Latin American Films and Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund, Miriam Ross, 2011

The film festival as producer: Latin American Films and Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund, Miriam Ross, 2011 (Online link to the HBF: https://iffr.com/en/iffr-industry/hubert-bals-fund) To provide a bit of context, the Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) is part of the International Film Festival in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), founded in 1972, which is one of the biggest and most important film festival’s in the world that focuses on independent and experimental cinema. The fund is named after the founder of the festival, Huub Bals, and created when he died in 1998 to provide support to filmmakers from developing countries. The types of programs that the fund runs to support these films include script development, digital production, post-production and distribution. The fund has a global reputation and essentially functions as a brand, having this name alone attached to your film will likely help to generate publicity and potentially acquire additional financial support. The money is awarded based on content and artistic value primarily while financial aspects are also taken into consideration. Ross notes the importance in recognizing the way in which the fund operates and moves that extends beyond financial support and marketing aid to actually influence the filmmaking process so closely and to such a degree that the fund in fact becomes a producer. Although HBF extends its support to several “developing” countries, Ross chooses to focus on Latin American films in this article. Giving the HBF the title of producer raises several interesting and potentially concerning questions regarding the aims and impacts of a European fund working with these filmmakers, crews, stories, etc., from developing countries. Ross states that is important to understand the types of projects that HBF supports, the way in which the relationship between the company and third-world cultures is constructed, and the effect this all has on the films. She uses the term “poverty porn” to describe the current international climate where critics have noted a desire among distributors, which essentially comes to exploit the political situation, poverty, or the misfortune and disadvantaged situations of others to entertain, entice and attract audiences. Although the fund allows for filmmakers in these regions to successfully complete their films, the process remains political. Mark Peranson, editor and publisher of Cinema Scope, film critic and director, asks, “Why the sudden interest in colonizing the third world through cinema funds, which, though certainly valuable, often end up influencing the kind of film that is made?” Ultimately, this essay examines the relationship between HBF and Latin American film production, although many of these points are applicable to the other filmmaking regions that the fund supports, mainly Asia and Africa. From the beginning the type of support the HBF provides enforces power imbalances because the Latin American side is well aware that it is entering the relationship with a much more limited capital/resources and is seeking assistance from this very capital-rich source. Personally, as soon as the term “developing countries” was used in the article I felt it was problematic and needed clarification, both by Ross and the HBF. As soon as these concerns were beginning to manifest in my mind, Ross addresses this and dictates the fund’s official definition and process for selection, which uses specific criteria for filmmakers and companies seeking support. The fund uses the “DAC List” (Development Assistance Committee’s list of recipients from the Official Development Assistance (ODA) which all comes from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a French-based company. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs also contributes approximately 50% of the HBF budget, furthering this paternalistic, one-way flow of aid. This sense of an uneven relationship is furthered through the fund’s host, the IFFR, because the HBF offers this connection between Latin American cinema and the international market, allowing these films to move from third-world production centres to the first-world international festival circuit. These filmmakers and production companies enter into the relationship as cultural products but also as representatives of sites in need. Another factor within this process is the emphasis put on filmmakers to work explicitly within their national space, confirming their “developing country” identity. This then comes to downplay the clear transnational elements involved in the film’s production. The HBF criteria explicitly restrict selected filmmakers from working outside of their national country, despite the recent scholarship in favour of transnational filmmaking/cinema. And so, as a result, much of what is presented to audiences adheres to what international audiences have been trained to expect on screen from developing countries. Ross uses 2 examples of Latin American films that received support from the HBF to illustrate this point. She highlights the opening sequences of a 2004 Peruvian film by Josué Méndez called Dias de Santiago and a 1998 Argentinian film Pizza, birra, fasso by Adrián Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro. Both of these films have distinct national settings within their countries of origin that focus on the structures and processes of underdevelopment. Ross makes clear that these films confirm certain expectations of third-world culture to film festival audiences. In the two examples that Ross uses I will summarize in point-form the indications and techniques used to perpetuate certain expectations and assumptions. Dias de Santiago: • Opens with stark white credits on a black screen with chaotic traffic sounds, wind and car horn noises • A female character (Andrea) is presented in a grainy black and white medium close-up on the edge of a dirt road with a desolate male character (Santiago) shown next • There are no immediate site-specific indications of location, however, it is obvious that the characters are situated within shanty town dwellings that exist in much of the third- world • Now in colour, the male protagonist is followed into his home where every step, creek and shudder of his home is heard, to almost emphasize or exaggerate his situation • Ross notes that, “his search through empty food cupboards literally and metaphorically indicates the material lack of capital in his life and the emotional vacuum that has been created by the social setting that surrounds him” (p. 264) • The situation and the effect to which they are inflated only intensifies and grows: his mother indicates that he is unemployed and recently split up from his girlfriend • In later scenes audiences receive a synopsis of Santiago’s previous life: he is an unemployed ex-soldier; daily life and survival is unreasonably difficult; he is unable to enroll at the university due to financial constraints and misunderstandings; he finds it impossible to earn a living as a cab driver in a pay-what-you-can type system • The narrative integrates this sense of dire frustration, and the frequent depiction of poverty enhances the unbeatable sense of the situation (Santiago’s life) Pizza, birra, faso: • A group of young unemployed people in Buenos Aires endure a parasitic lifestyle: gathering and stealing money in order to buy small indulgences, which we get from the title: pizza, beer and cigarettes • They also participate in more serious crimes including robbery • In a more fast-paced opening than Dias de Santiago, viewers encounter bustling and chaotic traffic scenes, streets filled with homeless people and teenagers, and other marginalized individuals • Ross marks the tone as both expository and humdrum, speaking to their normalization in Argentine everyday and society • The film continues around the main characters’ attempts to make a living through petty crimes, and also more serious violent acts The protagonists within both films follow the same trajectory and by the end find themselves in the same hopeless and desolate situations. Ross says that although both Dias de Santiago and Pizza, birra, faso offer critical and engaging portraits of their characters and their relationships with others, their journeys culminate in the belief and presumptions that the West has of these “developing” countries: enveloped in escapable poverty, crime and violence. The result is that film festival spectators who are accustomed to seeing the abundance of such sites are likely to presume that these sites are most definitely the norm for the third-world. Gill Branston identifies an ongoing difficulty that arises when filmmakers or artists feel they have to stand in for their community and represent it in a certain way called the “burden of responsibility.” HBF does not hold expectations to the filmmakers to portray positive characters or stories, but it does expect them to represent minority or marginalized culture in order to present something “distinct” and “different” (Other) from the West, which is seen through the restriction in shooting location. The danger for the HBF is that it assumes there is a fixed or stable authenticity within national identity, frameworks and constructs. This then poses the subsequent problem or question of who is behind these decisions in determining what constitutes as “authentic culture.” Ross decides that this whole idea points to a post-colonial decision-making flow controlled by the first-world and accepted by the third-world. In addition, the reigns that HBF has over the film are not contained within the production stages, but also extend to exhibition and distribution. Once films are completed, HBF dictates the ways in which they are circulated. The fund insists that the film has its world premiere at IFFR, which although appears as a great opportunity and guarantees exposure and access to the international film circuit, the coveted “premiere” status is automatically given to IFFR and the film is now unable to compete in competition at other festivals. This agreement to premiere in Rotterdam postpones the film’s exhibition to its domestic spectators at home.

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