This week we watched a documentary about the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, also known as KVIFF, and, even though there were many interesting insights I took from ‘Film Spa’, I am limited to 500 words to express my raptures. The main learning I will focus on in this reflection is the political influences on film festivals.

It was clearly illustrated in the film that, for a long period of time, KVIFF was under strict control of USSR, which heavily influenced all areas of the festival with the mission of spreading communist propaganda and turning an international film festival into an elaborate celebration of Soviet regime. The support for this argument for this can also be found in the course’s readings:

 “…the Czechoslovak New Wave was roundly ignored by apparatchiks using the festival for propagandistic ends, to cite but one ignominious case of unwelcome Communist interference in the festival’s operations and curation…”

– C. Howard

“Despite the festival operating perforce under the sway of Soviet propagandists for many long years…”

-C. Howard, 

There is no denying that that was the case, but it also had me thinking: are the film festivals now really propaganda-free or are they just promoting a different agenda? For example, in week 2 reading it was mentioned that Tim Robbins’s speech was bluntly anti-Trump.

 “A measured, yet still Trump-thumping speech honouring Miloš Forman and Václav Havel from new Crystal Globe recipient Tim Robbins steered proceedings further towards a liberal footing….”

-C. Howard

Similarly, I noticed after some further research, almost every film festival serves another purpose other than simply showing a movie. Environmental Film Festival promotes eco-friendliness, Melbourne Queer Film Festival promotes support for LGBTQ community, film festivals dedicated to a specific culture promote, you guessed it, the culture. A similar concept was mentioned in week 1 reading:

The umbrella term of activist film festivals – including human rights film festivals, so-called radical or subversive film festivals, disability film festivals, eco or green film festivals, etc.,- offers particularly interesting cases to study the practice of thematic programming with explicit outreach arms. 

-De Valck & al.

‘Katia’, you might say, ‘ you can’t compare communism to tolerance and social justice!‘. You would be right, they are very different things, and I am in no way calling environmental awareness propaganda. I just think that one way or another, there will always be different political agendas present at film festivals, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Nowadays, most of them are correct and positive, and promote respect and acceptance, and, thankfully, none of modern film festivals’ speakers addresses the audience as ‘comrades’. But it doesn’t change the fact that there are always certain topics and views actively promoted and sometimes even pushed onto the audience at film festivals, no matter how right or wrong they are. I just think it’s very interesting to think that a place of art and international friendship can be used as a podium to communicate certain ideas and promote change.

Word count: 495

Cited:

Howard C. 2015. ‘Local and/or General… Of Time and Place at the 50th Karlovy Vary and 6th Odessa International Film Festival’, Senses Of Cinema, no. 76.

Howard C. 2018. ‘A Time of Reckoning? The 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival’, Senses Of Cinema, no. 88.

De Valck M, Kredell B & Loist S 2016. ‘Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice’. Routledge, New York, 2016, pp. 1-11.