or what has been deemed “pov-
erty porn” (pornomiseria)2 (Ross 2011: 262). Others have cataloged instances in which
producers have been asked to make their films look more “authentic” (e.g. “more African”)
and pinpointed a kind of “global art house aesthetic” to which Global South filmmakers
may conform (Bartlet 2000: 211). Finally, these funds may begin to create what Miriam
Ross calls a “favoured group of filmmakers,” after she observed that from 2005 to 2009, 7 of
20 film projects received funding both from the Hubert Bals Fund and the World Cinema
Fund. Moreover, in one instance, the Chilean film Lucía (Niles Atallah, 2011) was given
funding from Hubert Bals, Cine en Construcción, and the Global Film Initiative (the lat-
ter was suspended in 2011) (Ross 2010: 132–133). For this reason, the issue of obtaining
cultural capital is crucial to the success of receiving funding. Certain directors who have
the savvy and can literally “talk the talk” (e.g., English, French, or German) and under-
stand the culture of interacting with European gatekeepers undoubtedly have a distinct
advantage over others.
In terms of the criteria that Hubert Bals employs, according to their annual report, they
look for “the artistic quality and authenticity of the film,” and among other more standard
criteria (country of production, nationality, gender, feasibility of the project both financially
and artistically), there is another category that involves “the extent to which the project
can contribute to strengthening the local film climate” (Hubert Bals Fund Annual Report
2014–2015). Though these categories certainly fall within the mission to help developing
countries with fomenting local film culture and infrastructure, it could be argued that it is
part of a discourse of development that “advanced industrialized countries” filmmakers need
not concern themselves with. This observation merely points out how development aid dis-
courses permeate funding in ways that might be limiting or reductive in narrative content
to filmmakers from the Global South. Moreover, this patron relationship may potentially
privilege a certain kind of filmmaker profile who delivers images the North is looking for.
When film festivals in Latin America begin to grow and expand, what are their role
models? Do they imitate larger festivals or do they try to incorporate other, more home-
grown models of funding? One innovative program that has begun to challenge more
traditional models is Tres Puertos Cine (Three Ports Cinema), which began as a collabora-
tion between the Australab at the Valdivia Film Festival, Chile, and the BAL Lab as part
of the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival (BAFICI) with an affiliation
with Cinemart at the Rotterdam film festival. In 2016, the workshop is now a collabora-
tion between Australab and Distrital, an independent film festival in Mexico City and
Cinemart. They promise a horizontal model, rather than a top-down vertical one. That
is, rather than participants being told what they “should do,” in a former Tres Puertos
Cine organizer’s words, they are instead, “asking filmmakers what they need” (quoted in
Hopewell 2014). When Global South filmmakers are integrated into the selection pro-
cesses and are asked for input, they are more invested and can claim more “ownership” of
these initiatives (see Falicov 2017).
In terms of film festival models in the region that have influenced newer festivals,
Gutiérrez and Wagenberg state that:
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BAFICI (founded in 1999) itself has had a tremendous influence in inspiring the
inception of new film festivals across the region. In Feb. 2004 the Mexico City
International Film Festival (FICCO) was born (Note: it was defunct by 2010);
a year later, the Santiago International Film Festival (SANFIC) began in Chile;
and in 2012, the first Cali International Film Festival took place in Colombia—all
festivals that model themselves on BAFICI.
(Gutiérrez and Wagenberg 2013: 300)
A counterpoint to the notion that it was BAFICI that started an “indie” trend, Chilean
cultural critic Gonzalo Maza argues that these newer festivals conform to a format that
only accepts work from first- and second-time filmmakers, ensuring fresh talent and a lower
budget, and thus perpetuating a low-budget, grainy aesthetic, which could potentially be
problematic for newer directors, such as those who do not subscribe to that aesthetic. Maza
argues that festivals such as SANFIC (the Santiago International Film Festival in Chile)
and later FICCO, the Mexican Contemporary Film Festival (2004–2010), were interested
in being “independent” and cutting edge by showing Latin American films that might be of
an aesthetic of potential interest to European film festivals. He dubs this phenomenon the
“Hubert Bals Effect” (Maza 2013).
In Maza’s provocative essay, he argues that these festivals may be “independent,” but
they wind up being, in a sense, a smaller circuit (he calls it the “kindergarten circuit”) for
first-tier festivals. He opines that festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, and San
Sebastián, among others, scoop up these low-budget independent films by first- and second-
time filmmakers because they are inexpensive raw material that are easy to “dispose of” if
their later films are not meeting expectations (Maza 2013). He later points out that these
first and second films are calling cards in preparation for the third films, which hopefully do
gain entrée into major festivals, or if they do not, he believes that then it becomes increas-
ingly difficult for them to obtain co-production money, distribution deals, etc. (Maza 2013).
This argument is certainly polemical, but it brings up valid arguments about why it matters
so much that European and other OECD country festivals have access to new, inexpen-
sive material to release in their festivals. One newer avenue for European festivals to have
a direct conduit to fresh, new material is the increasingly interlocked industry activities
between Latin American/Caribbean festivals and those in the Global North.
In the past decade, there has been an increased shift in the ways that prominent film
festivals, mainly in Europe, are staking claims to smaller regional or national film festivals
throughout Latin America/Caribbean in order to link up and bring vetted projects (such
as those developed at Caribbean Film Mart in Trinidad, Primera Mirada [First Look] in
Panama, and BAL Lab in Buenos Aires) to their shores (see Figure18.1, which lists many of
these Latin American festival activities). In all of those cases, adjudicated films and those
that have won top honors were routed directly to the Marché du film at the Cannes Film
Festival. Recent alliances include links between the Miami International Film Festival,
which vetted winning films from Ventana Sur (Argentina) to award their own competi-
tion monies in 2015; the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), which forged two
linkages in 2015: a collaboration with the Locarno film festival training academy, and with
Sundance they collaborated on a workshop. In 2016, Morelia handpicked four Mexican
films to screen at the Cannes Critics’ Week.
This increasingly interlocked system is the harbinger of festival forms, which will increas-
ingly rely on Global South festivals to bring projects, now filtered by transnational and
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Tamara L. Falicov
Figure 18.1 I nfografia. Created by Venado, originally published in LatAm Cinema. English
translation by the author.
local judges and juries, across borders to Europe. As Thomas Elsaesser reminds us (Elsaesser
2005: 74), the system is increasingly interlocked and porous, while always already structured
within a system of hierarchies. Thus, film festivals are not only networked together, but they
are increasingly intertwining, and initiatives from European film festivals are newly grafted
on to the “legitimated” Latin American ones such as the ones described.
These are newer models of collaborations; some are connected through industry events
such as Latin American and Caribbean film markets connecting with their counterparts
in Europe. Other models relate to labs that workshop scripts, with the winning selections
going on to the Cannes film market (Marché du film). Still others are European film festi-
vals, which have helped to found or build out the infrastructure of a film festival, such as
the case of the Curaçao film festival sponsored by the Rotterdam International Film Festival
(IFFR). This special arrangement is no doubt influenced by the former Dutch colonial his-
tory, as another example of this “entrenched” relationship can be found in the case of the
Suriname Film Festival in South America (now defunct). Curaçao relied heavily on funding
and infrastructure from the Rotterdam International Film Festival, and Dutch development
funds, as well as private foundation money in Curaçao (the Fundashon Bon Intenshon
that promotes the arts locally). Officially, the Curaçao film festival is called the Curaçao
International Film Festival Rotterdam (CIFFR), a clear indicator that Rotterdam plays a
central role in curating and branding the festival, which will be five years old in April 2016.
Another seminal linkage occurs between the Toronto Film Festival and the Panama
International Film Festival. Considered to be one of the largest in terms of films pro-
grammed and featuring a film market arguably rivaling Cannes, Toronto has historically
played an important role in bringing the latest Latin American feature films and
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documentaries to Canada and raising awareness of these auteurs for Canadian audiences.
This may or may not be incidental to the festival’s co-founder, Henk Van der Kolk, who
was responsible for founding an important, relatively new film festival, the International
Film Festival Panama (IFFP), in 2010. The Latin American film curator for the Toronto
International Film Festival, Diana Sánchez is also the artistic director for Panama, so there
are criss-cross flows of films from Latin America to Canada, and back to Panama, given
these key personnel who annually migrate transnationally.
Case examples between BAFICI (BAL Lab), Primera Mirada

(Panama), and the Marché du film at Cannes
The earliest Latin America–Europe film festival relationship begins in 2013, when the
Cannes film market initiated “BAL goes to Cannes” showcasing five works in progress from
BAFICI’s own filmmaking lab called BAL, which is over a decade old, making it Latin
America’s oldest “works in progress” lab. A group of 15-minute clips are first shown at
BAFICI and later screened in front of sales agents and festival heads at Cannes (Hopewell
and Keslassy 2013). This Cannes initiative was the first time that works in progress were
selected, and emerged out of a particular industrial juncture. According to the head of the
Cannes film market, Jerome Palliard, “[at a] time when the industry is wary of taking risks,
works in progress offer perfect timing for sales agents, distributors and festival programmers
to know pretty exactly what they’ll be getting, but still have discussions with directors and
producers” (Hopewell 2013). This means, theoretically, that they would prefer to see works
close to completion rather than hear a pitch and invest in that manner.
The Panama International Film Festival debuted a works-in-progress competition called
Primera Mirada (First Look) for Central American filmmakers in 2015, which offered a
$25,000 grand prize sponsored by airline manufacturer Boeing. One edition of the festival
later, the industry section had forged an agreement with the Cannes Marché du film, which
would grant the winner of Primera Mirada an opportunity to screen the work in front of sales
agents, programmers, and others at Cannes the following month, in addition to a cash prize.
The 2016 edition industry award was a $15,000 cash first prize by a private, anonymous
donor, which is a decrease from the previous edition (when the prize came from a corporate
sponsor), clearly demonstrating how dependent festivals are on their sponsors to deliver
prize money from year to year.
These linkages certainly enable newer festivals to gain prestige and notoriety, and also
bolster the status of European festivals. In an interview with Curaçao chief programmer
Christine Dávila, having Curaçao aligned with Rotterdam makes the island festival, in her
words, “into one of the most avant-garde, experimental film festivals in the world, and at
the same time [in its role as] marketplace and funder, helps filmmakers [from the Caribbean]
network and have an incredible launching pad [to Europe]”. By hiring Dávila to program
films at the Curaçao festival, the Rotterdam staff were interested in having her promote
Caribbean filmmaking in the region, first and foremost. Given her experience program-
ming for Sundance and the Los Angeles Film Festival, and given her Latin American film
expertise, they hired her to “dig deep” to help track local works by emerging directors that
might not consider applying to a film festival (Dávila 2015).
Another transnational linkage that has yet to be explored in the Latin American con-
text is the role of film festival programmers who often “wear many hats.” They are invited
to serve as jury members at festivals throughout Latin America/Caribbean (e.g. Christine
Dávila recently served as a juror for the Central American category at the Costa Rican
275
Tamara L. Falicov
Figure 18.2 T
eatro Balboa: A restored theater which served as the main venue for the 2016 edition
of the Panama International Film Festival. Photo courtesy of the author.
International Film Festival), while at the same time working in various other capacities
at other festivals. Dávila, who is also a documentary film programmer for the U.S. festival
Ambulante California (an offshoot of the nonprofit Ambulante Film Festival in Mexico
founded by Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, and Elena Fortes), also programs world cin-
ema at Sundance. Based in Los Angeles, Dávila screens and evaluates work in her role as
a juror, but theoretically could also select one of those films for her festival(s) or suggest
a title for colleagues at other festivals such as the Los Angeles Film Festival, Tribeca, and
San Antonio’s CineFest (Dávila 2015). The presence of key gatekeepers who are assessing,
vetting, and circulating work in these spaces are understudied in the field of film festival
studies; these Global North programmers/jurors add another layer of mediation within fes-
tivals in the Global South.
Final thoughts
Beginning in the late 1980s, the Global North festivals helped develop, fund, and exhibit
Global South films through concurrent training labs and market activities during the fes-
tival. In the 2010s, the creation of new partnerships between large European film festivals
and festivals in Latin America and the Caribbean have facilitated “content conduits,” thus
bolstering the international profiles of festivals in Morelia, Panama, and BAFICI, to name
a few, while providing a pipeline of new work for these “Class A” festivals. While this
potentially gives Latin American filmmakers increased visibility, it will hopefully not hin-
der efforts to bring Latin American and Caribbean producers together to help forge more
linkages in and among themselves. Along with these new transnational networks of content
276
flows have come the flow of gatekeepers: programmers, jury members (who might be one
and the same). These mediated relationships are worthy of further study and will help
in unpacking these more deeply embedded transnational relationships that edge towards
symbiosis, but which still work in hierarchical ways.
Notes
1 Acknowledgements: My thanks to Stephen Steigman, who assisted with editorial matters, Christine
Dávila, who entrusted her time to me, which resulted in a wonderful interview, Giselle Anatol for
her insights on the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, and Dolores Tierney for her posts on Emilio
Fernandez films at international film festivals. Thanks as well to the editors of this volume for their
insights and helpful feedback.
2 Colombian filmmakers Luis Ospina and Carlos Mayolo are credited for coining the term porno-
miseria in a 1977 manifesto condemning European film festivals for seeking out desperate images of
Third World misery and deprivation.
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18

and the films of Argentinian Leopoldo Torre Nilson in the 1960s).

exhibition spaces in Europe. As Mariano Mestman observes:

Transnational funding and interlocked circuits in

Case examples between BAFICI (BAL Lab), Primera Mirada

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