Local Film Industry Research Articles

Escape from the periphery. World-system of cinema and Polish film

The main aim of this text is to outline the possibilities of applying Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory to the analysis of cinema. Concepts developed by Wallerstein, especially the notion of the relationship between the core and the periphery of international political-economic systems, can be useful in trying the hegemony of Hollywood cinema in the global circulation of film content, as well as the positions smaller film industries occupy in relation to it. The assumptions of this theory will be tested using the example of the cinema of Central and Eastern Europe in recent decades, making it possible to determine its relative hierarchy in the global chain of production and consumption of audiovisual content. Special attention has been focused on Poland, presented as a model example of a local film industry attempting to emerge from the peripheral position it occupied after the political transformation of 1989.

Lost in the Stream: An Overview of Online Distribution of Latin American Films Co-funded by European Film Funds

The main focus of this paper is to explore the impact of the ever-expanding internet SVoD and VoD services on the availability of Latin American films that receive co-funding from the Hubert Bals Fund and the World Cinema Fund. These co-funded films are typically showcased at prestigious international festivals but often struggle to reach their home countries. This lack of local distribution remains a challenge, especially as these funds openly declare the wish to suport small local film industries. After briefly investigating the streaming service landscape in Latin America, the author examines Unleashed, a platform associated with the Hubert Bals Fund. He scrutinizes the positioning of selected Latin American works to determine how the films are framed within national labels and production conditions. Following this, he explores how Netflix can serve as a distribution channel for niche cinema, using the case study of Maya Da-Rin’s film The Fever (A febre, 2019) and its distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic. His research approach involves qualitative methods, particularly semi-structured interviews, and draws from the emerging field of streaming studies.

Opportunities and Challenges: Hollywoodisation and Asian Cinema’s Ascent

With the drive towards globalisation, Hollywood has had a profound impact on Asian films, including their production methods, storytelling, and film presentation. This paper delves into the multilayered impact of Hollywood on Asian cinema, analysing its origins, consequences, and potential impact. In addition, this research examines the positive aspects of Hollywood's influence, such as raising the international profile of Asian cinema, fostering cross-cultural collaboration, and enriching global cinematic diversity. Simultaneously, it also discusses potential challenges, including the risk of cultural homogenisation and the impact of Hollywood's commercial hegemony on the local film industry. In short, the development of the Asian film industry under the influence of Hollywood is a complex story of opportunities and challenges. By actively embracing openness, innovation, and cultural diversity, Asian cinema can continue to play a unique role on the global stage, presenting engaging and diverse cinematic experiences.

Ambivalence of entertainment: the Cold War and pro-communist Mandarin cinema

ABSTRACT Colonial Hong Kong was a transregional hub of Cold War ideological confrontation. The United States and its Chinese ally, Chiang Kai-shek’s Taiwan, struggled with Beijing for the hearts of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and around the world. Pro-Communist émigré cinema in the mid-twentieth century was a prime cultural manifestation of this Cold War contest. After an initial period of radicalization and antagonism, the pro-Communist studios in Hong Kong gradually shifted to a moderate approach whose goal was not to undermine British colonial rule or espouse revolutionary ideologies. Rather, the new strategy was one of flexibility and restraint that aimed to maintain a strategic presence in the local film industry and serve as a point of contact for overseas Chinese. Later, with the emergence of two pro-Free China giant studios, Motion Pictures & General Investment Co. Ltd. and Shaw Brothers, the cinematic ecosystem in Hong Kong was significantly altered. In order to hold on to their market presence in an increasingly more competitive environment, pro-Communist film companies embraced a more entertainment-oriented ethos and experimented with various popular genres, while struggling to remain truthful to their ideal of “guiding people to do good.” With in-depth analysis of two popular films by Zhu Shilin, The Dividing Wall (Yibang zhi ge) and Sweet as Honey (Tiantian mimi), this essay seeks to historicize the ways in which the Beijing-sponsored film establishment in 1950s Hong Kong negotiated and balanced a changing set of political, ideological, and commercial interests in pursuit of its strategic mission.

Bollywoodizing Netflix or globalizing Hotstar? The cultural-industrial logics of global streaming platforms in India

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the localization strategies of Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar, positing India as a distinctive cultural-industrial contact zone. The Indian market’s size, scale, and cultural and linguistic diversity make it a remarkable region for an epistemic inquiry into global industrial contact zones created by transnational streaming platforms. I map the relative power of Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar in relation to India’s strong local film and entertainment industry. In doing so, I identify two types of localization strategies: the cosmopolitan local and the indigenized global. These strategies encompass content, aesthetics, audiences, and local industry dynamics. This essay explains the cultural and global mobility of media forms tied to cricket and Bollywood and argues that these forms accord the Indian mediascape a distinctive agency, presenting an antipodal inversion of imperialistic discourses of Western hegemonic media power.

Copyright Law Protection of films in Nigeria (Nollywood) and South Africa (Sollywood): Pre and post‐Covid‐19 pandemic

AbstractThe Covid‐19 pandemic inflicted socioeconomic harm on an unprecedented scale. Across the world and to varying degrees, cinemas were closed, festivals were cancelled or postponed, and film releases were moved to future dates or delayed indefinitely. In 2020 the entire global theatrical and home/mobile entertainment market totalled $80.8 billion, the lowest figure since 2016 and a decline of 18% from 2019. Theatrical entertainment accounted for only 15% of the total global entertainment revenue, compared to 43% in 2019. While some has been written about the effects of Covid‐19 on both international and local film industries, this article seeks to provide an African perspective focusing on the realities in Nigeria and South Africa, respectively. This article examines the importance of filmmaking industries in Nigeria and South Africa as well as the difficulties faced during the Covid‐19 pandemic. Copyright laws in both terrains are critically reviewed based on the capacity of these laws to protect the interests of film industries pre and post‐Covid‐19.

Can We Talk? Employment and Representation in the Film Industry

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this research is to identify within the arts and culture sphere and, more specifically, the film industry, what kinds of employment opportunities are afforded (or not) to BIPOC communities, specifically Black communities in Quebec? How are Black communities in Quebec represented in the local film industry, both in front of and behind the camera? In what ways are Black stories being told, how are they being represented, and how many Black people are actually telling their own stories across media? Background: This paper attempts to lay out the general state of the film industry within Canada, focusing on Quebec’s Black communities. Methodology: Using an intersectional approach, I draw from a wide range of ages, backgrounds, languages, and experiences that will cover the range of roles affected at each level of the industry through in-depth interviews. This will be accompanied by a self-reflexive comparison to my experiences navigating the film industry during university and after within the labor market. Findings: The results of this research demonstrate that there is a distinct divide between how Black communities see themselves represented in front of and behind the screen within different parts of the film industry. Impact on Society: Due to exclusionary practices and lack of investment in BIPOC storytelling, the ways in which BIPOC creatives and specifically those in the Black community have to find ways to navigate outside mainstream film industry circuits to create.

Innovative Entrepreneurship through Creative Outputs for Emerging Filmmakers in South Africa: A Conceptual Framework

Creativity and innovation are fundamental traits of a creative leader in the film industry. This article explores the South African film landscape and the innovative opportunities for creative film entrepreneurs. It further explores and describes emerging film creative leadership in terms of an Entrepreneurial Conceptual Framework (creative output 2) that includes a functional relationship equation (creative output 1). The conceptual framework explores the relationship between the four key dimensions (soft skills, innovation, film project management, and iterative content generation) and the four key competencies (high-quality content, influence, education, and entertainment) and their ultimate effect on entrepreneurial creative leadership in the local filmmaking landscape. The functional relationship equation identifies four key characteristics (vision, collaboration, adaptability, and emotional intelligence) that distinguish a creative leader in the local film industry from other forms of leadership. Both the conceptual framework and the functional relationship equation set innovative and structural foundations and form creative outputs for emerging filmmakers, local independent film productions, and future academic studies.

A data-driven investigation of successful local film profiles in the Indonesian box office

Many local film industries in developing economies are struggling to compete with foreign film hits. Surprisingly, despite the high exposure from imported films, the Indonesian film industry has maintained a robust domestic market in the last decade. This study aims to gather insights from this phenomenon by examining the key factors that distinguish the profiles of non-successful and successful local films at the Indonesian box office. The analysis was conducted based on the characteristics of 225 local films from 2017 to 2018. We employed a recent method to generate such profiles, namely the tree-based comparative analysis, which uses a machine learning model to augment the cross-case comparisons from a large pool of data. The study result suggests that the success of local films is mainly driven by the actor's popularity and the presence of foreign movie hits at the box office. Besides, we also found that the distinction between moderately successful and highly successful local films predominantly lies in story familiarity, suggesting the efficacy of the "brand extension" strategy in the Indonesian film industry. The study concludes by offering some managerial insights for producers and distributors to deliver successful films at the box office.
 Keywords— local film; Indonesian box office; success profiles; tree-based comparative analysis

글로벌 OTT 사업자 규제에 대한스위스 국민투표와 그 시사점

Switzerland guarantees a system that allows its people to express and validate their opinion on relevant laws through the submission of a referendum when deemed necessary. In 2021, both chambers (the National Council and the Council of States) imposed an obligation for streaming platforms to invest in local Swiss cinema. With this new law, not only video streaming service providers based in Switzerland but also those abroad would have to re-invest 4% of their gross revenues generated in Switzerland in Swiss independent film creation. In addition, the law introduced a quota system requiring at least 30% of the offered catalogue to be made up of European cinema productions. In May 2022, a referendum against this draft bill was initiated by the referendum committee due to consumer opposition As a result, more than half of the amendment voted in favour of the amendment, and the revised film law will come into force in 2024. In the recommendation, the referendum committee expresses its opinion against the law and stipulates whether it originally was the logic of regulatory approval by the regulators and against regulations imposed by consumers. As a result, consumers’ benefits and welfare, which remained up to now unclear, can be verified through actual cases, and the regulatory differences for the same service provider in Switzerland and in Korea can be highlighted. We examine the implications of such platform regulations by looking at Switzerland, which regulates the obligation to reinvest in the local film industry to protect cultural diversity and content comptetitiveness, and Korea, which requires the obligation to stabilize services for network quality.

The flexibility and adaptation strategy of local filmmakers amid the pandemic: Opportunity and threat

The COVID-19 pandemic disturbed the local film industry heavily since most of the film projects were delayed or cancelled. Despite the fragile situation, local filmmakers adopted flexible and adaptive strategies to survive. The flexible strategies related to fighting (the alternative jobs, project switch) and freezing (work from home). After three months, all film practitioners decided to fight for the new normal as they found job opportunities in social media content, corporate and government service, streaming platforms and film production. The screen industries supported the local filmmakers to survive. During the emergency period, the closed network was beneficial; nonetheless, they should expand their open network to adapt to a new normality. Apart from the resistance, filmmakers are continuously under precariousness, particularly about health threats and underpaid work.

PROJEK ‘ROAD TO OSCAR’: PEMBENTUKAN NARATIF DAN JATI DIRI BUDAYA SINEMA MALAYSIA KE ‘SINEMA OSCAR’

The Road to Oscar project, an action plan entrusted to FINAS by the Minister of Communications and Multimedia at a press conference on 16 June 2020. The main objective is to ensure that Malaysian Cinema succeeds in the Academy Award or Oscar in the International Feature Film Award category. According to Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah (Minister of Communications and Multimedia), a roadmap or blueprint of patriotism that upholds the Malay culture, in line with the country's creative policy, government policy and broadcasting ethics must be designed. The film Roh (2019) which was inspired by the Japanese film, Onibaba (1964), was inspired into the space and time of the Malay world theme through the myths of the Malay world community, decided by the FINAS Film Selection Committee (comprising professional and experienced local film industry players), representing Cinema Malaysia's to the 93rd Academy Award (April 2021). The selection has gone through a detailed evaluation process based on Oscar film criteria. Even so, Roh did not manage to be shortlisted (12 best). Therefore, through a qualitative method of content analysis, this study will focus on the discussion regards to the characterisation elements of cinematic narrative storytelling framework, that configured by Malaysian cultural identity with the look and feel of Oscar. This study will analyse two comparative samples, Roh (2020) and Parasite (2019, South Korea) - the winner of 92nd Best International Feature Film Award (2019).

How digital platforms facilitate parody: online humour in the construction of Hong Kong identity

Previous works on Hong Kong identity and popular culture focused on films, television and music. Few studies investigate humour outside of these media and the humour of online communities. This study argues that humour is an important vehicle of identity construction, especially with the dominance of online platforms in modern communication. Using Benign Violation Theory and Ontological Semantic Theory of Humor, this study demonstrates how the trolling culture online has been an effective tool to subvert and negotiate the mainstream narrative of identity, embodied by the motto of ‘You lose if you’re serious.’ This paper analyses humorous ‘trendy posts’ from the Encyclopedia of Virtual Communities in Hong Kong and shows how satire and parody in Cantonese are used in online platforms to build the local Hong Kong identity as opposed to wider, national Chinese identity. What makes trendy posts special is the heavy use of Cantonese and references to local subculture and celebrities, often with the intention to mock and defy the narrative of mainstream television channels and shrinking local film industry. This study argues that such in-group connection and identity building are often a decentralised and bottom-up process, given that online contents are generated by users, who organically negotiate authenticity and membership. Serving the need for story retelling, humour is argued to be the perfect vehicle for collective memories and identity building for online communities.

Crux of the Bongo Movie from a Digital Disruption Lens

This paper reports the findings of a study that had explored digital disruption as an analytical lens developed based on the constructs of two theories: the digital disruption theory and the disruptive innovation theory. The study had employed unstructured in-depth interviews, direct observation and virtual ethnographic to consult media experts, pioneer filmmakers, Bongo Movie’ producers, movies library’s keepers, movie retailers, movie translators (deejays) and social network sites (SNS) to collect data. Based on the study findings, the paper argues that the shift in technological paradigm, specifically from the use of expensive and inaccessible technologies used in filmmaking engendered the development and sustainability of the Bongo Movie genre in Tanzania. This technological paradigm shifts were twofold. To begin with, there was a transition from the use of celluloid film and analogue video cameras to digital video cameras in film production. Second, there was a shift from the use of optical prints and Vertical Helican Scan (VHS) tapes to optical discs such as Digital Versatile Discs (DVD) in the distribution of films. These changes in the technologies used in production and distribution of films provided entrants into the local film industry with necessary tools to produce low-budget films and service the low-end market of the country, which augured well with the country’s resource-poor context. Moreover, these Bongo Movies “disrupted” the erstwhile traditional, established, and stringent patterns of consumption of both locally-produced and foreign-imported films in local film markets. Overall, the Bongo Movie genre evolution appears to be a model of how digitally-motivated disruptions can occur in a local film market in a developing nation’s video-film industries and become a staple particularly among the low-end clientele.

Object Tracking-Based “Follow-Me” Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) System

The applications of information technology (IT) tools and techniques have, over the years, simplified complex problem solving procedures. But the power of automation is inhibited by the technicality in manning advanced equipment. To this end, tools deliberately combating this inhibition and advancing technological growth are the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). UAVs are rapidly taking over major industries such as logistics, security, and cinematography. Among others, this is a very efficient way of carrying out missions unconventional to humans. An application area of this technology is the local film industry which is not producing quality movies primarily due to the lack of technical know-how in utilizing these systems. This study therefore aim to devise an autonomous object tracking UAV system that would eliminate the complex procedure involved in stabilizing an aerial camera (aerial bot) midair and promote the creation of quality aerial video shooting. The study adopted Unified Modeling Language (UML) tools in modeling the system’s functionality. The traditional Server-Client model architecture was adopted. The OpenCV library employed proved highly efficient in aiding the tracking procedure. The system provided a usable web controller which provides easy interaction between the pilot and the drone. Conclusively, investments in UAVs would enhance creation of quality graphic contents.

The Scouring of Wellywood

Abstract This article uses the work of brand theorists and New Zealand–based cultural critics to examine the circumstances that created the “Hobbit Law,” a New Zealand law aimed at busting local film industry unions. Branding logics created a struggle for authenticity around the importance of Middle-earth to New Zealand's national identity in the twenty-first century. This hybrid identity was then articulated as something that stood against labor actions by film industry workers, culminating in citizen marches against local labor. It closes by exploring ways that the importance of the brand as sense-making tool under neoliberalism might be reconfigured as something that might bridge the gap between media consumer and creative industry worker.

Gendering the history of cinemagoing in Izmir, Turkey: Middle-class women’s experiences of cinema in the 1960s and 1970s

This article focuses on cinemagoing in Izmir (the third largest city in Turkey) in the 1960s and the 1970s, when the city developed a vibrant cinema culture with its numerous winter and summer cinemas. It attempts to undo the problematic conceptions of homogeneous audiences and cinemagoing experiences by focusing on how gender shaped and constructed the experiences of middle-class audiences. The primary source material for the article is qualitative data obtained from 62 oral history interviews, in addition to the contents of local newspapers and film industry magazines. The article argues that although, for women, cinemagoing was a very meaningful event in itself, it was not a wholly free and easily pleasurable activity. It also suggests that women, like men, went to the cinema to see a variety of films more than they went to socialize, and their choice of films was not limited to supposedly women’s genres. Overall, the article attempts to break with the nostalgic tone in popular and academic discussions of cinemagoing in Izmir and other cities in Turkey. It shows that cinema in Izmir, and possibly elsewhere in Turkey, was not just a forum of collective entertainment and pleasure, but also a locus of struggle.

Negotiating ‘Asianness’ at the Tokyo International Film Festival Local, Regional and International Dynamics Through Programming Practices and Film Markets

In this paper I will trace a brief history of major Asian film festivals to understand how the notion of ‘Asianness’ evolved over time and how it is expressed nowadays through programming practices and film markets. Then I will focus on the case study of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) as a problematic site where cultural and economic dynamics converge. As an A-category festival, TIFF has to balance its international status with regional relevance, negotiating ‘Asianness’ in a complex relationship involving the local film industry, since questions on ‘Asian cinema’ are deeply linked to the national. Finally, I will draw some conclusions, discussing how TIFF relates to other major film festivals in Asia, where ‘Asianness’ has been used as a shared effort to distinguish themselves from the paradigm set by European film festivals. However, this is an ongoing process, TIFF struggles to use ‘Asianness’ as a unifying element and the specific interests of each festival obstruct the possibility to create a more systematic trans-Asian model.

La Joven Moderna in Interwar Argentina: Gender, Nation, and Popular Culture

La Joven Moderna in Interwar Argentina: Gender, Nation, and Popular Culture

Storming off the tracks: Zombies, high speed rail and South Korean identity in Train to Busan

This article focuses on how the recent blockbuster hit Train to Busan (Yeon 2016), in transposing the zombie horror genre into the South Korean setting, allows South Korean history and social context to actively shape the manner in which it appropriates a genre largely untested by the local film industry. It argues that the film uses genre as a global vernacular through which to speak of specifically Korean issues (in particular, the Korean War, and the issues of South Korea’s speed-oriented Ppalli-Ppalli culture), and locates such practice within the broader context of contemporary South Korean cinema.