Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Rise of Documentary Festivals: A Historical Approach

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1

Part of the book series: Framing Film Festivals ((FFF))

Abstract

This chapter offers a historical account of the presence of documentary at film festivals since the 1930s. Drawing from the periodization proposed by Marijke De Valck, it analyses four different phases, characterized by (1) a significant presence of documentary at major festivals and the appearance of the first documentary festivals (1930s–1960s); (2) the emergence of thematic festivals bolstered by socio-political movements (1950s–1988); (3) the professionalization of documentary festivals created as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and their incorporation of industry activity (1990s); and (4) the proliferation of documentary festivals worldwide (2000s). Reflecting on the role of festivals for the recognition and (re)definition of documentary, the chapter revisits key historical moments and films, highlighting the importance of these encounters for their creation, funding, distribution and incorporation to the documentary canon.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Despite the fact that using the core-periphery dichotomy can raise some criticism, I consider that these terms contribute to highlighting the cultural hierarchies that remain in the global festival circuit. The contemporary tendency to use terms such as “World Cinema” or “films from the Global South” to refer to film works coming from countries with low production capacity or historically labelled as “non-western” or the “third world” help to hide international power relationships that prevail in post-colonial periods.

  2. 2.

    On the origins of Edinburgh Film Festival, see McArthur (1990) and Hardy (1992).

  3. 3.

    Shared with Luciano Serra pilota by Goffredo Alessandrini (1938).

  4. 4.

    Nevertheless, documentary still remained an important part of the festival identity, and booklets and lectures devoted to documentary took place, such as the 1952 conference “New Directions in Documentary.” After a wandering period, Edinburgh appeared to return to a serious engagement with documentary cinema, and its 1968 edition paid tribute to Grierson, who offered a “celebrity lecture” and received the Golden Thistle award (McArthur 1990, 97).

  5. 5.

    See Amieva about SODRE (2012) and Battlaglia in this volume about IDPA. For a study of the presence of the documentary in Latin American film festivals in historical perspective, see Peirano and Amieva (2018).

  6. 6.

    Due to their long trajectory, some of these festivals maintain close connections with institutions that historically interacted with film festivals. This is the case of FIPRESCI, the international federation of film critics that gives awards in (among other festivals) Bilbao and Krakow, or FIAPF, which has accredited these two festivals in the category of Documentary and Short Fiction. This recognition involves automatic eligibility of the films awarded in these festivals for the Academy Awards, as well as the European Film Awards. For commemorative accounts of these festivals’ histories, see: Zinebi: Bakedano and Zunzunegui (2008), Belgrade: Jelenković (2013), Oberhausen: Behnken (2004), Leipzig: Schenk (2007), Dei Popoli: Tasselli (1982).

  7. 7.

    New York became the mecca of experimental cinema in the 1960s. In addition to the New York Film Festival (1963), other institutions were created in this period, such as the Millennium Film Workshop and Film Forum (1966) and the Anthology Film Archives (opened in 1970 by Jonas Mekas, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka and Stan Brakhage).

  8. 8.

    See also the special issue in Wide Angle by Barnow and Zimmermann (1995) and the historical account: Zimmermann and MacDonald (2017).

  9. 9.

    For a study of the first years of the event, see Christian Jungen’s chapter in this volume.

  10. 10.

    See Moine (2003) and Kötzing and Moine (2017).

  11. 11.

    Film festivals specializing in ethnographic film include Cinéma du Réel (created in Paris in 1978 as an initiative of the Pompidou Museum) (see Blangonnet 1994), the aforementioned Festival dei Popoli , the Margaret Mead Film Festival (inaugurated in 1977 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York) and the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Ethnographic Film Festival (organized in London on a biannual basis, since 1985). For a historical study of ethnographic film festivals, see Vallejo and Peirano (2017).

  12. 12.

    For a critical view on the commercialization of Hot Docs, see Ezra Winton’s chapter in this volume.

  13. 13.

    Other documentary festivals that appeared in the 1990s include the Biennale Européenne du Documentaire in Marseille (originally named Biennale Européenne du Documentaire; in its second edition it changed its name to Vue sur les docs and in 1999 adopted the current name FIDMarseille); the Doc/Fest Sheffield (created in 1994 in the UK and originally celebrated in Bristol), which took advantage of the strong television production context in UK to attract filmmakers to their industry sections; the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (founded in Greece in 1999), which benefited from its stability in the context of the Balkans and international connections. (The director of the festival, Dimitri Eipides was cofounder of the Montreal Festival Du Nouveau Cinéma [appeared in 1971] and programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival, operating since 1976 in Canada.) In the North American sphere the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival started in Arkansas in 1992, while the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival began in 1998 as the DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival (held in Durham, NC). In Canada two new events appeared in 1998: RIDM (Rencontres Interantionales du Documentaire de Montréal/the Montreal International Documentary Festival) and DOXA in Vancouver. In Latin America É tudo Verdade/It’s all True was founded in 1996 in São Paulo (Brazil) by film critic Amir Labaki, who had served in the board of IDFA (see Vallejo 2018). In 2006 the festival co-organized the international conference devoted to documentary Visible Evidence XIII. In 1997 Patricio Guzmán created the Santiago International Documentary Film Festival, FIDOCS (Santiago de Chile), which helped to energize local production (Amado and Mourão 2013, 228; Peirano 2016, 2018).

  14. 14.

    For a study of the presence of documentary at the Cannes Film Festival’s program, see Iglesias (2020) in our second volume.

  15. 15.

    For a study of award policies and auteur recognition at IDFA, see de Valck and Soeteman (2010).

  16. 16.

    This was due to concerns around the overlap of lobbying and programming as a potential conflict of interest.

  17. 17.

    Moreover, many industry activities, especially those promoting co-productions, have been fostered by institutions outside film festivals. These are mostly national and supranational institutes for the promotion of documentary film, such as the European Documentary Network (EDN ), founded in Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1996. The European Union has been a major funding source for these initiatives, through the MEDIA (1991) or IBERMEDIA (1996) programmes.

  18. 18.

    Created in collaboration with FIDMarseille, in 2005 the market split from the festival, and moved to La Rochelle.

  19. 19.

    For a study of Silverdocs’ programming policies, see Gann (2012).

  20. 20.

    See interview to former director of Zinebi Ernesto del Río in our first volume (Vallejo 2020b).

  21. 21.

    Contemporary Documentary Practices in Africa Panel. March 27, 2015. Participants: Aboubakar Sanogo (Carleton University), Rachel Gabara (University of Georgia), Jude Akudinobi (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Michael Renov (respondent, University of Southern California).

  22. 22.

    For further reflections on how this dynamics affect the circulation of films in minority languages, see López-Gómez et al. (this volume).

  23. 23.

    See chapter on IDFA in our second volume (Vallejo 2020a).

  24. 24.

    See interview to former ARTE France TV programmer Thierry Garrel in our second volume (Pan 2020).

  25. 25.

    For an analysis of the challenges of new interactive documentary forms for documentary exhibition, see Stefano Odorico (2020) in our second volume.

References

  • Amado, Ana, and Maria Dora Mourão. 2013. Images from the South: Contemporary Documentary in Argentina and Brazil. In The Documentary Film Book, ed. Brian Winston, 228–236. London: Palgrave Macmillan and British Film Institute.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Amieva, Mariana. 2012. Cine Arte del SODRE en la conformación de un campo audiovisual en Uruguay. Políticas públicas y acciones individuales. Cine Documental 6. https://goo.gl/4s1nRS

  • Bakedano, Jose Julián, and Santos Zunzunegui, eds. 2008. Imágenes de un largo viaje: cincuenta años de cine en ZINEBI, 1959–2008. Bilbao: Ayuntamiento de Bilbao.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnow, Erik. 1983 [1974]. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnow, Erik, and Patricia R. Zimmermann, eds. 1995. The Flaherty: Four Decades in the Cause of Independent Cinema. Wide Angle [special quadruple issue on the Flaherty Film Seminar] 17: 1–4.

    Google Scholar 

  • Behnken, Klaus, ed. 2004. Kurz und Klein: 50 Jahre Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blangonnet, Catherine, ed. 1994. Cinéma du réel. Images Documentaires [special issue on the Cinéma du reel Festival] 16. https://goo.gl/KdVaAc

  • de Hadeln, Moritz. 2009. Il était une fois… 40ème anniversaire du Festival International du Film Documentaire à Nyon. DeHadeln&Partners. https://goo.gl/ReKJrX

  • Deprez, Camille, and Judith Pernin, eds. 2015. Post-1990 Documentary: Reconfiguring Independence. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Valck, Marijke. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Finding Audiences for Films: Programming in Historical Perspective. In Coming Soon to a Festival Near You: Programming Film Festivals, ed. Jeffrey Ruoff, 25–40. St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Valck, Marijke, and Mimi Soeteman. 2010. ‘And the Winner is…:’ What Happens Behind the Scenes of Film Festival Competitions. International Journal of Cultural Studies 13 (3): 290–307.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Di Iorio, Sam. 2013, February 25. Chronicle of a Summer: Truth and Consequences. The Criterion Collection. https://goo.gl/ZhJ2HS

  • Elsaesser, Thomas. 2005. Film Festival Networks: The New Topographies of Cinema in Europe. In European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, 82–107. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gann, Jon. 2012. ‘Mediate. Curate. Facilitate’: Sky Sitney, SILVERDOCS. In Behind the Screens: Programmers Reveal How Film Festivals Really Work, ed. Jon Gann, 149–165. Washington, DC: Reel Plan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Głowa, Jadwiga, ed. 1999. Zooming on History’s Turning Point: Documentaries in the 1990s in Central and Eastern Europe/Dokument po przełomie. Film dokumentalny lat 90. w Europie Šrodokowo-wschodniej. Krakow: Uniwersytet Jagielloński [bilingual edition Polish/English].

    Google Scholar 

  • Grierson, John. 1966 [1932]. First Principles of Documentary. In Grierson on Documentary, ed. Forsyth Hardy, 145–156. London: Faber and Faber.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunning, Tom. 2014. Encounters in Darkened Rooms: Alternative Programming of the Dutch Filmliga, 1927–31. In The Emergence of Film Culture: Knowledge Production, Institution Building, and the Fate of the Avant-garde in Europe, 1919–1945, ed. Malte Hagener, 72–116. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardy, Forsyth. 1992. Slightly Mad and Full of Dangers: The Story of the Edinburgh Film Festival. Edinburgh: Ramsay Head Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iervese, Vittorio. 2017. Between Familiar and Unfamiliar. Ethnographic Films in the Festival dei Popoli. In Film Festivals and Anthropology, ed. Aida Vallejo and María Paz Peirano, 127–141. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge SP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iglesias, Eulàlia. 2020. Positioning Documentaries at the Cannes International Film Festival: Fahrenheit 9/11 and Beyond. In Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2. Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 113–129. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jelenković, Dunja. 2013. The Short Film Fest—60 Years: Monograph on the Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival. Belgrade: FEST head office [bilingual edition Serbian/English].

    Google Scholar 

  • Juhasz, Alexandra, and Alisa Lebow, eds. 2015. A Companion to Contemporary Documentary Film. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kilkka Mann, Lena. 2010. The Provocative Želimir Žilnik: From Yugoslavia’s Black Wave to Germany’s RAF. Südslavistik.online 2: 35–57. https://goo.gl/1zvU1n.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kötzing, Andreas, and Caroline Moine, eds. 2017. Cultural Transfer and Political Conflicts. Film Festivals in the Cold War. Göttingen: V&R unipress GmbH.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loist, Skadi. 2013. The Queer Film Festival Phenomenon in a Global Historical Perspective (the 1970s–2000s). In Un histoire des festivals. XXe–XXIe siècle, dir. Anaïs Fléchet, 109–121. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loist, Skadi, and Ger Zielinski. 2012. On the Development of Queer Film Festivals and Their Media Activism. In Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism, ed. Dina Iordanova and Leshu Torchin, 49–62. St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • McArthur, Colin. 1990. The Rises and Falls of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. In From Limelight to Satellite: A Scottish Film Book, ed. Eddie Dick, 91–102. Edinburgh: Scottish Film Council and British Film Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLane, Betsy A. 2012. A New History of Documentary Film. Second edition. London and New York: Continuum.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mestman, Mariano, coord. 2016. Las Rupturas del 68 en el cine de América Latina. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Akal.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moine, Caroline. 2003. Le festival du film documentaire de Leipzig, un lieu d’échanges culturels international? Entre mythe et réalité. Relations Internationales 116: 559–571.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nornes, Abé Mark. 2013. Eastwards. In The Documentary Film Book, ed. Brian Winston, 209–215. London: Palgrave Macmillan and British Film Institute.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Odorico, Stefano. 2020. Beyond the Screen: Interactive Documentary Exhibition in the Festival Sphere. In Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2. Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 93–111. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pan, Sevara. 2020. A Niche for Creativity: An Interview with Thierry Garrel, Director of the French Department of Documentary Film at TV Arte (1991–2008). In Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2. Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 191–199. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paranaguá, Paulo Antonio, ed. 2003. Cine Documental en América Latina. Madrid: Cátedra.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peirano, María Paz. 2016. Pursuing, Resembling, and Contesting the Global: The Emergence of Chilean Film Festivals. New Review of Film and Television Studies 14 (1): 112–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2015.1109345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2018. FIDOCS y la formación de un campo de cine documental en Chile en la década de 1990. Cine Documental 18: 62–89. https://goo.gl/6auZ4F.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peirano, María Paz, and Mariana Amieva, eds. 2018. Encuentros en los márgenes: festivales de cine y documental latinoamericano. Cine Documental 18 [special issue on film festivals and documentary in Latin America]. https://goo.gl/uz5bGU

  • Rhyne, Ragan. 2009. Film Festival Circuits and Stakeholders. In Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, ed. Dina Iordanova and Ragan Rhyne, 9–39. St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schenk, Ralf. 2007. Bilder einer gespaltenen Welt: 50 Jahre Leipziger Dokumentar- und Animationsfilmfestival. Berlin: Bertz+Fischer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tasselli, Maria Pia. 1982. Il Cinema dell’uomo: Festival dei Popoli (1959–1981). Roma: Bulzoni.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vallejo, Aida. 2014. Industry Sections: Documentary Film Festivals Between Production and Distribution. Iluminace 26 (1): 65–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2018. Festivales de cine documental en Iberoamérica: una cartografía histórica. Cine Documental 18: 144–171. https://goo.gl/MFcUcM.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2020a. IDFA’s Industry Model: Fostering Global Documentary Production and Distribution. In Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 2. Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 23–53. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2020b. Adapting to New Times: An Interview with Ernesto del Río, director of the Zinebi International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Bilbao (2000–2017). In Documentary Film Festivals Vol 2. Changes, Challenges, Professional Perspectives, ed. Aida Vallejo and Ezra Winton, 137–146. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vallejo, Aida, and María Paz Peirano. 2017. Film Festivals and Anthropology. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willemen, Paul. 2013. On Pesaro (1981/1985). In The Film Festival Reader, ed. Dina Iordanova, 19–27. St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wong, Cindy Hing-Yuk. 2011. Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimmermann, Patricia R. 2012. Humanist and Poetic Activism: The Robert Flaherty Film Seminar in the 1950s. In Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism, ed. Dina Iordanova and Leshu Torchin. St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimmermann, Patricia R., and Scott MacDonald. 2017. The Flaherty. Decades in the Cause of Independent Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain

    Aida Vallejo

Authors
  1. Aida Vallejo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aida Vallejo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain

    Aida Vallejo

  2. ReImagining Value Action Lab Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada

    Ezra Winton

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Vallejo, A. (2020). The Rise of Documentary Festivals: A Historical Approach. In: Vallejo, A., Winton, E. (eds) Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Framing Film Festivals. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17320-3_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation