University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses July 2018 A Multi-Method Analysis of the Berlin International Film Festival and the World Cinema Fund Eren Odabasi University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Odabasi, Eren, "A Multi-Method Analysis of the Berlin International Film Festival and the World Cinema Fund" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations. 1262. https://doi.org/10.7275/11930004.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1262 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Multi-Method Analysis of the Berlin International Film Festival and the World Cinema Fund A Dissertation Presented by EREN ODABASI Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2018 Department of Communication © Copyright by Eren Odabasi 2018 All Rights Reserved A Multi-Method Analysis of the Berlin International Film Festival and the World Cinema Fund A Dissertation Presented by EREN ODABASI Approved as to style and content by: ________________________________________________ Anne T. Ciecko, Chair ________________________________________________ Martin F. Norden, Member ________________________________________________ Jonathan R. Wynn, Member Mari Castañeda, Department Chair Department of Communication ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor Anne T. Ciecko for her guidance, support, and patience throughout my years at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It has been a great pleasure for me to have long meetings and wonderful conversations with her. Every single aspect of this project benefitted immensely from her close reading of the material and thoughtful comments. I am inspired by the extraordinary sophistication of her scholarship and her enthusiasm for cinema, it has been a true privilege for me to work with her. I would also like to thank members of the dissertation committee Martin F. Norden and Jonathan R. Wynn for their insightful feedback and continued support throughout the entire process from the prospectus stage to the end result. This study has evolved in many interesting directions following our fruitful conversations. The fourth chapter, in which quantitative data and statistical methods are utilized, underwent multiple changes following meetings with Qiong Chen from the Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I would like to thank her for being such a helpful consultant and sharing her impressive quantitative expertise with me. I am also grateful to Michael Morgan, who contributed greatly to the initial conception of this project with his mastery of quantitative research methods and even offered valuable guidance right before his well-deserved retirement. A substantial part of chapter three was written during my time at the Dissertation Writing Retreat organized by the Writing Center at the university. I would like to thank the Center for organizing this useful program and allowing me to take part in it. !iv This project was financially supported by various institutions and initiatives on campus. I would like to thank the Department of Communication for awarding this study the 2017 Anca Romantan Graduate International Research Award, without which an essential part of my fieldwork would not have been possible. Most of the data used in chapters two and three was collected during a different segment of my fieldwork, which was made possible by a Dissertation Research Grant provided by the Graduate School at the University of Massachusetts. I wrote substantial parts of chapters one, two, and five using the Summer Dissertation Fellowship, awarded jointly by the Department of Communication and the Graduate School. I am thankful to all the individuals and committees who made this project possible by granting me these awards and fellowships. A project of this nature necessitates the institutional support of multiple agents on the global film festival circuit. I would like to thank the press offices of the Berlin International Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival for granting me access to screenings, facilitating my interviews with several filmmakers, and inviting me to participate in various initiatives. I also extend my thanks to the editors of the Altyazi Monthly Cinema Magazine in Turkey for providing me with press credentials and publishing my film criticism work in their wonderful magazine for many years. Alain Gomis, Claudia Llosa, Matias Mariani, Julia Murat, Benjamin Naishtat, and John Trengove agreed to devote their valuable time to this study (often during festivals where time is the most precious and scarce commodity) and participated in interviews. I would like to thank all of them for their generosity and their willingness to share their experiences with me. Benjamin Domenech from Rei Cine, Giulia Fazioli from Makna !v Presse, Rubaica Jaliwala from Berlinale Talents (Talent Campus at the time), Federico Mancini from Film Press Plus, and Gary Walsh from Alibi Communications provided me with contact information for these filmmakers and, in some cases, scheduled the interviews. I would like to thank all of them for their cooperation. Most of all, I am forever grateful to my mother and my brother for always being together with me regardless of how many thousands of miles may ‘separate’ us. Given the rather unusual trajectory of my academic life, there have been many important turning points along the way and not all of my decisions seemed to make sense at all times. In those moments, the deep love we always share has been my biggest support. I owe all my happiness, everything that brings me joy in life, to them. !vi ABSTRACT A MULTI-METHOD ANALYSIS OF THE BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL AND THE WORLD CINEMA FUND MAY 2018 EREN ODABASI, B.S., BOGAZICI UNIVERSITY M.A., BOGAZICI UNIVERSITY Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by Professor Anne T. Ciecko The functions festivals fulfill within contemporary film culture extend beyond the exhibition and circulation of completed films; many festivals around the world have gradually attained the role of a film producer in the past two decades. This dissertation investigates the relationship between a major film festival and a European program that provides financial support for film production in developing countries. With a particular focus on the World Cinema Fund, associated with the Berlin International Film Festival, this study traces the common stylistic and thematic preoccupations observed across a wide range of Latin American, African, and Southeast Asian films partially financed by European festival funds. Textual analyses of recent films that have celebrated their premieres in major festivals after benefitting from these initiatives bring to light a prevalence of narratives about hybrid identities and mobility between cultures, as well as an emphasis on highly ceremonial events and rituals with clear patterns of accepted behavior. Interviews with directors whose films are associated with the World Cinema !vii Fund complement this analysis by offering a first-hand glimpse into the process of financing and realizing feature film projects under restrictive conditions. A major part of the analysis introduces quantitative data and statistical methods to the study of film festivals, testing for the impact of funding structures of films on their presence in festivals, and for the link between the reception of films on the festival circuit and their commercial prospects. This exploration of film festivals and related financial programs reveals that transnational funds based in Europe, instead of contributing to the sustained development of film production in the Global South through investments in infrastructure, prefer to engage in temporary, project-based transactions which ensure the continuous flow of films suitable for festival selection. When combined together, these findings contribute to a broader, multifaceted understanding of funds associated with film festivals, which offers a critical perspective on the hierarchical power dynamics that lie at the core of this practice. !viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv ABSTRACT vii LIST OF TABLES xi LIST OF FIGURES xii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1 1. LITERATURE 16 1.1 Film Festivals 17 1.2 (Trans)National Cinemas 34 1.3 Film Funds 52 1.4 Conclusion 68 2. FILMS 71 2.1 WCF-Funded Films on the Festival Circuit 74 2.2 Rituals and Ceremonies 78 2.3 Women’s Stories 89 2.4 Hybrid Identities 111 2.5 Conclusion 124 3. FILMMAKERS 128 3.1 Data Collection 131 3.2 Common Themes 135 3.3 On Racial Dynamics, Follow-Up Projects, and Nascent Industries 155 3.4 Conclusion 171 4. STATISTICS 176 4.1 Data and Methodology 178 4.2 Critical Acclaim and Commercial Success 186 4.3 Descriptive Statistics 194 4.4 Hypothesis Testing 206 4.5 Analysis and Conclusion 224 ix 5. AUDIENCES 232 5.1 Audiences in Film Festivals 235 5.2 Performance and Audience Behavior 243 5.3 Festival Infrastructures and Organization 258 5.4 On the Festival Site 275 5.5 Conclusion 285 CONCLUSION 289 APPENDICES 1. INTERVIEW REQUEST E-MAIL 303 2. INTERVIEW WITH BENJAMIN NAISHTAT 304 3. INTERVIEW WITH CLAUDIA LLOSA 311 4. INTERVIEW WITH JOHN TRENGOVE 318 5. INTERVIEW WITH ALAIN GOMIS 323 6. INTERVIEW WITH JULIA MURAT 328 REFERENCES 336 x LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Descriptive statistics for continuous variables 194 2. Descriptive statistics for binary variables 197 3. One-way ANOVA results for hypotheses H1a, H1b, and H1c 208 4. Independent-samples T-Test results for hypotheses H1d, H1e, and H2b 210 5. Premiering in major festivals and country of origin 208 6. Premiering in major festivals and previous festival success of the same director 215 7.