Funds associated with film festivals: Supporting filmmaking in the Global South

Abstract

The functions festivals fulfill within contemporary film culture extend beyond the exhibition of completed films; many festivals have attained the role of a producer in recent years. The Berlin International Film Festival launched the World Cinema Fund (WCF) in 2005 to financially support film production in Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. This study provides a first-hand glimpse into the process of realizing feature film projects under restrictive conditions by utilizing interviews with directors whose films have received funding from WCF. The interviews the author conducted with directors Alain Gomis, Julia Murat, and John Trengove form the data set analyzed in this article. He argues that one of the most critical points of contention about the practice of allocating public money from European countries to projects hailing from developing regions which were formerly colonized by the very same nations, is its potentially neocolonialist impact through the cultural domain.