Introduction

Abstract

The Introduction discusses the main relationships this book investigates: art cinema and film festivals, film festivals and Europe, and Italian cinema and film festivals. I consider the various terms through which we might taxonomise films celebrated at festivals—world cinema, global art cinema, peripheral cinema—before outlining the Eurocentric histories of the film festival network and dominant canons of art cinema. I show how the meaning of terms such as art cinema is contingent upon the flows of prestige, geopolitical relations and economic structures in which film festivals participate. The introduction then focuses on Italian cinema’s status as emblematic of filmmaking dependent on festivals for circulation and its centrality to the historical development of the European film festival circuit.