EURO-FESTIVAL Project
Arts Festivals and European Public Culture
Deliverable 3.1
WP3 Main Report
European Arts Festivals: Cultural Pragmatics and Discursive Identity Frames
July 2010
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European Arts Festivals: Cultural Pragmatics and Discursive
Identity Frames
Editor:
Liana Giorgi (ICCR)
Authors:
Part I. Literature (Liana Giorgi)
Part II. Music (Marco Santoro, Marco Solaroli, Paolo Magaudda, Alba Colombo and
Jasper Chalcraft)
Part III. Film (Jerome Segal)
Part IV. Urban mixed arts festivals (Monica Sassatelli and Elias Berner)
Language Editing
Ian Mansfield (ICCR)
Jasper Chalcraft (University of Sussex / Istituto Cattaneo)
Supervision
Liana Giorgi, Ronald Pohoryles (ICCR)
Gerard Delanty (University of Sussex)
Marco Santoro (Istituto Cattaneo)
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Table of Contents
1.1
Methodological approach _________________________________________________ 10
1.2
Summary of main findings ________________________________________________ 12
1.3
Conclusions ____________________________________________________________ 18
Part I. Literature ___________________________________________________________ 20
By way of introduction: literature as a cultural event _________________________________ 20
The sociology of literature festivals – the input side __________________________________ 21
Literature festivals and field representations – the output side _________________________ 23
What literature festivals tell us about culture, arts and society? ________________________ 25
2
The Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival: An Icon in the Making ____________________ 28
2.1
Organization and finances ________________________________________________ 28
2.2
The role of directors _____________________________________________________ 30
2.3
Networking structures ___________________________________________________ 32
2.4
Modern literature and the competitive struggle to determine value_______________ 36
2.5
Politics and the Hay festival _______________________________________________ 40
2.6
The role of the media ____________________________________________________ 43
2.7
The Hay Festival audience_________________________________________________ 44
2.8
Conclusions ____________________________________________________________ 47
3 The International Literature Festival Berlin: The Story of the Comma Gone
International ______________________________________________________________ 48
3.1
Organization and finances ________________________________________________ 48
3.2
The ilb founder and director Ulrich Schreiber – an architect of multilingualism ______ 50
3.3
Networking structures ___________________________________________________ 51
3.4
A stage for literature and the world _________________________________________ 52
3.5
Politics after the comma __________________________________________________ 55
3.6
The role of the media ____________________________________________________ 57
3.7
The ilb audience ________________________________________________________ 58
3.8
Conclusions ____________________________________________________________ 62
4 The Borderlands Festival in Search of an Academic Topos between Europe and the
European Union ___________________________________________________________ 63
4.1
Towards the re-discovery of European space _________________________________ 63
4.2
Organization and finances ________________________________________________ 66
4.3
Directing and networking structures ________________________________________ 66
4.4
A limited role for the media _______________________________________________ 68
4.5
Representations – literature _______________________________________________ 68
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4.6
Audience ______________________________________________________________ 70
Part II. Music ______________________________________________________________ 73
Organization and finances _______________________________________________________ 74
Networks and embeddedness ____________________________________________________ 75
Discourses: cosmopolitan politics _________________________________________________ 76
5
6
7
Umbria Jazz ___________________________________________________________ 79
5.1
Introduction ____________________________________________________________ 79
5.2
Organization and finances ________________________________________________ 80
5.3
Networking structures ___________________________________________________ 84
5.4
Umbria Jazz, politics and cosmopolitism _____________________________________ 87
5.5
The audience ___________________________________________________________ 93
5.6
The role of the media ____________________________________________________ 99
5.7
Conclusions: the (crucial) role of the artistic director and the future of Umbria Jazz _ 101
The WOMAD Festival __________________________________________________ 103
6.1
Introduction ___________________________________________________________ 103
6.2
Organization and finances _______________________________________________ 104
6.3
Directors and Networks _________________________________________________ 106
6.4
The role of the media ___________________________________________________ 113
6.5
Representations: politics and art __________________________________________ 116
6.6
Cultural Encounters: audiences and artists __________________________________ 122
6.7
Conclusion ____________________________________________________________ 127
The Sónar Festival _____________________________________________________ 130
7.1
Introduction ___________________________________________________________ 130
7.2
Organization and finances _______________________________________________ 132
7.3
The role of directors ____________________________________________________ 134
7.4
Networking structures __________________________________________________ 137
7.5
Symbolic representation strategies: arts, politics and cosmopolitanism ___________ 139
7.6
Politics and democracy __________________________________________________ 141
7.7
The role of the media ___________________________________________________ 143
7.8
The audience __________________________________________________________ 146
7.9
Conclusion: Sónar between local promotion and the global digital scene __________ 148
Part III. Film Festivals ______________________________________________________ 150
Symbiotic relations between festivals and cities ____________________________________ 150
Networking and vertical integration ______________________________________________ 151
Film and film festivals _________________________________________________________ 153
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The audience ________________________________________________________________ 154
8
9
The Cannes Film Festival _______________________________________________ 155
8.1
Organization and finances _______________________________________________ 156
8.2
The role of directors ____________________________________________________ 161
8.3
Networking structures __________________________________________________ 163
8.4
Determining and assigning ‘value’ in the world of cinema ______________________ 164
8.5
Role of the media ______________________________________________________ 168
8.6
The audience __________________________________________________________ 169
The Venice Film Festival (Mostra) ________________________________________ 171
9.1
Organization and finances _______________________________________________ 171
9.2
The role of directors ____________________________________________________ 175
9.3
Networking structures __________________________________________________ 181
9.4
Representing and constructing value _______________________________________ 183
9.5
Role of the media ______________________________________________________ 189
9.6
The Mostra audience ___________________________________________________ 189
9.7
Conclusions ___________________________________________________________ 190
10 The Berlin Film Festival—Berlinale _______________________________________ 191
10.1
Organization and finances _______________________________________________ 191
10.2
The role of directors ____________________________________________________ 196
10.3
Networking structures __________________________________________________ 199
10.4
Symbolic representation strategies ________________________________________ 200
10.5
Role of the media ______________________________________________________ 204
10.6
The audience __________________________________________________________ 204
11 The Vienna Jewish Film Festival __________________________________________ 207
11.1
Organization and finances _______________________________________________ 207
11.2
The role of directors ____________________________________________________ 209
11.3
Networking structures __________________________________________________ 210
11.4
The significance of Vienna as site of a Jewish film festival ______________________ 211
11.5
What is Jewish film? ____________________________________________________ 212
11.6
More than films ________________________________________________________ 213
11.7
The festival’s contested political messages __________________________________ 214
11.8
Role of the media ______________________________________________________ 216
11.9
The audience __________________________________________________________ 217
11.10
Summary and conclusions _____________________________________________ 220
Part IV. Urban Mixed-Arts Festivals ___________________________________________ 222
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Inside the urban festival _______________________________________________________ 222
Branding the festival, branding the city ___________________________________________ 223
The cultural public sphere of urban festivals _______________________________________ 224
12 Brighton (& Hove) and its Festival ________________________________________ 227
12.1
Organization and finances: (Brighton) festivals mean business (only?) ____________ 228
12.2
Directors and networks __________________________________________________ 232
12.3
Local embeddedness, audience and cultural policies __________________________ 234
12.4
Representations _______________________________________________________ 238
12.5
Cultural encounters _____________________________________________________ 242
12.6
Conclusion ____________________________________________________________ 246
13 Venice Biennale, Biennale’s Venice _______________________________________ 248
13.1
Organization and finance ________________________________________________ 250
13.2
Directors and networks __________________________________________________ 252
13.3
Local embeddedness, audience and cultural policies __________________________ 254
13.4
Representations _______________________________________________________ 259
13.5
Cultural encounters, in Europe and beyond__________________________________ 262
13.6
Conclusion ____________________________________________________________ 265
14 The Vienna Festival – ‘Wiener Festwochen’ ________________________________ 267
14.1
Background – Organization _______________________________________________ 267
14.2
The role of directors ____________________________________________________ 272
14.3
Networking structures __________________________________________________ 276
14.4
Symbolic representation strategies ________________________________________ 277
14.5
Role of the media ______________________________________________________ 281
14.6
Audiences ____________________________________________________________ 283
14.7
Conclusion ____________________________________________________________ 284
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Preface – The Euro-Festival Project
This report is the third main deliverable of the EURO-FESTIVAL project on ‗Arts
Festivals and European Public Culture‘.
The EURO-FESTIVAL project is a contribution to the comparative cultural
sociology of contemporary European society. Its aim is to examine the role of
festivals as sites of trans-national identifications and democratic debate. The project
answers to the terms of reference of task 5.2.2 of the Social Sciences and Humanities
(SSH) Programme of the 7th RTD Framework Programme (7FP). Task 5.2.2 is
concerned with the origins, role and impact of creativity, ‗especially in the context of
literature and the arts‘ (SSH Work Programme, p.29) and the role of the latter ‗in
influencing democratic debate‘ (ibid.).
An essential feature of democracy is debate. This has often been related to the notion
of the public sphere (Calhoun 1992, Habermas 1996, Giorgi et al. 2006). A much
neglected aspect of this is the aesthetic public sphere or aesthetic public culture.
Unlike other social and cultural institutions such as ‗the church‘ (religion), ‗the
school‘ (education) or ‗the community centre‘ (the local) that have been widely
explored in democratic terms as sites of both identity formation and/or discursive
practice, the aesthetic public culture comprising artistic expressions and
performances has received little attention from this angle. This is probably because
culture and the arts were – and often still are – considered primarily as depictions of
social reality. The recognition that they are autonomous social fields (and to be
treated as such by social theory and empirical investigation) is long-established in
cultural sociology but not as yet in democratic studies. If however, following Chaney
(2002) we acknowledge that ‗cultural objects of performance are shifting from
functioning as representations or depictions of social life to constituting the contexts
or terms of everyday life‘ (p.163), their exploration as public spaces and constituent
elements of the democratic public sphere becomes imperative.
Festivals are an important expression of aesthetic public culture:
 This is because festivals are spaces and times of concentrated debate and social
effervescence. In recent times, moreover, these debates are about issues of
representativity (gender, ethnic, age-groups) and thus very relevant about what
constitutes access to creativity.
 At a different level, festivals are particularly interesting examples of those sites in
society where the performance dimension of culture is emphasized more directly
than in other situations. The performance dimension of culture has been
emphasized in recent cultural sociology to highlight culture as a symbolic domain
of practices that are enacted in the public domain (Alexander et al. 2006).
 Finally, festivals are particularly good examples of the ways in which local
cultures get expressed using other cultures. Aesthetic cosmopolitanism as a new
way of expressing or reshaping one‘s own culture in light of the culture of
‗others‘ or the ‗outside‘ (Regev 2007, Papastergiardis 2007) is of particular
relevance to European identity by reason of the latter‘s equal emphasis on
diversity and tolerance. In the festival different elements are drawn together from
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different cultures, including global culture. In this sense the festival differs from
the cultural form of the exhibition in that it is based on hybridization, crossfertilization and mutual borrowing.
Against this background, the overall aim of the project is to analyze the way in which
mixed- or single-arts festivals constitute sites of cultural expression and performance
of relevance for European identity-in-the-making and for the European public sphere.
More specifically, the project objectives are to:
 Explore how festivals use aesthetic forms to symbolize, represent and
communicate social and political life from the perspective of different actors,
including programme directors, funding promoters, performing artists and the
audience.
 Study the way in which festivals frame the discourse of identity in relation to arts
with particular attention to the local / national / supra-national and local / global
interfaces as well as the conundrum of difference (diversity) and similarity.
 Analyze how festivals represent sites of competition for access to resources,
status and power and how this competition impacts on debates about
representation, openness and the public sphere.
The project looks at four types of festivals in order to draw comparisons across
different dimensions such as organizational format and orientation, artistic forms,
different European (cultural) capitals, historical backgrounds as well as different
traditions. The festivals under study comprise:
a) Urban mixed-art festivals
a. Venice Biennale
b. Brighton Arts Festival
c. Vienna Festwochen
b) Film festivals
a. The three main European festivals of Venice, Berlin and Cannes
b. The smaller Jewish film festival in Vienna
c) Literature festivals
a. The Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts (multi-national sites)
b. The European Border Lands Festival
c. The Berlin Literature Festival
d) Music festivals
a. The UK WOMAD festival of world music
b. The Umbria international jazz festival
c. The Barcelona Sonar festival of electronic music.
The EURO-FESTIVAL project employs several social scientific methodologies and
tools such as case studies, historical analysis, interviews, fieldwork observation,
network and organizational analysis, focus group and media analysis.
The research work has four components or work packages:
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WP1. Specification of Research Design. WP1 elaborated the research design of the
work, including the methodological tools in use. D1.1 ‗European Public Culture and
Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism‘ completed at the end of 2008 reports on the work of
2008 (Sassatelli et al. 2008).
WP2. Historical Analysis. The objective of the historical analysis is to chart the
organizational and artistic development of the festivals over time in relation to key
social events or developments in cultural policy.
WP3. Case Studies. The greater part of the empirical work is concentrated in this
work package and involves expert interviews with programme directors, key
promoters and participating artists; site visits for fieldwork observation and to
discuss with participants; media analysis to chart the wider publicity on the festivals
under consideration; as well as follow-up focus groups with participants to explore
instances of experimentation and how these impact on identity strategies.
WP4. Analysis and Comparison. The last of the thematic work packages will analyze
the empirical material against the theoretical framework of the research and compare
the research findings across different levels and dimensions: mixed-arts vs. singlearts festivals; big vs. small festivals; thematic vs. generic festivals, high-brow vs.
low-brow, festivals with a strong enterprise dimension vs. alternative festivals etc.
WP4 will also explore the way(s) in which these festivals frame identity and the
relation of the latter to arts.
The EURO-FESTIVAL project is producing four main reports:
D1.1 European Public Culture and Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism
WP1 Main Report – November 2008
D2.1 European Arts Festivals from a Historical Perspective
WP2 Main Report – July 2009
D3.1 European Arts Festivals: Cultural Pragmatics and Discursive Identity
Frames
WP3 Main Report – actual document
D4.1 European Arts Festivals, Creativity, Culture and Democracy
WP4 Main Report – December 2010 (forthcoming)
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Introduction
Liana Giorgi
This third deliverable D3 of the Euro-Festival project comprises thick case study
descriptions of the thirteen festivals studied in depth by the project, namely:
Literature—the Hay, Berlin and Borderlands festivals
Music—the Umbria Jazz, Womad and Sónar festivals
Film—the Cannes, Venice, Berlin film festivals and the Vienna Jewish film
festival
Urban mixed arts—the Brighton, Venice Biennale and Vienna festivals
The objective of the research was to throw light on the organizational dynamics and
symbolic representation strategies of arts festivals. This analysis, which concentrates
on the present situation, builds on and enlarges the more historical approach of the
previous deliverable D2 of the project. The research results represent the first
comprehensive cultural sociological mapping of artistic festival culture in Europe
today.
The report is organized in four parts: part I deals with literature, part II with music,
part III with film and part IV with urban mixed-arts. Each part can be read
independently or as part of a comparative study. Each section consists of the case
study reports preceded by short comparative introductions. The present chapter offers
a summary of the project‘s main findings and attempts a preliminary overall
comparison of all festivals across genres with respect to some of the project‘s
theoretical questions. This comparative research will be further pursued for the next
and final project‘s deliverable in December 2010.
1.1
Methodological approach
The Euro-Festival project has developed and implemented a comparative
methodological approach for the study of arts festivals combining elements from the
sociology of culture and cultural sociology. The former emphasizes organizational
aspects related to the ‗production‘ or ‗input‘ side of culture; the latter concentrates on
the ‗outputs‘ or symbolic strategies of representation and performance. The project‘s
overall theoretical framework and how this was used to contextualize specific
sociological methodologies was presented in deliverable D1.
Analytically our research has relied on the following methods:
Interviews with festival directors and sponsors as well as artists, journalists and other
relevant stakeholders with detailed protocols and/or transcriptions for each; the
number of interviews carried out per festival ranged from just under 10 to over 20,
the differences in numbers reflecting mainly differences in festival size or scope but
also interviewee availability. To this must be added that festival teams are quite
small. Most interviews were carried out face-to-face, several on the phone and a few
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by e-mail. Next to the narrative interviewers, researchers engaged in numerous
shorter informal discussions with audience and artists during their fieldworks—these
too were protocoled for the purpose of the research.
Discourse and text analysis covering festival programmes and related
documentation, official or unofficial reports on the festivals and their impacts,
festival-specific publicity produced by the festival organizations or in the media,
biographies of directors, sponsors and artists as well as media reports on the festivals.
Media covered included mainly print and electronic and, to a lesser extent, audiovisuals.
Network and finances analysis—based on interviews with stakeholders and
document reviews, an analysis of the networks impacting on the festivals under study
was carried out; this included an analysis of the festivals‘ revenues and their
composition.
Fieldwork observation—research teams participated in the 2009 festival editions and
in some cases also either the 2008 or the 2010. In addition to reporting on the overall
staging of the festival, they observed and took detailed notes of specific festival
events selected according to a criterion list established at the project‘s beginning with
reference to the study‘s theoretical dimensions. The observation covered aspects such
as size and type of audience, reception of the performance and the discussions that
followed (formal or informal). In the course of this research a lot of photographic
material was collected, some of this was used for this report and in the blogs written
on the various festival editions (and available on the project website). Like the event
protocols, the photographs have been used as documentation material for further
discourse analysis where relevant.
Audience—the Euro-Festival project organized a survey of participants using a
standardized questionnaire in three of the festivals under study, namely the Berlin
International Literature Festival, the Umbria Jazz Festival and the Vienna Jewish
Film Festival. In Umbria and in Vienna it was also possible to organize a focus
group. A third focus group was held in Brighton. As anticipated (already in the
DoW) it was not possible to implement the survey and/or the focus group
methodology in all festivals as this required the collaboration of festival organizers
which was not always forthcoming in this specific way. Still, the audience
information collected in conjunction with the fieldwork observations provided a
good basis for an analysis of the audience and their attitudes to arts, culture and
festivals.
The qualitative data collected by the project was processed using the MaxQDA
software for qualitative analysis. A minimum set of common codes was used by all
teams in order to facilitate comparisons. The quantitative survey data was analyzed
using SPSS. The poolled datasets (both with MaxQDA and SPSS) will be used for
the in-depth comparative analysis planned during the next six months of the project.
Each of the case study chapters reports on the specifics of its methodology; and
includes at the end a list of interviewees—by name where possible; institutionally in
all other cases.
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The individual case study reports follow a similar structure reporting on organization
and finances; the role of directors; networking structures and the role of the media;
representation strategies in terms of festival culture, aesthetics and politics and the
audience. I use the same structure for summarizing the project‘s main findings
below.
1.2
Summary of main findings
1.2.1
Finances and organization
The thirteen festivals under study fall into one of the following two categories in
terms of financing:
a) They largely rely on a mixed bag of public subsidies, or
b) They display a mixed model of financing combining public subsidies, private
sponsorship and revenues from tickets sales
Festivals belonging in the first category include Berlin and Borderlands literature
festivals, the Vienna Festival and two of the film festivals—Vienna and Mostra.
Under the mixed model we find Hay and Brighton as well as Cannes and Berlin. The
Borderlands festival is a bit of an outlier as it derives its funding from a private
foundation—whereby its small ‗project-like‘ budget is only possible because it is
implemented by an organization which heavily relies on public subsidies, hence its
classification in the first category.
The classification of a festival in one or the other category was done on the basis of
the composition of the largest share of the budget; and does not negate the presence
of other revenue sources. Indeed most festivals today report income from ticket sales
or private sponsors, but in the case of festivals falling under the first category, such
revenues are not significant in relative terms.
Two other characteristics relevant to finances are:
(i)
(ii)
The use of a mixed business model to guide internationalization activities—
this is the case of those festivals which are already expanding to other regions
or areas of the world such as the Hay Festival and WOMAD. Both these
festivals have been successful in promoting themselves as brands and these
are, in turn, used for staging festivals abroad—often in accordance with the
same mixed model of financing (as with the Hay satellite festivals) but
sometimes by relying more heavily on subsidies (as in the case of some of the
Womad festivals). The Sónar festival seems also to be going down this path.
The local embeddedness of festivals in terms of financing and organization
cuts across the financing model category. It is key in both Vienna festivals
studied by the project as well as the Brighton festival, the Venice Biennale
and Mostra as well as Sónar and Umbria Jazz. It is less important in the case
of Hay, Womad and Borderlands; and in the case of Berlin (film and
literature) it is more nominal than substantive since the public subsidies
received are from federal sources even if earmarked for the capital city.
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Do these different funding structures impact on the festival programmes? This is one
of the questions to be answered in detail in the next project report; we return to it
briefly at the end of this chapter.
Unlike what we find in terms of financing structures, in terms of organization all
thirteen festivals are quite similar, relying on a comparatively small festival team
comprising one or a few festival directors (curating different parts of the programme
and/or in charge of organization) and some 10-15 personnel working in assistant
positions or in charge of operational issues. During festival time all festivals rely
heavily on volunteers or short-term employment. Most festivals are run by charity
companies, not-for-profit associations or publicly-owned companies with advisory
and oversight functions resting often with foundations in which major sponsors have
a vote. Only the Sónar and Womad Festival are run as profit-making companies.
The concise organization of the festival management‘s team appears to be important
in terms of ensuring the disciplined and timely organization of the festival each year
and it seems to be a frequent model within the creative industry sector.
1.2.2
Role of directors
It is almost commonplace to say that directors are key persons for the festivals‘
success and long-term sustainability; and the reader who persists in reading all
thirteen case studies is likely, at the end, to consider this so obvious as not worth
paying particular attention to. Yet it is probably the single most important
commonality that cuts across all festivals regardless of genre, location, funding base
or organizational make-up. Moreover it applies not only to the founding directors but
also to subsequent generations. Indeed in the festival world, founding directors,
however important, are not always also the most legendary.
Another necessary refinement is that the single-person directorship is increasingly
being overhauled and not only in urban mixed-arts festivals which by default have to
rely on different persons for different artistic forms. Single-arts festivals are also
increasingly relying on more than one director for implementing different
programme components or covering specific management functions. This trend is
indicative of increasing specialization—away from the ‗creative‘ cultural
entrepreneur and innovator towards the professional creative industry professional.
Balancing professionality (and standardization) with creativity (and flexibility) is one
of the challenges faced by contemporary arts festivals.
What all festival directors share is a commitment to the arts as well as festival culture
as an opportunity for promoting and materializing cultural encounters. In addition,
they are all brilliant networkers—within the artists‘ scene, with the media, with the
cultural industry and with funding organizations. It is their ability to transform their
social capital and informal networks into professional collaborations that marks them
as successful festival directors.
1.2.3
Networking structures
Networking is essential for festival culture and this operates at different levels. Our
research has identified three types of networks:
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a) Artistic / professional networks
b) Economic networks comprising funding agencies and sponsors,
c) Commercial networks in the form of the promoting industry in specific arts fields
(film industry, publishing industry, music industry etc.) or in terms of
collaborating partners (such as other festivals)
Territoriality is a relevant element especially for the second type of networks since
funding agencies but also sponsors differentiate according to whether they work
nationally, regionally, locally or internationally. Another cross-cutting dimension is
that of the degree of formality of networks. Artists‘ and professional networks often
operate informally—and this is exemplified by the way in which the artists‘
represented in festival programmes are often identified (externally) as the directors‘
‗friends‘ and colleagues. Economic networks are more formal in structure but
intersected with informal personal links: hence, for instance, the sponsorships in
Umbria Jazz are partly determined by the fact that some major CEOs are jazz fans.
Commercial networks operate in similar fashion.
The significance of place for festivals has a lot to do with the concentration of social
and cultural capital in networks operating in specific areas (as in capital areas) or
channelled into specific locations which enjoy a certain tradition and history (like
Umbria or Hay). In turn, festivals contribute to the reproduction of their localities
social and cultural capital thus creating a virtuous circle.
1.2.4
The role of the media
The media is of course the main publicity channel and all festivals studied have
professional press relations with especially national media. But those festivals which
have managed to grow into ‗brands‘ are usually festivals with a closer connection to
the media as sponsors like WOMAD (with ‗The Independent‘) or Hay (with ‗The
Guardian‘). In the case of the literature festivals, and especially the Hay Festival, the
media are also more than just sponsors. They constitute a network in its own right,
supplying authors, moderators and interviewers. This is also evidence for the
continuing importance of the media for the literary public sphere.
All artistic genres are being affected by ‗new media‘ in terms of reproduction and
dissemination. In the music sector, the ‗record label‘ is no longer the main instrument
of the music industry which is instead concentrating on the ‗live‘ event for revenues
and electronic downloads of single features. In literature the e-book is gaining
ground and is expected to change the way in which books are published. These
developments are bringing about a further opening up and democratization of the arts
in addition to breaking down the traditional barriers of access and value signification.
In this new polyphonic environment, festivals are transformed into ‗publicity‘
channels for new artists as well as into ‗filters‘ for assigning value.The latter function
is often linked to awards or prizes.
1.2.5
Festival programmes and symbolic representations
The festivals studied differ not only in terms of the artistic form they favour but also
in terms of size and the type of events they promote. In the arts field, the notion of
‗festival‘ is better known from music and is associated with large-scale open-air
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events attracting thousands of audience. In film the events are the screenings of films
in cinemas whereby the more famous of the film festivals studied by this project—
Cannes, Mostra, Berlin—also make a lot out of the ‗red carpet‘ culture associated
with prestigious prizes and shrieking youth faced with prominent actors. Literature
festivals are more intellectual events resembling workshops and conferences
interspersed with book signings and live comedy performances. Finally urban mixedarts festivals are a mixed-bunch and their format often depends on the urban space in
which they take place.
The notorious ‗festive‘ experience therefore varies according to the artistic
component of the festival; culminating rather in the whole shebang that comes along:
the open air element—during the breaks if not during the performance—the social
events; the availability of different types of food through food stalls spread across the
festival space (or in an urban space) and perhaps, above all, the diverse artist-line up
(with many international or ‗foreign‘ names, new and old names, prominent and less
prominent ones). Even when people join the festival in order to attend specific
performances (or even at the risk of attending none as in the case of Cannes
considering the latter‘s prioritization of professionals), the experience of being there
entailing the possibility to meet more than one ‗favourite‘ artist, thus expanding
one‘s horizons, is what is at the heart of the ‗festival‘ experience on which all
festivals—large and small, broad or specialized, mixed or single-arts—try to
capitalize. Not all are equally successful in this respect. The smaller festivals like the
Vienna Jewish Film Festival or Borderlands remain small-scale activities for niche
audiences. In contrast, the success of bigger festivals such as all other film festivals,
all music festivals as well as the Hay Festival hinges on their ability to reproduce or
stage this festive experience—as recounted by one of the interviewees for Womad—
every year. ‗One had to be there‘—that is the word festival organizers want to get
around about their event.
The ‗festive‘ experience is the screen on which all other festival goals are projected
and at the same time the instrument through which they are mediated:
The educative role: in the case of those festivals that emerged within a social
democratic tradition like the two Vienna festivals and Sónar, education means
sensibilizing the ‗people‘ to culture and the arts thus democratizing the arts
themselves; and in the case of literature festivals it means the same as well as
educating the future generations for the literary public sphere. At a more mundane
level, the festivals‘ programmes for children are the result of the demographics of the
festival audiences and the transition from youth (and being single) to adulthood (and
having families and children). (Much as facebook got transformed from an elite
student social networking tool to a ‗suburbian‘ networking tool.)
The internationalism and cultural encounter role—this is the ultimate politics of
festivals even when they claim to be ‗apolitical‘ as many of the music festivals do.
Internationalism is the second common characteristic of all festivals studied besides
the significant role of directors. The two are of course closely interconnected as the
festivals were often originally founded in order to promote internationalism and
cultural encounter. This is also an important value within the artistic communities
which are very international in composition. The international focus of festivals is
not used alone in organizational terms as ‗internationalization‘ for putting together
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the festival programme; it is also adhered to as a cultural ideological principle—
hence also the reference to internationalism or cultural encounter—and explains
perhaps the manner in which ‗Europe‘, representing a meso level of identity
reference, gets ‗lost‘ in artistic festivals even if, as in the case of Womad or the
Berlin literature festival, it is thought of as either the ‗origin‘ of specific art
preferences (as for world music) or its primary topos (as for literature). Similarly,
cosmopolitanism but also multiculturalism, even if relevant associations to the arts
festivals (as also illustrated by the audience surveys carried out by the project), are
not the first or main identification symbols. Why this is not the case was best
expressed by the focus group discussion organized in Umbria: multiculturalism, it
was there said, is a political programme whereas cosmopolitanism refers to a
‗possibility‘ (a potential) more than a reality.
Specific political messages: practically all of the festival organizers and the majority
of artists are people leaning to the left of the political spectrum and as such
supporters of freedom, equality and justice, human rights, anti-racism, diversity and
multiculturalism, access and opportunity, feminism, and social liberalism. As explicit
defenders of their values, they will often use festivals as platforms to advance their
causes: like when Peter Gabriel performing at WOMAD uses the opportunity to raise
awareness about the Chechnya war; or Jane Birkin performing at Hay for Burma; or
the Biennale and Vienna Jewish Film festival organizers for Palestine; or the Berlin
Literature organizers for human rights in Chechnya or China; or the Mostra
organizers against Berlusconi or Bush‘s America. Some festivals—notably the music
festivals—will proclaim an ‗apolitical‘ attitude to signal distance from (national)
party politics but also because they are wary of alienating part of their audiences. As
a result, political discussion as such is left to literature festivals and here the Hay
Festival is distinctive in actively and successfully promoting debates that entail the
confrontation of different points of view.
What type of art is promoted by this mosaic of influences described above? A closer
look at the performers, artists and authors—their works and biographies—reveals an
extremely diverse and buzzing community. The younger generation of artists making
their way into the field and hopping across the festival circuits are in their majority
individuals best described by the word ‗hybrid‘ in two main ways: first, in displaying
rather cosmopolitan biographies with diverse backgrounds or extended periods of
stay in different countries (and not only or even primarily as a result of forced
migration or exile); and second, in the inter-disciplinary and cross-boundary
orientation of their work as they either have different professional ‗hats‘ or
experiment with different styles, genres or a mixture of the high and low-brow. This
hybridization is not the result of ‗conscious choice‘ alone; just as it does not only
derive from the economic insecurities involved in the artistic profession. Rather, both
opportunity and financial insecurity result from globalization; and within the setting
provided by internationalism and festival culture, this gives rise to hybridization and
cosmopolitanism in the arts.
All festivals have recognized this but some are more explicit than others about it.
Thus, the Sónar festival was even established for promoting a new type of genre, a
cross-over between the high-brow experimental music and low-brow dance culture;
and on the other extreme of the continuum, the Biennale still aspires to be the canon
for different forms of art. Most other festivals are following a rather mixed artistic
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agenda—some (like the three main film festivals, the Vienna and Brighton festivals
or the Berlin literature festival) going as far as creating special ‗sections‘ of their
programme for subsuming different artistic forms, the old and the new or the more
prominent (or commercial) as opposed to the more ‗high-brow‘. This segmentation
of art forms and its bringing together under the umbrella of one cultural event
represents the ‗supermarket‘ identity of festivals—and a sign of both their
‗democratizing‘ and ‗commercializing‘ tendencies. At the same time, the higher
incidence of cross-over upsets the clear drawing of boundaries and defies
segmentation—and for each festival ‗section‘ with a long history there are several
others which survived only for a short period of time or had to be re-created anew.
Some festivals, like the Biennale, give the impression of being constantly under flux
or reform as they adapt to changing external conditions but also the change of taste
preferences.
1.2.6
The audience
Just like in the original literary public sphere of the seventeenth century described by
Habermas, the prime audience of the contemporary arts and literature festivals are
the educated middle classes. Back in the seventeenth century this class was small and
still quite elitist—hence also the preference of the salon as the place of performance,
encounter and discussion; today the educated middle class has significantly enlarged
and it is perhaps no surprise that it favours instead the festival.
The music festival audience tends to be younger than that of urban mixed festivals;
and women still constitute the majority in literature festivals like Berlin which
continue to focus on fiction. But the relative—and in some cases the absolute—
majority are people with a university degree (and their children); and like the artists
and festival organizers they are more likely to be liberal in political orientation or
leaning to the left (thus readers of ‗The Independent‘, ‗The Guardian‘, listeners of
BBC Radio 3 and 4, or watching ARTE and 3SAT and listening to Deutschland
KulturRadio or OE1 and FM4).
In terms of their cultural orientation, they are attracted by the international(ist) nature
of festivals and the opportunity they offer to meet or listen to specific artists; and
they tend to like the arts and usually more than one type (but not, on average, more
than two or three). Opinions are rather divided with respect to approval or
disapproval of the usual academic characterization of the artistic field in categories
such as high- vs. low-brow that signify hierarchies; and the acceptability of
combining aesthetics with entertainment. In other words, while being homogeneous
in socio-demographic and in political orientation, festival audiences differ with
respect to social and cultural capital. What this suggests is that ‗taste‘ as a
discriminatory variable deserves more attention in (cultural) sociological inquiries—
also more generally.
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1.3
Conclusions
The Euro-Festival results summarized above allow a first drawing of tentative
conclusions about cultural policy, the arts and cosmopolitanism. These will be
further enlarged and refined in the forthcoming fourth report of the project by
different project collaborants.
Role and impact of funding—are festivals which are funded according to the
‗subsidy‘ model different than those which follow the mixed business model? Yes,
there seems to be a difference in that the latter are more likely to seek and achieve a
balance of what in the music festival part of the report is referred to as the
‗commercial‘ and ‗aesthetic‘ logics. In contrast, festivals which rely more on the
subsidy model are more concerned about issues of quality (either rhetorically or in
terms of criteria), even when they too mix artistic representations in order to increase
their outreach. Finally, those festivals which are embedded in their local environment
also in terms of funding must make an effort to adapt their ‗aesthetic‘ logics to
sensitivities—cultural or social—of local politicians.
National differences—the Euro-festival project was not carried out with the aim to
compare different arts festival according to national affiliation; indeed that is not so
straightforward given the international and internationalist orientation of most arts
festivals with a European reputation on the one hand, and their local embeddedness,
on the other. Still, the case studies chosen by the project allow some insights into the
presence of ‗national‘ humours in festival organization, mainly by means of their
organizational and funding basis. The project has looked at three ‗German‘
festivals—the Berlin and Borderlands literature festivals and the Berlinale (film);
three ‗British‘ festivals—Hay-on-Wye, Womad and Brighton; two Austrian
festivals—Vienna Festival and Vienna Jewish Film Festival; three ‗Italian‘—the
Biennale including the Mostra as well as Umbria Jazz; one Catalan/Spanish: Sónar
and one French, namely, Cannes.
The German-speaking festivals are more likely to receive public subsidies and as
such to display a concern with the criteria of aesthetic quality. In contrast, the mixed
business model seems to be mainstream on the British islands and, with it, the more
relaxed or liberal approach to aesthetics and entertainment. In Italy, a key issue
remains (as in the early years of the Biennale) the question of national (i.e. Italian)
representation as opposed to the international one and against the background of
strong localities (Umbria, Venice) defining themselves as international regions rather
than national (Italian) regions. A different variation of this national-international
nexus is found in Cannes where the festival is successfully used (unlike in Italy) to
promote the cultural agenda of France as the ‗Grande Nation‘. Finally the one
Catalan/Spanish festival, Sónar, appears to be a mixture in orientation and problems
between the ‗British‘ and ‗Italian‘ models.
High vs. low-brow art—as the defining category to distinguish aesthetic quality from
commercial success, the ‗high vs. low-brow‘ dimension continues to be relevant in
the artistic festival world. But it is rapidly giving away to other more important
characterizations like ‗innovation‘, ‗experimentation‘, ‗new vs. old‘. Moreover, the
number of people, especially artists but also audience, who are questioning these
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distinctions is on the rise as more and more artists experiment with crossing
boundaries or the mixing of genres and styles. The contemporary arts scene is more
cosmopolitan than it ever was and that not primarily as a result of exile but as a result
of increased mobility, more opportunities but also rising economic insecurities. In
other words, within the aesthetic field, globalization with its goods and its
discontents is breeding cosmopolitanism and this is setting the field in flux.
Cosmopolitanism: unlike ‗internationalization‘ or ‗internationalism‘ which are
largely positively connoted within the arts scene and also among the festival
audiences, cosmopolitanism is viewed cautiously. A factor analysis on the audience
survey results for the Berlin Literature festival showed that this might have to do
with the vagueness of the term: for some it is a positively valued attitude linked to
internationalism and multiculturalism; for others it has more to do with economic
liberalism which resonate negatively. Factually however, the trends which are
associated with cosmopolitanism such as mobility, openness and diversity, cultural
encounter and hybridization are occurring within the arts scene; but are also
increasingly coming to characterize the younger Europeans who unlike their parent
generations are not only travelling within Europe and abroad for education, but also
for professional reasons and not least for fun. This is also why they enjoy the
festivals and continue to do so also after settling down and having children (whom
they then introduce to festivals through the ‗chidrens‘ programmes).
What are the political implications of this emerging cosmopolitan public culture for
politics? In the short-term probably none as the participants of this public culture are
content to profess their values in a peaceful (and entertaining) way while maintaining
a distant relation to party politics and their ideologies—whether at local, national or
European levels. Internationalism is in that also useful as it allows this bypassing of
the mainstream political field. This is also how the contemporary festival publicity is
different from the literary public sphere of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
But one should recall that the parliamentary form of democracy which Europeans
today tend to discard as alienating or over-used was not yet prevalent back then.
What this, in turn, suggests is that as political sociologists we should perhaps be less
concerned about how the arts interface with traditional politics; but rather what type
of politics and political mobilization they might be giving rise to or helping create in
the future.
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Part I. Literature
Liana Giorgi, ICCR
By way of introduction: literature as a cultural event
Among the arts, literature is the one genre which was long thought most resistant to
performance, hence also festivalization and large-scale event culture. That this has
changed is best illustrated by the Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival which was
launched as a small poetry festival in 1988, but has in the meantime grown into one
of the largest literature events around the world. This also renders the Hay Festival
iconic. The two other festivals under study, namely the Berlin International
Literature Festival (hereafter Berlin Festival) running since 2001, and the
Borderlands Festival, launched in 2006, are less popular in comparison. But they too
display event character and are growing in scope and uptake.
At this point, cultural pessimists would perhaps think that the festivalization also of
literature confirms the decline of aesthetic culture brought about by
commercialization. Yet the study of literature festivals reveals a much more complex
picture, questioning the high-brow vs. low-brow distinctions and that these can be
easily mapped against ‗fields‘1 within either politics or the arts and by default
cultural policy.
The three chapters that follow examine the Hay, Berlin and Borderlands festivals
from different dimensions of relevance for cultural sociological analysis: from the
input side, their funding and organizational basis and the role of directors and
networking structures; and in terms of output, their representation strategies with
respect to literature, politics and the audience. The research findings confirm that the
three festivals are quite distinct in their approach and their relation to their subject
matter. This has less to do with their locality than with the intellectual traditions in
which they are embedded as best exemplified by the festival directors, who in the
case of Hay, Berlin and Borderlands are still the festival founders. At the same time,
the three festivals display interesting commonalities which provide insight into the
organizational dimension of festival culture more generally and the latter‘s symbolic
representation within a global environment.
In this introductory chapter I summarize the main findings of the research and then
turn to discuss these from the comparative perspective with respect to the high vs.
low-brow distinction, value commitments and cultural policy. The ensuing chapters
present the three festivals in detail.
1
Bourdieu, P. (1996), Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, Stanford University Press
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The sociology of literature festivals – the input side
Organization and finances
The three literature festivals under study display different funding structures but
similar organizational bases. Analytically:
The Hay Festival is run on a non-profit basis by Hay Festival of Literature
and the Arts Ltd. largely on revenues from ticket sales and private
sponsorship. Public subsidies from the regional Arts Council and the district
Chamber of Commerce cover only a small percentage of the overall festival
budget. Satellite festivals organized abroad display a similar financing
structure, except for a greater dependence on cultural foundations, both
public and private.
The Berlin Festival is financed primarily from public subsidies—the biggest
share is covered by the Berlin Cultural Fund (a federal fund devoted to
cultural activities in the capital); smaller shares are covered by federal
ministries and foreign embassies. Ticket sales account for not more than 15
per cent of festival revenues.
The Borderlands Festival is the smallest of the three festivals displaying a
budget of just over 100,000 Euro (as compared to over one million for Hay
and around half a million for Berlin). The festival budget is fully covered by
the Allianz private cultural foundation which also initiated the festival.
In terms of organization, all the festivals are run by small teams of five to fifteen
people and rely heavily on their directors and their networks in terms of both fundraising and representation. Moreover, all three have had to professionalize as they
grew, especially with respect to logistic organization and public relations.
The role of directors
All three literature festivals are defined by their founders and directors in two main
ways: with respect to the networks they activate and and in terms of the intellectual
traditions they bring to bear on their work.
Peter Florence, the director of the Hay Festival, has a background in modern
and medieval literature as well as acting. He launched Hay in the spirit of the
cultural theorist Raymond Williams who believed in the power of culture and
especially literature to advance radical political thinking.
Ulrich Schreiber, the director of the Berlin Festival, is an architect by
training, and strongly embedded in the 1968 tradition of political protest and
mobilization which he has brought to bear in his cultural event management
activities.
Finally, Ulrich Janetzki and Micheal Thoss, the founders and directors of the
Borderlands Festival, both come from the German cultural studies scene and
have strong relations to the former Eastern bloc of countries.
All the festival directors are well networked within their communities, with authors
and the publishing industry as well as the national and specialist (literature) media (at
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home and abroad). They are also all in their specific ways successful cultural
entrepreneurs and intermediaries.
Networking structures
There are four types of networks that are important for festivals:
(a) the literary community of authors, translators, agents and publishers;
(b) cultural institutions—private and/or public—providing organizational support
and/or financing;
(c) the media—as sponsors and for the supply of journalists as intermediaries,
moderators or publicity/dissemination agents;
(d) other festivals for the exchange of ideas and ‗circulation‘ of authors / themes.
The literary network is, of course, present in all three festivals, but in different ways.
Whilst Hay targets and attracts mainly English-language authors, Berlin focuses on
international literature and the Borderlands on literature from the European
periphery. This is also one way in which the festival locality comes into play.
Cultural institutions in the form of funding agencies or literary associations are
especially important for the Berlin and Borderlands festivals as both these festivals
reach out beyond their national borders and must thus rely on cultural intermediaries
for selecting authors and reaching out to specific language communities. The
international orientation of these festivals also renders them more dependent on
public subsidies.
The media are, of course, important for all festivals, and professional press relations
are cultivated by all of them. But only the Hay Festival displays an organic relation
to the media in terms of organization, publicity and representation. The broad
outreach of the Hay Festival can undoubtedly be explained by the publicity given to
the festival through ‗The Guardian‘, Sky Arts and BBC Radio 4. But the festival is
also a platform for journalists from these and other media to present themselves as
moderators, discussants or authors or for obtaining material for stories.
The three festivals studied by the present project did not display any formal
connections, but were associated informally. In the case of Hay and Berlin,
information is also exchanged on a more regular basis. Perhaps more importantly,
each festival is part of a network of other festivals or organizations: thus the Hay
Festival is the core of a network of festivals around the world bearing the Hay brand;
and Borderlands is run in the framework of activities of the Literary Colloquium
Berlin which has an extensive network of translators and literary centres throughout
Europe.
The festival locality is important in territorially concentrating some of the above
networks. This also explains the frequent favouring of capital cities or urban centres
as festival venues. Berlin is a good example of how locality facilitates the
organization of an international event. That this is not necessarily a success factor is
illustrated by the Hay Festival which takes place in a small town on the border
between Wales and England.
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Literature festivals and field representations – the output side
What literature?
The literature field has diversified significantly in the course of the twentieth century
and especially over the last thirty to forty years. There are several trends that impact
on literature today:
The first is that of diversification. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, poetry
was the high-prestige end of the literature field, with the novel and drama occupying
the middle and lower levels, albeit with higher chances of economic returns. Today,
and as predicted by Bourdieu, the field has grown as it has diversified. This is
especially illustrated by the development of fiction. The novel is no longer a single
category—besides literary fiction, which is located at the high end of the prestige
scale, we find several genre types of literature which target different audiences and
taste preferences and are more successful economically.
But fiction is also slowly losing its lead as non-fiction grows in importance and
attracts wider audiences. This is well illustrated by the development of the Hay
Festival which today features an equal share of fiction and non-fiction besides music
and comedy performances and childrens‘ events. By contrast, fiction remains the
core element of both the Berlin and Borderlands festivals probably also due to the
latter‘s focus on the international scene. A certain genre diversification is clearly
underway in the case of Berlin, with non-fiction gradually entering the scene there as
well.
Diversification has been instrumental for the publishing industry in the main
European languages. Technological developments such as the e-book, which were
first thought of as representing threats, have meanwhile been embraced as
opportunities for attracting new audience segments thus encouraging further
diversification. Another trend which is growing in importance is that of hybridization
in terms of genres within fiction, but also between fiction and non-fiction and
between literature and other art forms.
This last trend is corroborated by demographic changes occurring in relation to the
sociological profile of the author or artist more generally. The most obvious of these
trends is trans-nationalism. More and more authors display a multi-cultural
background, albeit less as a result of exile as in previous generations, but rather as a
result of their own choice and the rise of global mobility. Both the Berlin and
Borderlands festivals capitalize on this author segment which primarily originates in
the main European and North Atlantic metropolises and the main migration countries
in the decades following the end of the Second World War.
A parallel and inter-related trend affecting authors—and one that can be observed in
all three festivals—is that of inter-disciplinarity, which fits in well with the trend of
hybridization in the publishing industry. A large share of authors featured in all three
literature festivals display inter-disciplinary careers with only very few being solely
writers by profession or in any particular genre. This has in part to do with the
growth of the literature field also in terms of writers and not only books published.
But besides reflecting an existential reality, it draws attention to the demise of the
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solitary figure of the author/artist fully devoted to and absorbed by his or her artistic
vocation based on inspiration. In turn this facilitates the hybridization of styles in
addition to strengthening the trend towards literature as performance on which
festivals have come to depend.
The role of politics
All three literature festivals studied are political: both in following a political agenda
of their own and in representing a stage for the discussion of politics and social
issues.
All three festival directors have faith in the power of literature (and humanities and
knowledge more generally) to expand and radicalize thought, empower action and
overcome nationalist boundaries. The ‗exchange of ideas‘ is the explicit objective of
the Hay Festival; Berlin wants to overcome national boundaries; whilst Borderlands
wishes to question the significance of European political boundaries in the East
towards greater cultural understanding and exchange.
At the same time all three festivals create public spaces for discussing contemporary
political and societal developments. Year in year out, thousands of people flock to
Hay-on-Wye or one of its satellites around the world to discuss East/West relations,
the role of religion, science and technology assessment, national, European or global
politics and foreign relations—either in the framework of roundtable debates or in
connection with a recently published book on the topic. The Hay Festival is the
leader in this, its strong political agenda earning it the characterization ‗Westminsteron-Wye‘. But the Berlin and Borderlands Festivals are following suit and also a more
explicitly European agenda in this respect.
What festival audience?
The literature festival audience is high-brow, educated, middle class, with women
being over-represented in fiction events and men in non-fiction. Otherwise, all
festivals attract a mixed audience in terms of age and taste preferences, but more of
the generalist than specialized type. A survey among 480 participants of the Berlin
Festival organized in the framework of this study provided interesting insights into
the literature festival audience and their perception of festivals which are
generalizable, I think, to all three literature festivals and arts festivals more generally.
Analytically:
Successful literature festivals are those which build up a niche audience over
time, i.e. an audience which returns regularly to the festival: every second
Berlin festival attendee in 2009 knew the festival from earlier editions; the
share is likely to be higher in Hay.
A large proportion of festival participants is interested in other art fields: 63
percent in film, 50 percent in music, 48 percent in theatre, 40 percent in the
visual arts. However only one in five is interested in all types of art forms,
literature and theatre being a common orientation among the relative majority
of the literature festival public.
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The majority of literature festival participants report loving literature but the
main motivation for attending literature festivals is hearing specific authors
speak or read from their work. But once there, most participants attend more
than one event.
Openness, internationalization and cosmopolitanism are important
associations with literature festivals. Interestingly enough, cosmopolitanism
(and festivalization) is distinctively associated with either multi-culturalism
or with liberalism, i.e. it is either understood to mean multi-culturalism or
liberalism, but not always both.
It is these distinctions within literature festival audiences that suggest that the latter
are not as homogeneous as they appear at first sight in terms of key demographic
variables like status or education. This diversity is also what makes it possible for
literature festivals to grow in a non-classificatory manner and still maintain their
holistic identity in relation to literature.
What literature festivals tell us about culture, arts and society?
What does the study and sociological analysis of literature festivals in Europe tell us
about contemporary culture, arts and society and their interfaces? We will attempt a
first answer to this question by comparing the three festivals from three interconnected perspectives: the question of aesthetics, canon and quality in the arts,
specifically the dimension of high- vs. low-brow culture; the question of value
commitment and the links between politics and the arts; and the question of cultural
policy (and public vs. private support of the arts). This analysis will be expanded and
deepened in the next project report (Deliverable 4) by assuming a wider comparative
perspective to cover all types of artistic festivals.
High- vs. low-brow—or beyond
At a very superficial level, it is possible to say that the Hay Festival operates in the
middle-brow area by promoting more popular forms of fiction and non-fiction, whilst
the Berlin and Borderlands Festivals are to be found closer to the high-brow end of
the scale in that they target ‗foreign‘ or international literature in translation, which is
a niche market.
The detailed analysis of the festival programmes that can be read in the individual
chapters of this part of the report negates this conclusion. The programmes of all
three festivals are in fact quite mixed. Literary fiction (as opposed to genre fiction) is
prominent in all three festivals and all three are keen to promote literature prize
winners: in Hay the holders or contestants of the Orange Prize of Literature and the
Booker Prize; in Berlin and the Borderlands Festival the holders of the Leipzig prize
and the German book prize. Both Berlin and Hay have featured Nobel prize winners
among their presentators; and a large number of the authors participating in all three
festivals are recipients of one or more of the many national or international literature
prizes currently in circulation. On the other hand, the more popular forms of genre
fiction like ‗romance‘ or ‗thrillers‘ are absent in all three festivals; and, as far as non-
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fiction is concerned, those presented at Hay are in their majority well-known
academics or journalists in their home countries and abroad.
The difference between the Hay Festival on the one hand, and Berlin and
Borderlands, on the other, has rather to do with self-representation. The Hay Festival
organizers are much more relaxed about discussing literary quality, canon and
aesthetics tending to reject them as largely irrelevant or misleading, albeit doing so
from a position of prominence within the British intellectual scene. Florence himself
and his collaborators are graduates of the best elite schools in the country and hold
several academic and other distinctions. At the other end of the scale, the founders
and directors of Borderlands are keen to underline that literary quality is the sole
criterion guiding their decisions and that they are best suited to make these choices
because of their personal embeddedness in the literary and cultural studies scenes in
their respective countries. The Berlin Festival is somewhere in-between: according to
its founder, literary quality is still the most important criterion but it needs to be
relativized by political and societal relevance—national or international. It is worth
adding that this, in brief, is also the approach guiding the Nobel Committee when
awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature.
With respect to the format of the festivals, Hay is again more relaxed about the
concept of entertainment, accepting it as a legitimate dimension even when reading
or discussing books tapping on serious or complex issues. The two other festivals are
more restrained in their ‗treatment‘ of infotainment opting for formats that demand
more from their audiences.
Ultimately, however, all three festivals are trying to strike a balance between more
and less popular forms of literature. The more popular forms are necessary for
attracting crowds and publicity, thus also for long-term financial viability. The less
popular forms are important in terms of prestige. This tends to support a segmented
approach with different types of literature being promoted for different clienteles—
all under the same festival umbrella.
However, the diversification and hybridization trends discussed earlier are beginning
to blur these boundaries and this tendency is further supported by the festival event
culture. This calls for a serious re-thinking of the high- vs. low-brow dimension as a
structuring force within the literature field.
Value commitments
The Hay, Berlin and Borderlands Festivals are all festivals with a political mission
related to critical inquiry. None shams political and social debate and all are keen to
promote openness in relation to internationalization and multiculturalism. In terms of
its programme, its invitees and general orientation towards the arts, the Hay Festival
is the more cosmopolitan of the three in that it seeks out and emphasizes exchange
and hybridization even if operating mainly within national boundaries. The Berlin
and Borderlands Festivals are more emphatic on inter- and trans-nationalism and
multiculturalism but they adhere more firmly to the rules and procedures of
distinction as they operate within national literary fields. It is worth noting
nevertheless that the term ‗cosmopolitanism‘ is not used spontaneously by any of the
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festivals in their own self-description and justification; ‗international‘ is a more
positively connotated term.
The ambivalence observed in relation to cosmopolitanism also applies to Europe.
Only the Borderlands Festival has an explicit European agenda, both culturally and
politically. The two other festivals are ambiguous about the relevance of the
European agenda or rather that of the European Union. With respect to culture and
the arts—in this case literature—this has largely to do with the prominent role of
European literature in the international context; in other words, there is no specific
necessity to promote European literature, as it is predominant in any case, at least as
far as the five main languages English, French, Spanish, German and Italian are
concerned. EU politics are viewed with caution, as the European Union continues to
suffer from the reputation of being a bureaucratic monolith among many figures on
the literary scene.
Cultural policy
The Berlin Festival is an offspring of German cultural policy as it could not exist
without the generous support of German public institutions. The Borderlands Festival
does not receive any direct public support and is instead financially dependent on the
subsidies of a private sponsor, the Allianz Cultural Foundation, one of many
foundations of big insurance companies, banks or corporations that have emerged
during the past decade to support culture and the arts. This said, Borderlands can
maintain comparatively low costs as it relies on the Literary Colloquium Berlin for
its organization. In turn, the LCB is the recipient of generous federal and local public
subsidies. Finally, Hay is again different in displaying a mixed funding basis, with
the largest share of its revenues coming from ticket sales.
Are the different contents of the three literature festivals the result of their different
funding bases? This, at least, is the view taken by the organizers of the Berlin and
Borderlands Festivals who think that the ‗niche‘ programme they advocate could not
have materialized without public forms of support. The broader and more popular, or
commercial, programme of Hay, on the other hand, can be upheld by the ‗market‘.
There are however signs of convergence with respect to the cultural policies of the
public sector as opposed to the private sector but also those dictated by the market.
The convergence of the goals of public and private sector cultural sponsoring is best
illustrated by the likes of the Allianz Foundation and the newspaper ‗The Guardian‘
(the eponym of the Hay Festival). Both are private sponsors and keen to promote a
liberal cultural and political agenda—in spirit similar to that adopted by the Cultural
Fund of Berlin. That there is however also a convergence of these goals with those
dictated by commercial success is shown by the growing emphasis on diversification
and more openness to experimentation within the publishing industry. In a way this
is one positive result of globalization—because within a globalized world, even a
niche market can suddenly grow into an important revenue component, thus allowing
a more laissez-faire approach to cultural production which ends up advancing rather
than restricting cultural diversity. Needless to say, it still remains to be seen how this
will play out precisely in the future.
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2
The Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival: An Icon in the Making
Liana Giorgi
The Hay-on-Wye Festival has grown into an iconic literature event in less than a
quarter of a century after being launched in 1988 as a small-scale poetry festival with
not more than a few hundred visitors. In 2009, it attracted over 90,000 participants,
selling more than 185,000 tickets for close to 500 events featuring over 700 men and
women of letters. Today, it is rightly thought of as the most successful of all literary
events, not least for managing to maintain the flair of a community festival and the
credence of conversation despite its corporate growth; and for representing a
successful private initiative, as it relies only slightly on public subsidies. This chapter
will portray the Hay-on-Wye Festival and throw light on its various aspects in
addition to discussing what the festival in its present form and through its
development tells us about the status and role of literature in modern societies.
Methodologically, this chapter—and the two that follow—has relied on multiple
sources: face-to-face interviews with directors, managers, sponsors and writerparticipants; the discourse analysis and comparison of festival programmes,
participant biographies and media reports; the ethnographic observation of festival
sessions and related social events; the systematic compilation of social facts about
the festival; and secondary literature where available. The appendix to this part of the
report provides an overview of the material compiled and analyzed. The qualitative
analysis software tool MaxQDA was used for processing and classifying the
information.
2.1
Organization and finances
There are three constants about the Hay-on-Wye Festival: its location—the 1,900inhabitant book-town in the vicinity of Brecon Beacon National Park on the border
between England and Wales; the timing—every year around the last long weekend in
May; and its mission—to promote the exchange of ideas through conversation and
the love of books.
The festival has otherwise changed dramatically since its inception in 1988, and this
change has been one of growth. Here are some facts:
In duration, the festival now lasts for a total of ten days including two
weekends as compared with a long weekend at its outset;
The number of events now runs into the hundreds; at the beginning it was less
than twenty;
The festival originally took place at the youth and community centre of its
host town; this is now at best only used occasionally as the site for the winter
edition of the festival in late November. In the meantime, the festival has
acquired its own area for puttin up tents for five stages to accommodate
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between 120 and 1,000 people. These are also used for other events and
activities throughout the summer.2
The festival operative budget runs well into the million—at the beginning it
was into the few tens of thousands and was covered by regional subsidies
(South-East Wales Arts and Mid-Wales Development) and local support
(from the Hay Council and the district chamber of commerce). Today, ticket
sales make up the lion‘s share of the festival budget in combination with
high-brow media and corporate sponsorship (The Guardian, Sky Arts,
Barclays Bank).3 Additional funding comes from the Association of ‗Friends
of the Festival‘ and the festival patrons.4
The core festival team has also grown, even if it remains comparatively small
with less than fifteen people. But during the festival time, the festival
organization mobilizes several hundred volunteers and short-term workers for
stage and sound management, ticketing, cleaning, information, bus and
parking service and child-minding services. In addition, for a period of ten
days, the festival site houses over 30 booths providing food, fruit, drink, local
handicrafts, books and information (ranging from tourism in Spain to Welsh
literature, the Sony e-book, ecological buildings or environmental
foundations).
The growth of the festival has been accompanied by changes in its organizational
format and its contents. Books—presented through readings or conversations with
authors—are still the central element of the festival, but unlike the early years, which
were dominated by poetry and fiction, today centre stage is taken by non-fiction
books with relevance to social and political issues, past or present. The Barclays and
Guardian Stages, which evince a capacity of 800 and 1,000 respectively are also
often used for stand-up comedy or music shows. The addition of these shows, like
also children‘s activities, has contributed to the festival‘s publicity while helping to
keep ticket prices low (mostly 1-5 GBP back in 1988, 5-10 today.5) As a result, the
festival has been able to maintain and even expand its reputation for openness.
The festival growth has also meant that it has been transformed into a ‗brand‘, which
can in turn be used to attract more sponsorship as well as promote similar events at
Hay and in other countries. The spin-offs from the Hay Festival range from the
smaller fringe philosophy and music festival ‗How the light gets in‘ which takes
place at the former Methodist Chapel parallel to the main event, to the Hay festivals
2
These are the Barclays Pavillion (capacity 1,000), the Guardian Stage (capacity 800), the Sony Screen Stage
(400), the Sky Arts (300), the Oxfam Pavillion (250) and the Dream Stage (120). The stages or pavilions are
named after the main sponsor.
3
No budget information could be obtained from the organizers, however it could be established that the subsidy
from the Art Council Wales is around 40,000 GBP (see http://www.artswales.org.uk/listgrants.asp) and that the
corporate sponsoring is close to 50,000 GBP (per main sponsor). According to the festival manager, Maggie
Robertson, ticket sales make up some 65% of the festival budget—ticket sales in 2009 amounted to 158,000 and
according to the festival website the numbers have been growing at a rate of five per cent over the last six years.
4
Membership of the ‗Friends‘ association is 20 GBP for an individual and 34 GBP for a couple. Membership
offers priority booking and fast-track entrance to the festival venues. The money earned by the association is
earmarked for supporting the festival office and outreach educational projects. Festival patrons contribute to the
festival finances through an annual membership of 250 GBP. Both associations have an open membership policy.
5
The average ticket price is 6 GBP whilst the most expensive one identified was 35 GBP for Jimmy Carter in
2008.
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in Alhambra and Seville (Spain), Beirut, Cartagena and Nairobi. The festival is also a
significant source of income for the local tourism industry, comprising small hotels
and guest houses for accommodation within a radius of up to 20 miles as well as
pubs and restaurants.6 At the same time it is used for fund-raising purposes: hence,
for instance, the money earned through the extra parking lots set up for the festival
(and costing on average more than the council car park) goes to charity, whereas the
ticket sales from specific events are allotted to other festivals, such as Nairobi, which
do not attract as much corporate sponsorships.7
The transformation of the festival into a ‗brand‘ has not gone uncontested. Authors
interviewed have expressed concerns about the long-term ability of the festival to
combine mass-appeal and prominence with innovativeness, as well as openness to
new trends and authors. According to Horatio Clare,8 the sponsorship of the festival
by Sky Arts (which he referred to as ‗the devil‘s gold‘) has raised some eyebrows,
with people arguing that the festival risks becoming too corporate and more of a
circus than a festival. Ben Crystal9 pointed out that growth always challenges identity
and that it will, therefore, be important for Hay to maintain its original flair and
mission.
Concerns are also expressed by local booksellers. According to an article published
in The Independent (January 2009), they ‗complain that the festival impacts
negatively on their business. Some talk about a fall of sales of as much of 50%‘. This
is the case, despite the fact that the festival is strongly embedded in the local
economic infrastructure, constituting the second main employer10 in addition to
supporting several local activities. Examples include ‗Hay Arts‘ set up with a
millennium grant to publish a book about the residents of Hay; the use of local
handicraft shops to organize the festival merchandising (coffee mugs, notebooks, tshirts and sweat-shirts); and the organization of local fairs for marketing local
products during the festival.
2.2
The role of directors
‗He is a canny entrepreneur‘11; the type of man who ‗does not worry about taking the
devil‘s money and turning it into gold‘;12 an extraordinary person with ‗an aptitude
6
Some of these also appear as the sponsors of specific events. The Blue Boar Inn, for instance, located at the
town centre was last year‘s sponsor of the Jane Birkin concert (ticket prices 17 GBP).
7
By contrast, most Spanish-speaking festivals have been very successful in attracting private and public
sponsorship – the main private sponsor being the Mapfe Foundation.
8
Interview October 2, 2010 – Horatio Clare, 35, (www.horatioclare.org) is the author of Running for the Hills
(Somerset Maugham Award 2007).
9
Interview May 20, 2009 – Ben Crystal, 31 is an actor and author of Shakespeare on Toast. See
www.bencrystal.com
10
Interview with Peter Florence, festival director, December 2008
11
Both Clare and Crystal have used the term ‚canny‗ and entrepreneur, businessman to describe Florence; and
the label is actually a standard one popping up in several media reports or interviews.
12
HC, author, male, 35 years old – the ‗devil‘ referred to is the Sky Arts Channel, the most recent of Hay‘s
corporate sponsor.
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for prophetic statements‘.13 Florence, who studied modern and medieval literatures at
Cambridge and the Sorbonne, then to take up an acting career, and who today
belongs to the exclusive association of members of the Order of the British Empire,14
sees himself as someone who
‗couldn‘t hack academic culture or acting and tried to find something that
would play to the bits of both that I most enjoyed … Most of my mates
from Cambridge went into Law or the City. Being at home seemed more
fun‘. (Interview by email – December 9, 2008)
That combined with a love of reading and the wish ‗to hang around with [his] dad
who was a professional Arts Magician‘ led him to the idea of launching the Hay
Literature Festival—and then the Hay Festival Cartagena, Seville, Alhambra,
Storymoja (Nairobi) and the Orange Word London. Undoubtedly, he took a risk at
the beginning, as his family was not wealthy. In its early days the festival would not
have been possible without Florence‘s mother, who ‗underwrote‘ it for years.
Florence, too, is a family man, married to the publisher Becky Shaw. They have four
sons.
Peter Florence is an inquisitive nature, a social networker and a highly committed
person, and these character traits have impacted on the festival since its inception.
But perhaps the one characteristic that has been central to his success and that of the
Hay Festival is his ability to gather around him other people sharing his visions and
with a commitment to hard work. This extends from his colleagues at the festival
office to his trustees and the board members of the company and charitable trust set
up to manage and supervise the festival.
Among the festival trustees we find two women with a track record in journalism.
Revel Guest, who in public events is often referred to as the Grande Dame of the
festival, has a legendary aura as the youngest woman ever to run for parliamentary
office in the UK back in 1955. She worked for BBC Panorama as an investigative
journalist and founded Transatlantic Films (in 1968) for making documentaries.
Rossie Boycott was the co-founder of the radical feminist journal Spare Rib as well
as Virago Press. She was the editor of Esquire, the first female editor of The
Independent and also of The Daily Express and a media advisor for the Council of
Europe. She also has a reputation as a ‗brilliant campaigner‘.15 Both Guest and
Boycott have been close associates of Florence for many years. The head of the
festival‘s supervisory board, on the other hand, is Lord Bingham of Cornhill, who
was Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, High Steward of the University of
Oxford from 2001 to 2008 and a member of the House of Lords.
Hay Festival also has a long list of vice-presidents, which reads very much like the
‗Who‘s who‘ of British high society and the public intellectual scene:
13
Attributed to Peter Strauss, editor-in-chief of Pan Macmillan till 2002 and now an agent – in a report published
in the Guardian entitled ‗Hay 21: Essential Reading‘ (May 27, 2008) and written by Aida Edemariam. The
‗prophecy‘ referred to concerns books winning literature prizes.
14
The Order of the British Empire was established in 1917 by George V to make up for the lack of honours for
people not coming from either the military or the civil service. Its most senior members may use the title ‗Sir‘ or
‗Dame‘. Membership (MBE) was awarded to Florence in 2005.
15
Interview with Rosie Boycott by Geraldine Bedell – Published in The Observer 24 August 2008
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Corisande Albert (director, Transatlatic Films), Robert Ayling (former
director of British Airways), Nick Broomfield (filmmaker), Rosanna
Bulmer (tourism), Nick Butler (Cambridge Centre for Energy Studies
and adviser to Gordon Brown), Maria Sheila Cremaschi (Hay Festival
Segovia), Palash Dave (writer and film-maker), Lord Evans, Amelia
Grainger, Geordie Greig (editor of The Evening Standard), Sabrina
Guinness (heiress of Guinness and head of charity Youth Cable
Television), Rhian-Anwen Hamill (former director of Wales Millenium
Centre), Josephine Hart (writer), Julia Hobsbawm (public relations),
Denise Lewis (sports), Brenda Maddox (biographer), John Mitchinson
(head of research for the television quiz show QI) Hannah Rothschild
(short-film and documentary), Andrew Ruhemann (animation films),
Philippe Sands (Professor of International Law), William Sieghart
(journalist), Jon Snow (journalist and presenter), Caroline Spencer (Earl
Spencer‘s wife), Francine Stock (radio and TV presenter) and Lucy
Yeomans (editor of Harper‘s Bazaar).
In addition to representing public figures with extensive networks and cultural capital
in Bourdieu‘s sense,16 many of the above are individuals known for their
commitment to liberal political ideas. Lord Bingham, for instance, has recently
published a book on the relevance of the rule of the law of equality (also between
citizens and non-citizens), human rights (including acceptance of the European
Charter of Human Rights) and adherence to international law. 17 Jon Snow one of the
vice-presidents is a well-known TV news presenter for Channel 4 (ITN), twice voted
as ‗news presenter of the year‘ and popular for his to-the-point interviews and his
caustic remarks. But he is also a former volunteer and current chairman of a day
centre for drug addicts and patron of several charities such as ‗Prisoners Abroad‘,
‗One World Media‘, ‗Reprieve‘ and one of the few to have declined an OBE honour.
More importantly than merely having the reputation for being public intellectuals or
men and women of substance, the members of Hay‘s extended management team
take an active part in the festival as moderators, facilitators or presenters.
2.3
Networking structures
The review in the previous section of ‗who‘s who‘ at the Hay Festival and how this
overlaps with the list of noteworthy and influential people in the UK in the fields of
the media, arts and cultural field is already a good indicator of the importance of
networks for this festival—and perhaps more generally for the organization of any
successful major event.
There are several ways in which networks and related structures play a role for the
Hay Festival:
16
Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J.-C. (1990), Reproduction in Culture, Society and Culture, London Sage
The book The Rule of Law (2010) has just been published by Allen Lane (London). The main ideas were
outlined at a speech given at the Centre for Public Law on November 16, 2006. See also the review of the book in
‗The Guardian‘, published 20 February 2010 (p.9) by Stephen Sedley.
17
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There are first the local networks deriving from the festival‘s local embeddedness in
a small community where as Florence puts it: ‗All businesses here are family
concerns—the butcher, the baker, the festival-maker—because you are always reliant
on people pulling together for more than just money.‘18 The festival‘s local insertion
was particularly important in the early years but it remains important today. The
winter edition of the festival, for example, is organized to coincide with the
community‘s turning on the Christmas lights, the Buttermarket, the Happy Hour, the
Winter Food Festival on the Memorial Car Park, the Arts and Crafts Festival at the
town centre, the Nearly-New Clothes Sale to raise money for community support and
a Bazaar Evening with a fashion show to celebrate fair trade.19
Establishing networks is also important with respect to securing financing, especially
for an organization relying extensively on private sponsorship. The network of
funders of the Hay Festival includes four types of actors: (a) cultural foundations or
institutions (public and private), (b) public bodies such as city or regional councils
and/or arts councils, (c) media and other corporations and (d) foreign embassies.
Such organizations share an interest in supporting culture and the arts, and often they
will adopt a ‗co-funding‘ approach, i.e. contribute to the funding of an event in the
knowledge that this will also be funded by another organization active in the same
field. In other words, these organizations form a network, albeit not a formal one,
and they are most effective from the perspective of the festival when considered in
networking terms.
That this is what the Hay Festival does is also evidenced by the way in which its
sponsors‘ contributions vary according to the activity organized. Thus whilst the Hay
Festival at Hay-on-Wye relies primarily on corporate sponsorship apart from ticket
sales, the Hay Alhambra and Segovia Festivals draw on funds from private cultural
foundations such as MAPFRE and cultural organizations like the ‗Delfina
Foundation‘, the ‗Casa Arabe‘, the ‗Centro José Guerrero‘, the ‗Fundacion José
Manuel Lara‘ and the Goethe Institute.
A network of particular significance for the Hay Festival is the media. In view of
this, the role of the media will be dealt with in a separate section. Here, suffice to
note that the Hay Festival entertains a close relationship to several media and not
only those with a direct stake in terms of sponsorship such as The Guardian or Sky
Arts. Links to other media are mediated by the extended management team of the
festival, but also by the many writers invited to hold presentations who also work in
journalism or literary criticism. Brenda Maddox, for instance, a vice-president of
Hay and regular contributor to discussions is a book reviewer for The Observer, The
Times, New Statesman, The New York Times and The Washington Post as well as
BBC Radio4; Diego Carcedo, contributor to the Hay Alhambra festival from 2009 is
a correspondent of TVE and president of the European Journalists‘ Association.
Other festivals are equally important as networking structures. In this context, the
most important channel is that of the other Hay festivals held in different countries.
These naturally collaborate in different ways, notably by exchanging information,
18
Interview with Peter Florence by email, December 2008
Programme of the Hay Winter Weekend, November-December 2008 – programme description and fieldwork
observation.
19
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networks, books, writers and themes. Then again, the Hay Festival maintains close
relations to other British festivals, too. An example is the Cambridge Festival of
Ideas which Hay collaborated with in 2009 to feature a special series of events to
mark the 800th anniversary of the University of Cambridge.
According to Bennett (1999), the Hay Festival was in fact modelled on the
Cheltenham Festival of Literature, which was already established in 1949:
Peter Florence (…) first came to the [Cheltenham] festival in 1983 to
perform his Pity of War adapted from the poems of Wilfred Owen. [In
1987] Peter Florence‘s father came to Cheltenham to talk to Gordon and
Alan about the Florences‘ idea of holding a literature festival in Hay-onWye, the small border town set in lush green hills, already famous for its
books. Alan was always delighted to set someone off on a new enterprise
– he‘d encouraged several acquaintances to take up bookselling – and he
would always treasure the card acknowledging his help that Peter
Florence sent him on occasion of the first Hay-on-Wye Festival in 1988.
This wasn‘t to say that Alan did not feel fiercely competitive when his
protégé proved itself Cheltenham‘s most serious challenger. Since 1949
Cheltenham had remained the only regular ‗purely literary festival‘ until
Ilkley started twenty-four years later (…) Cambridge Poetry started soon
after, Lancaster was launched in 1978 and in the 1980s literature festivals
began popping up all over the place: Birmingham Readers and Writers,
Cardiff, Huddersfield, Kings Lynn, Kent, Newcastle, Berkshire,
Shrewsbury … at Brighton there was strong literature component; in
Edinburgh a Book Fair as of 1988 and in Aldeburgh a Poetry Festival
again as of 1988. Hay was also attracting large audiences‘ (p.80).
The above quotation also exemplifies the fifth way in which networking is pivotal to
the Hay Festival, namely as a formation offering opportunities for networking among
literary stakeholders. A literature festival like Hay is today a place for linking writers
with other writers, but also with cultural intermediaries such as publishers, agents,
representatives from other festivals, literature prize organizers and publishers of
literary journals. ‗The advantage of being in Hay was that we were surrounded by
writers‘ wrote Charlotte Higgins, arts journalist for The Guardian. She goes on to
say:
I found Rose Tremain to provide me comment [on Ruth Padel‘s
resignation from the Oxford Poetry Chair] as she sat signing books in the
bookshop, and nobbled Jackie Kay and Jeanette Winterson, who were
eating goat‘s cheese in the food tent. Winterson provided me with my
favourite quote about Oxford: ‗It‘s a sexist little dump.‘20
Meeting other authors is motivation for writers, but so is finding an audience, gaining
publicity and promoting one‘s work. In an interview given to Richard Lea of The
Guardian on May 30, 2007, Orhan Pamuk had this to say about participating at
literature festivals—something he began to do as writer in the 1990s, ‗making the
switch from attendee to author‘:
20
Guardian Blog, June 2, 2009, entitled ‗Ruth Paddel: The Final Word‘ by Charlotte Higgins.
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I was in my late thirties. I was eager to be accepted, to be read, to find an
international audience (…) I was both damningly enthusiastic and very,
very shy (…) [and also motivated by the desire] to meet authors, to enter
into this world (…) [in part because I] was detached from the Turkish
community of authors.21
Similar feelings were expressed by the authors interviewed for the purpose of this
study. Hence, Horatio Claire had been a regular at Hay as a radio journalist for years
before he was invited by Peter Florence to participate as a writer and present his
book. Ben Crystal participates in festivals ‗obviously‘ to promote his books and this,
he finds, works—both with respect to actual sales but also the more long-term
publicity; and Steve Fuller, a social theorist, who did the Edinburgh International
Book Festival, the Glasgow Literary Festival and the Litchfield Literary Festival
before joining the Hay Philosophy Festival in 2009 says:
I think it marks you as a public intellectual, at least in a minor sense.
Your academic credentials, while important, are secondary to the claims
and arguments you make in your books. So it‘s a good way to get noticed
as a distinct personality, not simply the representative of a discipline or
an expert.22
Further:
Yes, I think Festivals open doors and enable you to land new publishing
deals and even other media deals, especially if your perform well. This is
how I get to be invited to Festivals on a regular basis. There are ‗talent
scouts‘ who attend these events and accost you afterward. It strikes me
that some authors without academic day-jobs really depend on this kind
of networking for income.23
Rosie Boycott, trustee and vice-president of the festival, also landed her present job
as chair of ‗London Food‘ or ‗food tsar‘ for London—a post instituted by London‘s
mayor Boris Johnson for improving Londoners‘ access to healthy food—through
Hay, namely ‗after Guto Harri, the Mayor‘s communications director, heard Boycott
speaking at Hay.‘24
This specific role of festivals as networking events with an intermediary function has
to a great extent also to do with developments on the publishing and books market.
In an article appearing on May 27, 2008 to discuss the new generation of authors
appearing at Hay, Aida Edemariam quoted Joel Rickett, deputy editor of Booksellers
and other fellow publishers as follows:
Now, even if you get a review—with a first novel, a paragraph in a
roundup with lots of other books, if you‘re lucky – it is unlikely to make
21
Interview with Orhan Pamuk conducted by Richard Lea upon occasion of Pamuk‘s participation at the Hay
Festival, 31st May 2007.
22
Interview with Steve Fuller – by email August 7, 2009
23
Interview with Steve Fuller – by email August 7, 2009
24
Interview with Rosie Boycott, published in ‗The Observer‘ August 24, 2008; interview conducted by Geraldine
Bedell.
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any difference at all. You have to do readings, go to festivals, do
interviews—if you are invited, that is. ‗The publicity generated around
books has to be wide-ranging and consistent over a period of time,‘ says
Rickett. ‗I don‘t think the one-off splash is enough.‘ Your success
depends partly, then, on how personable and inspiring you are, how well
you deal with what Valentine calls the ‗live element‘ of it. ‗If TS Eliot
had to make his name doing performances all round the country I don‘t
think he‘d be regarded the greatest writer,‘ says Straus. ‗It takes
enormous effort and persistence on the publisher‘s part,‘ adds Alexandra
Pringle, publishing director at Bloomsbury. And ‗a lot of luck.‘25
The developments in literature and the arts more generally that have increased the
need for mediation, thus supporting the growth of festivals, is the subject of the next
section.
2.4
Modern literature and the competitive struggle to determine value
Contemporary developments affecting literature are copious and multifarious.
Literature festivals are platforms for discussing them in addition to representing
responses to them.
The trend driving modern literature is expansion despite the occasional lament that
the reading public is on the decline—a true statement perhaps, but one referring
rather to problems with access and/or the increasing variability in taste preferences.
Here are some data recently released by the UK Publishers Association in advance of
the UK Book Fair taking place in London in April 2010.
The value of sales of fiction books has gone up by nine per cent since 2004;
that of non-fiction by 4 percent; that of children‘s books by 26 per cent and
that of school educational material by 14 per cent.
The value of exports related to book has gone up by 26 per cent since 2004.
Digital sales increased by 25 per cent alone in 2008.
E-books account for one percent of all book sales in the United States at
present; and are expected to go up to five per cent within three years.
On average, seven books are bought per person per year.
One in five readers report in surveys that they would buy more books if
available
The UK publishing market has a market value of 3.4 billion GBP, up by six
per cent since 2004.
The UK publishing market contributes five billion GBP to the UK economy.
Diversity is the buzz word within the publishing industry at present. This diversity is
multi-dimensional, referring, inter alia, to:
The diversification of publishers and publishing units—Contrary to what was feared
in the 1980s and 1990s, the merging of publishing houses into several big
25
Aida Edemariam writing for ‗The Guardian‘, May 27, 2008 on ‗Hay 21: Essential Reading‘.
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corporations did not lead to the disappearance of small or independent publishing
houses. The current re-structuring of the industry rather concerns the eclipse of
‗parent companies‘ and the emergence of semi-autonomous editorial units also
within bigger publishing houses (Epstein 2010).
The diversification of content over the past years has been remarkable, both in fiction
and non-fiction. Here is a list of the ‗genres‘ used by Publishers Market to classify
new deals in the United States today.
Fiction: Debut, mystery, crime, horror, science-fiction, fantasy, thriller,
romance, inspirational, children‘s, other.
Non-fiction: advice, relationships, parenting, lifestyle, cooking, religion,
spirituality, health, business and finance, sports, humour, science,
reference, how-to, history, politics, current affairs, memoir, biography,
true crime, narrative, illustrated, pop culture, other.
This diversification of content is also reflected in the programme of the Hay
Literature Festival. In 1998, this already included discussions and book presentations
on science, religion, popular writing on food, gardening, football and children,
confessional autobiography and literary studies. The 2009 Hay Alhambra programme
featured presentations on writings about the arts such as video and photography,
architecture and dance. The 2009 Hay programme was heavily tilted towards nonfiction and especially history, politics, current affairs and science.
Diversification is further driven by experimentation with styles. What is currently
very popular, for instance, is addressing serious subject matter through comedy, an
example being Lewycka‘s novel The Short History of Ukrainian Tractors. Not all
experimentation has gone uncontested, however. One genre that has recently come
into disrepute is that of ‗false memoirs‘, which fabricate all or part of the events
narrated (Yagoda 2009, Mendelson 2010). Diversity is also driven by the emergence
of new authors in different languages. Indeed, translation is also a growing field,
accounting for 27 per cent of all new publishing deals in the United States in the
period between 2007 and 2009 (and counting both fiction and non-fiction) (Giorgi
2009).
By far the most important development of the past few years is the emergence of
eBooks and, more generally, the growing role of the internet in selling, distribution
and, recently, storage. The emergence and preliminary success of the eBook (Sony,
Kindle etc.), which was also featured at the Hay Festival in 2009, is only the most
obvious sign of these developments. According to a survey carried out by Aptara, 26 a
company offering consultancy services for e-content, now already 50 per cent of the
publishers offer titles in eBook format, and those do not are planning to embark on
this new format in the near future. Nevertheless, there is no general consensus as to
how important eBooks are or will become.
Another trend within the eBook market is that of treating the ‗book‘ as a DVD—a
development that points to a certain convergence between film and writing. One of
26
Reported in daily newsletter in Publishers Market – and available in summary form at www.aptaracorp.com
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the first experimental offers in this respect will be a thriller to be published shortly by
David Baldacci entitled Deliver us from evil. According to the publishers Hachette
Book Group Editions, the eBook which they refer to as an ‗enriched electronic
version‘ will include a ‗Writer‘s Cut‘ (to match the ‗Director‘s Cut‘ as in film): ‗In
the release, HBG CEO David Young says, ―For David Baldacci‘s fans, this is a
chance to see his creative process revealed, and deepen the connection with an author
they love to read. This enhanced eBook is the perfect marriage of innovation and
great storytelling‖‘.27
These technological developments are raising serious questions as to the future of
both writing and reading, but also the question of copyright.
A milestone with regard to copyright was the Google settlement with the Writers‘
Guild. Writers consider this settlement an important step towards ensuring their
rights and earnings in a fast-growing market which almost tends to make authors‘
rights obsolete. Others have lamented that the agreement is the first and huge step
towards arresting the democratization of culture and accessibility. One strong
opponent of the agreement is Harvard‘s law professor Lawrence Lessig (author also
of Remix, 2008), who argues that the agreement threatens to make access to books as
difficult as access to documentaries:
But it is the accident of our cultural history, created by lawyers not
thinking about, as Duke law professor Jamie Boyle puts it, the ―cultural
environmental consequences‖ of their contracts, that we can always
legally read, even if we cannot legally watch. In this contrast between
books and documentaries, there is a warning about our future. What are
the rules that will govern culture for the next hundred years? Are we
building an ecology of access that demands a lawyer at every turn of the
page? Or have we learned something from the mess of the documentaryfilm past, and will we create instead an ecology of access that assures
copyright owners the incentive they need, while also guaranteeing culture
a future? (…) The deal constructs a world in which control can be
exercised at the level of a page, and maybe even a quote. It is a world in
which every bit, every published word, could be licensed. It is the
opposite of the old slogan about nuclear power: every bit gets metered,
because metering is so cheap. We begin to sell access to knowledge the
way we sell access to a movie theater, or a candy store, or a baseball
stadium. We create not digital libraries, but digital bookstores: a Barnes
& Noble without the Starbucks (Lessig 2010).
As regards reading and writing, the fear is that the type of ‗social networking‘ partly
promoted through the new culture of eBook and the internet will negatively impact
on the quality of writing:
The difficult, solitary work of literary creation, however, demands rare
individual talent and in fiction it is almost never collaborative. Social
networking may expose readers to this or that book but violates the
27
Reported by the Publishers Market in their newsletter ‗Publishers Lunch‘ of 16 March 2010
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solitude required to create artificial worlds with real people in them
(Epstein 2010).
Epstein is not so pessimistic as to believe that the new technologies will make
‗informed critical writing‘ disappear—rather that this will remain ‗as rare and as
necessary as ever‘ surviving in either print or online for the ‗discriminating readers‘.
By contrast, Stefan Collini, Professor of English at the University of Cambridge,
talking to a Hay crowd in May 2009, argued that concerns about a loss of culture
must be relativized:
According to Collini, commentators feared the death of fiction after the
disappearance of the three-volume Victorian novel in the 1890s. The
advent of radio in the 1920s signalled the death of intellectual pursuits.
Penguin‘s introduction of the paperback in the 1930s heralded the death
of the hardback. Reports of these deaths were, he argued, a little
premature. We tend, he said, to fall into a nostalgia about reading in the
past, imagining that George Orwell‘s essays, for example, reached a far
wider audience in his day than they would do now. But most of his
essays were actually published in three journals—Horizon, Polemic and
Tribune—which had a combined readership of around 20,000. The
London Review of Books, which according to Collini ‗publishes articles
as long and as serious‘ as any of these, has a circulation of over 40,000.
‗And think of the success of literary festivals, of book clubs and related
events – surely they bespeak a considerable appetite for hearing about
books, and one that has grown hugely in the last decade,‘ said the
professor. I think we can take all this in two ways. Perhaps things only
look bad now because things always look bad, or maybe we‘re all a
bunch of Cassandras making dire predictions which fortunately never
come true.28
Whatever the ultimate empirical conclusion of this debate, the case remains that the
diversification of content and format characterizing the contemporary literature scene
has accentuated the need for ‗filters‘ or intermediaries to guide people in terms of
reading. Festivals are of course not the sole intermediaries in this loud literary scene.
Literature prizes continue to play a key role in this connection 29 and this is shown,
among other things, by the way in which literature prizes figure prominently in the
biographies of the authors invited to speak at festivals.30 But as literature prizes grow
28
Hay Guardian Blog, 26 May, 2009: ‗Hay Festival: Was there Ever a Golden Age of Reading?‘
English, J. (2005), The Economy of Prestige, Harvard University Press
30
This is even more the case for other festivals as compared with Hay, as is shown in the chapter on the
International Literature Festival Berlin (also in this volume). But here is a list of the literature prizes encountered
while reviewing the biographies of a sample of the authors presenting their work at Hay-on-Wye and Hay
Alhambra: The All Wales Young Writers Award; the John Hughes Prize; the Orange Prize; The Eric Gregory
Award; the Cholmondeley Award; the Dylan Thomas Award; the Los Angeles Times Biography Award; the
Silver PEN Award; the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger; the Whitbread Biography Prize; the Nobel; the
Somerset Maugham Award; the Lohn Llewellyn Rhys Prize; the Booksellers‘ Association Prize; the Waterstone‘s
Booksellers Prize; the South Bank Show Award for Literature; the Portuguese PEN Club Award; the Primavera
award; the Nadal award; the Poetry Prize Platero; the Ateneo de Sevilla Prize; the National Award of Spanish
Literature; the International Prize Terenci Moix; the National Prize for Poetry; The Luca de Tena Award; the Prix
du Regard vers l‘Avenir; the Arab Press Prize; the Guardian Children‘s Fiction Prize; the Bibliodiversidad; the
29
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in numbers—in some countries almost to match the quantity of book distributors,
literary journals and publishers31 –their value decreases in terms of assigning
prestige. Additional mechanisms are needed and this, in part, explains the growing
popularity of literature festivals like Hay—an opinion shared by Joel Rickett, deputy
director of Bookseller, in the interview already quoted:
Fragmentation is occurring around the books as in them. Readers, says
Joel Rickett (…) are more torn between media than ever before. The
writers come from more wildly different backgrounds (which applies to
their audiences too), and more books are published than ever before (…)
at the same time as they are pushed to the margins by television, film,
videogames, the internet. 32
In this new environment of information- or even cultural-overflow, the role of
intermediaries and brokers is bound to increase, and also become institutionalized as
in the case of the Hay Festival. Even if the majority of the festival participants attend
first and foremost in order to listen to or meet their favourite author or stand-up
comedian, they end up being confronted with other authors by default—since if you
have made the effort to travel to Hay for the festival you will hang around for more
than one event. Andy Fryers, the festival‘s ‗Greenprint‘33 director, calls this the
‗trickling down‘ effect. This describes the process whereby new themes (authors or
styles) are integrated in an otherwise mainstream programme with well-known
names for the purpose of gradual familiarization and a long-term indirect impact, an
approach also adopted with respect to Hay‘s ‗green agenda‘ which is at the core of
the ‗Greenprint‘ component.
Overcoming fragmentation by providing a platform for discussion and debate is also
at the core of the festival‘s political agenda, which will be dealt with in the next
section.
2.5
Politics and the Hay festival
In 2008 John Bolton, former U.S. Ambasaddor to the United Nations (2005-2006)
and heavily criticized for his Republican alliances, his views on Iraq as well as his
negative views on the U.N., was invited to talk at Hay—provoking George Monbiot,
an English writer and political activist, to stage a citizen arrest of Bolton during the
festival. According to British law, such an arrest (without a warrant) is possible and
has legal implications if there is evidence that the person placed under arrest is a
Premi Llibreter; and New Talent FNAC; the Turkish Writers‘ Prize; the Cervantes Prize; the Ramon Llull prize;
The Booker Prize for Fiction; The Premio Nacional de la Critica …
31
This seems to be the case in Spain, as reported at a roundtable discussion on literature prizes taking place at the
Institute Cervantes in Berlin in the framework of the International Literature Festival Berlin, September 2009.
More generally there are today publishers awards, reading associations awards, audience awards, print media
awards, donated awards and of course the bestseller lists.
32
See ‗Hay 21: Essential Reading‘ op.cit.
33
Greenprint is the component of the programme which aims at improving the festival‘s own environmental
impact through management reform; in addition to promoting discussions and debates on environmental themes.
Its impact is also shown in the exhibitors at the festival which includes ‗Gaia Exhibition‘, ‗Global Action Plan‘ as
well as booths on eco-buildings and solar energy collectors.
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serious offender under the Serious Organized Crime and Police Act of 2005.
Monbiot‘s unsuccessful attempt was judged a ‗silly stunt‘ in a blog published on The
Guardian on May 30, 2008 and written by Conor Foley, a humanitarian activist. The
blog received 186 comments. Monbiot‘s rebuke a few days later under the title ‗War
criminals must fear punishment; that‘s why I went for John Bolton‘ received 286
comments.
Staging arrests or organizing demonstrations are not common in Hay, which rather
prefers to emphasize civility and amicality in the spirit of an exchange of ideas—and
whose ‗civilized‘ tone is sometimes made fun of as ‗middle-class‘ mentality34 or the
‗bookishness‘ of Islington intellectuals. Nevertheless the festival is often used as a
stage for discussing politics. This is achieved several ways:
First, the festival is increasingly used to present political views from across the
British (and American) political spectrum, either by featuring books written by
politicians or by organizing roundtable debates to discuss specific issues. In 2009,
Paddy Ashdown was in town to present his memoirs, Chris Patten, a former EU
Commissioner, to talk about the risks faced in the twenty-first century, and Roy
Hattersley, elder statesman of the Labour Party, to ponder about a fourth way in
politics. In addition, the festival staged the following debates:
a debate on civil liberties in the wake of anti-terrorist measures and the
proliferation of surveillance which brought together David Davis, the
Conservative MP, Charles Clarke of the Labour Party, Conor Gearty of the
LSE and Henry Porter, a libertarian journalist;
a debate on green economic policies featuring Green Party leader and MEP
Caroline Lucas, the Welsh Minister of the Environment Jane Davidson and
Spanish MEP Joan Herrera, and
a debate on the European elections with the leading candidates (Plaid Cymru,
Labour, Conservative, UKIP and Lib Dem) for the four Welsh seats on the
European Parliament.
Second, among the non-fiction book presentations and discussions taking place at
Hay, the share of those dealing with ‗current affairs or history has been steadily
growing. A total of 84 events (amounting to a proportion of 24 per cent of the total)
were organized in 2009.35 At the beginning of the festival back in 1988, there were
practically no such presentations. The political section of the Hay Festival in 2009
included book presentations followed by discussions inter alia on the Treaty of
Versailles,36 Germany and World War II,37 the twentieth anniversary of the Fall of the
Berlin Wall,38 climate politics,39youth delinquency,40 public (transport) services,41 the
34
Stand-up comedy event with Marcus Brigstocke, Andre Vincent and Carrie Quinlan at the Hay Winter
Weekend, November 2008
35
Estimation based on compilation and classification of thematic data as reported in the festival‘s programme.
36
Discussion between historicans Eric Hobsbawm and Niall Ferguson
37
One talk was given by Richard Evans, historian and Regius professor of modern history at the University of
Cambridge; author, among else, of The Third Reich at War (2008) and Cosmopolitan Islanders (2009)
38
A debate on this subject brought together Timothy Garton Ash and Slawomir Sierakowski, editor of a leftwing
publication in Poland.
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UK devolution process42 and China.43 Other topics addressed by previous Hay
festivals or the Hay festival in Spain include East/West relations, intercultural
dialogue, European feminism, the public/private divide, Russia, community conflicts,
New Labour, nationalism, the Middle East, religion, ethics and science, poverty,
migration, the Spanish Civil War, Islam, political corruption, Iran, USA/Obama and
security policy. Indeed in many respects the Hay Festival has grown into a large
conference—or, according to the New York Times a cross between a conference and
a country fete—prompting Florence to admit that ‗It gets easier to do the
international conference bit every year as we reach 75,000 visitors, and harder to do
the country fair thing that our guests so enjoy‘.
Third, reading through the biographies of the authors and academics attracted to Hay,
it becomes obvious that the overwhelming majority are political individuals both in
and through their writings and their other activities. The authors who are authors in
the ‗pure‘ or ‗pristine‘ sense, i.e. in that they are committed in nothing else but their
writing which, in turn, is merely personal, are the exception. The fact that the most
common first or second profession of participants is journalism or literary criticism is
another indication of the politicization of writing and literature festivals like Hay.
According to Mark Sands, managing director of The Guardian and eponymous
sponsor of the festival, it is all this that makes the festival ‗agenda-setting both with
regard to politics and the arts during the time it takes place‘.44
Europe and the Hay Festival
Europe is not absent from the Hay Festival, but it is also not at centre stage. The Hay
Festival which began as a community festival has grown first into a national and then
into an international festival but it essentially remains an English-language festival,
attracting mostly authors writing in English and altogether very few authors in
translation. A second reason for the comparative insularity of the Hay Festival to
European subjects is the breadth of the English-language literature scene in
conjunction with the size of its publishing sector. Obviously many of the themes
addressed at Hay are also relevant for Europe and as such European as well; but their
European dimension is not agenda-setting in terms of politics or society. This is also
shown by the dearth of public intellectuals who would primarily be identified as
European public figures rather than French, British, German or American ones.
This said there are signs that the Hay Festival might be growing more Europeanized
by reason of the interest it is slowly gaining on the international stage, and thus, also
in Europe. Mark Sands, the managing director of The Guardian admits that Europe
has not been ‗important‘ or even relevant for a newspaper like his until recently; but
that it is more so now—and the trend is upstream—because of technological change
in conjunction with declining financial returns. In the new digital world, newspapers
39
Talk was given by (Baron) Tony Giddens, sociologist and social theorist, formerly at Cambridge and LSE. His
most recent book which was also presented at Hay was The Politics of Climate Change (2009). There was also a
series of debates organized in collaboration with Unesco under the ‗Greenprint‘ festival component.
40
Discussion around a book recently published by LSE professor Richard Layard entitled ‗A Good Childhood‘
41
Introduced by a book of former Guardian sport journalist Engel on British railways, entitled ‘11 Minutes Late‘
42
Discussion between Radio 4‘s James Naughtie and the Welsh broadcaster and writer Patrick Hannan
43
Discussion between BBC anchor Nik Gowing and academic and journalist Martin Jacques.
44
Interview with Mark Sands of The Guardian, April 7, 2009; by phone
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like The Guardian no longer define their readership in ‗national‘ terms, but more and
more trans-nationally.45 The European readership of The Guardian is growing, and
this is also expected to have spill-over effects for the Hay Festival, not least because
the sponsorship of events such as Hay contributes to the newspaper‘s visibility and
publicity also within Europe, and in turn, its European outreach.46 This is happening
in a way similar to the appropriation of the festival by international organizations like
UNESCO, which sponsors a series of lectures on environmental topics.
Europeanization is also occurring indirectly through the partner festivals of the Hay
Festival in Spain and, as of lately, Lebanon. The Hay Alhambra and Segovia
Festivals are more diverse with respect to their invitees, who usually tend to come
from the Spanish and French linguistic areas besides the English literary scene—and
are therefore also more representative of European neighbouring countries in North
Africa and, in the case of Lebanon, the Middle East. Exchanges are also promoted
with the International Literature Festival Berlin and the Mantua Literature Festival
within the framework of the ‗Scrittura Giovani‘ programme, supported by the
European Culture Programme. These are, however, limited to young authors and are
overall constrained by the programme‘s low budget.
2.6
The role of the media
The role of the media for the Hay Festival has been alluded to in various places of
this chapter—an indication of their cross-cutting significance.
The media are, of course, a compound category; in the case of the Hay Festival they
cover (1) print media and, in particular, national quality newspapers, (2) audio-visual
media and specifically national TV or radio shows with a focus on the arts, and (3)
specialist publications, i.e. literary journals. All three media types are represented at
Hay in one or several of the following ways: (i) through sponsoring (as in the case of
The Guardian or Sky Arts), (ii) through journalists participating in literary events as
presenters or interlocutors, (iii) in representative positions in the festival‘s vicepresidents‘, advisory or patron boards, (iv) through writers also working as
journalists or literary critics, and finally (v) in thematic discussions, as in discussions
on the European media coverage of the Middle East (such as in Alhambra in 2008).
The strong media presence at the Hay Festival probably also explains the relative
dominance of non-fiction publications and the growing emphasis on discussions with
political and social contents. In this, the Hay Festival represents more a public sphere
in Habermas‘s (1990) original sense of the literary public sphere giving rise to a
political public sphere than is obvious at first sight in view of the Festival‘s popular
and festive touch.
The gradual transformation of the Hay Festival into a large-scale conference
addressing all types of contemporary issues, however, also raises fears that this may
happen at the expense of literature, i.e. fiction and poetry. It is also true that the
45
This is turning out to be an important survival strategy for high-quality newspapers like also ‗The New York
Times‘ – see Starr (2009)
46
Interview with Mark Sands of ‚The Guardian‗, op. cit
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national press (and its feuilletons) is over-represented as compared with smaller
specialized literary journals.47 Horatio Clare, for instance, worries that the expansion
of the literary public sphere which is partly being achieved through the strong
presence of the national media, is leading to a contraction of the sphere of literary
criticism. In turn, this means that there are fewer and fewer real intermediaries, i.e.
persons with a knowledge of literature, to whom publishers can turn to for opinion
formation regarding new books.48 Similar fears are expressed by Epstein (2010), who
fears for the fate of quality journalism and literature in the face of technological
developments and the Internet.
2.7
The Hay Festival audience
Much of the cultural sociological literature on festivals focuses on programme design
and organizational analysis and does not directly look at the audience. The present
study is no exception as it was not possible to organize an audience survey or group
discussion. Instead, we have relied on ethnographic fieldwork observation of
different events, an analysis of the programmes and the impressions of authors and
other observers.
The Hay Festival attracts a large and diverse audience, predominantly middle and
upper-middle class with university education. According to Horatio Clare, 49 who
spent many years observing and reporting on Hay as journalist prior to joining it as
an author, Hay is a border city and as such well-located to attract the middle classes
from London. ‗Hay‘s is a high-brow crowd,‘ he says. Still, this high-brow crowd is
differentiated according to preferences besides age and gender. This is best
exemplified in the characteristics of the audience attending different events. Thus
while the events featuring science discussions are more likely to be frequented by
men, poetry events but also events on religion and spirituality or events on family
and social policy are more likely to be attended by women. 50 These features comply
with those reported by publishers, who also think in terms of segmented audiences
for publicity and public relations.
At Hay, we can also observe a certain geographical bias—the busiest days are
weekends, because these are the days off for families with children (considering that
the festival has an extensive children‘s programme) but also because these are the
days when the Londoners hit the town. It is also for this reason that the programme
packs many of the events dealing with current affairs, but also the comedy and music
shows, into the weekend. By contrast, the weekdays are easier-going with more on
offer for the retired crowd:
Derek Draper [psychotherapist and spin-doctor] arrived in Hay yesterday
night—and with it being Tuesday, a good deal of the weekend‘s London
types had gone home. I asked the couple next to me why they‘d come to
47
This was established by a content analysis of the biographies of a sample of participants at the Hay Festival at
Hay-on-Wye and Alhambra in 2008 and 2009.
48
Interview with Horatio Clare, October 2, 2009.
49
Interview with Horatio Clare, October 2, 2009.
50
Fieldwork observation Hay Winter Weekend 2008 & Hay Festival May 2009
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Draper‘s event: ‗Because it says in the programme that it‘s all about the
secret of happiness,‘ said one of them. ‗We‘ve never heard of him.‘51
The Londoners—or the ‗chattering classes‘ according to a biologist and popular
writer on evolution—like to come to Hay on the weekend, leading to a ‗surfeit of
bookishness‘.52 They come here to the likes of Reza Aslan and Tony Giddens, who in
turn report the following about their experiences with the audience:
I love addressing a British audience. My last trip to Hay was in 2006,
when I was here to talk about ‗No god but God‘. That book was about
what I call the Islamic Reformation, which has been taking place in the
Muslim world for the last century. I remember I got about five minutes
into my lecture when people began shouting out questions to me. I loved
it. (…) As expected, the audience response was intelligent and
sophisticated. There was none of the ‗Islam is evil and violent, so why
bother?‘ attitude, which I tend to get a lot in some American audiences.53
At the Hay festival to debate my new book, Over to You, Mr Brown. I got
a very lively—and in some part hostile—reception from the audience
(…) I like to counteract people‘s usual stereotypes of sociologists, so I
wore a suit and tie—just about the only person there to do so, as far as I
could see. I took some care where I placed my feet, but still came back
pretty mud-stained. I would have done better to have worn jeans and
gumboots, like many of the old hands at the event did. (…) Old hands—
the audiences at Hay are mostly on the mature side, or at least they were
in my session (…) What the audience didn‘t ask about was as interesting
as what they did. (…) no one seems much interested in the economy any
more. The vast bulk of the questions and worries centred upon the public
services. (…) Those expressing such views did so with such certitude
that I doubt if anything I said in response made much impact. It made no
difference to say that reputable and independent statistics show large
improvements in almost all areas of health-care and education—albeit
with many problems remaining.54
The sophistication of the audience was also witnessed during the present study. At a
presentation by Simon Blackburn (British philosopher, University of Cambridge) on
Hume and the question as to whether there is God, the well-known philosopher was
confronted with questions about Kant, Hume as a naturalist philosopher, Descartes
and solipsism and religion as an ideological system. Similarly, Martin Rees
(astrophysicist, University of Cambridge), speaking about extra-terrestrial life, was
51
Hay Guardian Blog 2009 by John Harris entitled ‗Derek Draper: Excitable, Not Evil‘ (May 27, 2009)
From a report on interviews with Hay attendees written by Jon Henley and published in the special edition of
‗The Guardian‘ on Hay May 26, 2009 – entitled ‗Welcome to our Yurt‘. The yurt is the tent put up by the festival
organizers for hosting interviews with authors; the other ‗special place‘ is the Green Room which writers use for
relaxation prior to their talks or performances.
53
Reza Aslan contributing a blog to the internet edition of The Guardian, May 30, 2009 entitled ‗How we can
win against Al-Qaida‘.
54
Tony Giddens from a blog he contributed to the internet edition of The Guardian, June 1, 2007, entitled
‗Treading Carefully‘. Giddens is a regular at Hay. In 2009 he talked about climate change in the framework of the
Unesco-sponsored ‗Earth, Fire, Wind and Water‘ debates.
52
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asked to discuss the big-bang theory, black holes and nuclear fusion, but also the
likelihood of bleak scenarios for humanity‘s future and the place of spirituality in a
scientist‘s life. As Steve Fuller pointed out:
The audience is more diverse and their standards of judgement are also
more diverse [as compared to an academic conference audience]. So
having the best argument but delivering it in a boring or mean-spirited
fashion will not wash with the audience. It‘s also clear that the bounds of
the acceptable are broader—e.g. greater tolerance for New Age thinking
but also greater expectation that people called ‗philosophers‘ will have
something interesting to say about ‗the meaning of life.‘55
What the Hay Festival audience expects is more than knowledge or a tip for a good
book. They are as interested in gaining an insight into existential questions—in
particular the interface between the personal and the social or political—as they are
in entertainment. It is also for this reason that from the outset the festival was keen to
promote ‗social events‘ such as musical performances and stand-up comedy. In the
meantime, these events make up around 16 per cent of the programme. 56 Telling is
also the way in which humour is valued in lecturers and presenters. The most popular
speakers (measured in terms of audience attendance) are those who are able to get
their messages across in both simple and witty language with examples and selfirony or are willing to disclose something personal about themselves and their
relations to the subject under study. It is all this that creates the cliché experience
often associated with festivals more generally of ‗having to be there.‘ If and when an
author manages to convey this feeling, then the audience will be nice, even if not
agreeing with the contents of the presentation. Reporting on the presentation of John
Prescott‘s memoirs (Deputy Prime Minister under Blair), John Harris, writing for the
internet blog of The Guardian57 had this to say:
Still, the audience, at least some of whom must have come expecting the
Prezza of newspaper legend, gave him a final round of applause the
warmth of which may have surprised even him. Perhaps as the cliché
goes, you had to be there.
This festival experience is equally important for authors as it signifies a ‗connection‘
with the audience and is experienced as energizing. According to Ben Crystal,58 it is
also different from the interaction between author and audience observed in book
fairs or readings at bookshops. According to Mark Sands,59 that such a form of
interaction known to take place at sports events or at musical concerts would also
materialize in literature festivals is not terribly obvious, yet it does happen and
explains in part the growing popularity of literature festivals like the Hay Festival.
55
Interview with Steve Fuller by email August 7, 2009
Own classification and analysis of events based on programme.
57
‗Not What I Expected‘, John Harris writing for the Guardian blog, May 31, 2008
58
Interview with author and actor Ben Crystal, op. cit.
59
Interview with Mark Sands of ‗The Guardian‘, op. cit
56
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2.8
Conclusions
This chapter has looked at the development of the Hay Literature Festival, its
organization and finances, the role of its directors and networking structures, its
representation of and for literature, attitude to politics, the role of the media as well
as the characteristics and reactions of its audience.
The Hay Festival has undergone a tremendous expansion over the last twenty years
and especially during the last decade. Not only has it grown in terms of the size of its
audiences; but also with respect to the scope of its programme and the breadth of its
offer in terms of authors and subject matter. This is a festival which is academic and
entertaining, festive and serious, agenda-setting and fun—popular and still highbrow, civilized yet provocative. It is this hybrid, yet authentic, spirit that makes the
Hay Festival a likely candidate to become an iconic festival in the field of literature.
It owes this to its founders‘ vision as much as to the disciplined organization of its
management and its close links to the media and, especially, critical journalism. If
we accept Williams‘ (1961) axiom in The Long Revolution that the process of
communication is a process of community-building, then the type of communication
and exchange promoted at Hay is as interesting for social and political theorists as it
will remain for lovers of literature.
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3
The International Literature Festival Berlin: The Story of the Comma Gone
International
Liana Giorgi
The comma is the logo of the International Literature Festival Berlin or the ilb – the
acronym written in lower case to avoid a mix-up with the acronym of the Bank of the
State of Brandenburg. The Berlin Literature Festival came to life in 2001 when
Ulrich Schreiber, its founder and director, managed to obtain a grant from the
German Lottery Foundation with the support of the capital city‘s public
administration in charge of cultural affairs. Today, the festival forms part of the
Berliner Festspiele, which extend throughout the year comprising several arts events,
and are symbolic of Berlin‘s growth into a cultural metropolis of international
standing. This chapter takes a close look at the organization of the Berlin Literature
Festival as well as its artistic and political messages.
3.1
Organization and finances
The International Literature Festival Berlin is an example of a festival funded mainly
through subsidies. Around 73 percent of the festival budget derives from public
money administered locally or nationally. In 2006, for instance, the festival had
revenues of 615,000 Euro of which 350,000 came from the Berlin Capital Cultural
Fund (Kulturfonds Berlin) and another 100,000 from various federal ministries
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture and the
Media). Private sponsorship by banks, political foundations,60 embassies or cultural
associations61 just about made the 100,000 Euro mark accounting for another 15
percent. The remaining 12 percent corresponded to revenues from ticket sales,
attendance ranging at an average of 30,000.62 The patronage of the festival by the
German UNESCO Committee has been instrumental in legitimizing the festival visà-vis its various public and private sponsors.63
The revenue breakdown for the year 2006 is typical of the ilb since 2004 when the
Capital Cultural Fund assumed main responsibility for the festival‘s financial
support.64 What has varied from year to year is the share of revenues from the smaller
60
In 2008, for instance, the Böll Foundation contributed 11,000 Euro to the ‗Africa‘ focus and the Dessau
Foundation another 5.000 Euro
61
In 2008, for instance, the French embassy paid 3000 Euro to ilb for covering the travel expenses of French
participants with the French cultural institute contributing another 6,000 Euro for the same purpose. The same
year the U.S. embassy sponsored the festival with 13,000 Euro. Other embassies tend to pay lesser sums and
earmark their contributions more carefully. Thus the Norwegian embassy prefers to pay the flights directly (and
covered three participants in 2008).
62
Information based on financial statements at the ilb archive (visited in November 2008) and interviews with
Ulrich Schreiber, ilb founder and director and Siegfried Langbehn of the Kulturfonds Berlin. Both interviews
were conducted on November 11, 2008.
63
UNESCO contributes very little financially to the festival, namely 2.500 Euro. Source: ilb archives and
interview with Christine Merkel, November 18, 2008.
64
In 2002 the festival was funded jointly by the Capital Cultural Foundation (Kulturfonds Berlin) and the Federal
Cultural Foundation (Stiftung Kulturfonds) with 310,000 Euro; in 2003 the financing was covered alone by the
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funders, especially the various federal ministries. Thus, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs figures more prominently as a sponsor when the ‗country focus‘ of the
festival in outside Europe (as when Africa was the focus in 2008 and Arabic
literature in 2009).65
A few changes are expected over the next couple of years as the ilb becomes fully
integrated into the Berliner Festspiele. But insofar as the Berliner Festspiele are also
an offspring of German cultural policy and dependent on federal funds (administered
through and for the city of Berlin), not much will change in terms of the substantive
form of financing for the ilb. The changes to come are likely to be more
organizational in nature: up to now, the festival has relied on low-cost occasional
employments and voluntary work; in the future it will be able to count on
professional inputs, something that is considered especially important for logistics,66
publicity and public relations.67
When the festival was first launched it was criticized by the German press68 as
amateurish—with infrastructure and logistics not always working and schedules not
kept. At the same time, this dilettante character was judged charming by the inner
circle of festival friends and supporters69 and appreciated by the festival director
Ulrich Schreiber.70 Still, organizational issues were recognized as important in terms
of attracting and keeping an audience. Already in its second year, the festival took on
a deputy director in Miriam Moellers, who was hired to run the ‗Children and Youth
Literature‘ component of the festival and had organizational talents.71 The process of
integrating the ilb into the Berliner Festspiele was instigated in 2005.
The integration of the ilb into the Berliner Festspiele was not intended from the
outset but occurred naturally. Indeed, the success of the ilb has a lot to do with the
Stiftung Kulturfonds with 375.000 Euro. Source: Interview with Siegfried Langbehn of the Kulturfonds Berlin,
November 11, 2008
65
Source: Interview with W. Kern of the German Foreign Office, April 22, 2009. According to budget figures
available at the ilb archive, in 2008 the Foreign Affairs ministry paid 80.000 Euro for the ‗Africa‘ focus of the
festival, the year before, 2007, 43.000 Euro for ‗Latin America‘.
66
Interview with J. Sartorius, director of the Berliner Festspiele, April 2009: ‗And somehow the charm of Mr.
Schreiber‘s festival in the early years was in fact not being very professional and being (…) chaotic. And the first
years he moved a little bit like a nomad throughout the city (…) So after these years of nomadic existence he
came under our roof (…) And – I think he, well I think his advantages are – I would say more professionality,
perhaps more visibility, because we have a huge marketing and PR machinery (…) And we have a big theatre
with 1000 seats and a small theatre (…) Then we have rather huge foyers (…) And then we have also a huge
entrance hall. So it‘s, so in fact you have here at this house about 5 different locations or levels where you can
play …‘
67
Interview with M. Moellers, director of the ‗Children and Youth Literature‗ component of the ilb festival till
2008. The interview was conducted on April 2, 2009.
68
For instance Gregor Dotzdauer writing for ‗Der Tagesspiegel‘ and Gisela Sonnenburg writing for ‗Neues
Deutschland‘ in 2001.
69
Interview with B. Wahlster of Deutschland Radio Kultur, April 2, 2009; Interview with J. Sartorius, also April
2009.
70
Thus in an interview given in 2002 to ‗Berlin Magazine‘ Schreiber pointed to the way he personally thought it
was not so important to keep a tight time schedule.
71
Miriam Moellers resigned in 2008 after running the Children and Youth programme for seven years. The main
reason was the continuing absence of a solid organizational basis for the ilb. She resented especially having to
work year in year out with only low-skill volunteers, also for tasks such as media relations. She however also
pointed out that this was also a matter of preferences and differences in personality structure (Interview with M.
Moellers, April 2, 2009).
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fact that it takes place in Berlin—a decision originally made by chance as that was
the city in which Schreiber was living. There is very much that speaks in favour of
Berlin as the site of an international literature festival. First, it is perhaps the ideal
place to launch a cultural activity based on public funding. Germany like other
Central European countries and unlike the U.S. and the United Kingdom displays
generous funding for cultural activities and this is especially true of Berlin as the new
capital of a unified Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Indeed, much of
the funds that are administered by cultural funds or foundations in Berlin come from
a special budget line of the federal budget dedicated to promoting the physical and
cultural re-invention of Berlin as a cultural capital of Europe. Second, as far as
literature is concerned, Berlin displays a host of literary associations and
organizations, yet did not have a literature festival till 2001. The many literary
associations are also attractive poles for local and international writers, who,
additionally, can obtain financial support for their stay from the many exchange
programmes operating nationally or locally. Finally, as a capital and an international
city with a long history of cultural exchange, Berlin is home to a significant foreign
population which delineates a niche audience for international literature. This is also
true of the ‗Children and Youth Literature‘ programme of the festival which is
especially successful because it works both with German- and foreign-language
schools and with English classes.72
3.2
The ilb founder and director Ulrich Schreiber – an architect of multilingualism
Ulrich Schreiber was trained as an architect and also practised this profession for a
while. But he had always had a foible for festivals and in the 1970s he embarked on
organizing cultural events such as on the Austrian writer and social critic Thomas
Bernhardt or the film-maker and journalist Pier Paolo Passolini. In 2001, he moved
to Berlin and founded the Peter Weiss Foundation as a platform for mobilizing
opposition to oppressive regimes at an international level and also as an institutional
framework for organizing the International Literature Festival Berlin. Peter Weiss
was chosen as the eponym of the foundation by reason of his biography (as a Jewish
émigré to London and then to Sweden in the 1930s) and his vocation (as a writer and
dramatist).
The people we talked to in the course of the present study described Schreiber as
persevering,73 ‗an architect of multilingualism,74‘ a man with a broad vision, a festival
junkie, a man of action,75 and a persuasion culprit.76 The ilb is ‗his‘ festival and as
72
The success of the children and youth component of the festival also explains its timing in early September.
According to Moellers, Schreiber would have liked to have the festival taking place in June (when it is also
warmer). Two things speak against this however: one is that a poetry festival takes place in June and this could
potentially represent competition (for a partly overlapping audience). By far the more important reason is that
schools have examination time or are already closed in June, which means that the events organized at schools
would no longer be possible. As the KJL accounts for one third of ticket sales at the ilb, this would be
unsustainable. On this, see also the discussion under the section entitled ‗networking‘.
73
Interview with S. Langbehn of the Kulturfonds Berlin, November 11, 2008.
74
Media reports on ilb 2003
75
For all: Interview with M. Moellers, April 2, 2009.
76
Interview with C. Merkel, November 18, 2008.
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such bears his mark.77 This applies to its original and still partly chaotic character as
it does to its vision of internationalizing the literature scene of Berlin and Germany
more generally.
Schreiber‘s vision of the ilb is that of a stage for the literatures of the world. This is
broader than ‗world literature‘ as used by Goethe to refer to canon literature and
includes the ‗diverse styles, colours and forms‘ of worldwide literary production.78
Thus even though literary quality constitutes the most important criterion for the
selection of artists and that which Schreiber prescribes his advisory board,79 it is not
the sole one. A second principle is that of looking beyond one‘s boundaries and a
third that of giving a voice to literary figures who are not only writers in the strict
sense of the term but also political activists or, more broadly, persons with political
or social commitment. This is also how the ilb has earned its reputation of the most
political of all contemporary literary festivals.
3.3
Networking structures
According to Miriam Moellers, deputy director of the ilb till 2008, running a festival
implies having a good network of contacts and acquaintances among writers and
literary intermediaries. Given that the ilb has different sections, this, in turn, means
maintaining connections with different types of literary organizations. The following
are the networks on which the ilb relies on a regular basis:
Berlin as a network city: Why Berlin? As outlined already in the first section of this
chapter, Berlin was the ideal location for establishing an international arts festival by
reason of its reputation as a cultural capital and its high density of funding agencies
and literary organizations. Berlin is also the seat of several cultural organizations for
different language communities, writers‘ associations as well as exchange services
such as the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Institute for
Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin). Finally, as a capital city, Berlin is
the seat of the various foreign embassies, which regularly sponsor the festival by
covering the travel and subsistence expenses of international speakers.
International professional networks: these include organizations such as the
International PEN Club, which also organizes the World Voices Festival in New
York, the Bologna Book Fair, one of the most important international literary events
for children and youth literature, the International Board on Books for Young People
(IBBY) located in Basel in Switzerland as well as other literature festivals such as
the Hay Festival in the UK, the Mantua and Bari Festivals in Italy and the Hamburg
77
Interviews with J. Sartorius and B. Wahlster, April 2009.
Interview with U. Schreiber, November 11, 2008.
79
The festival has a set of 9 curators for its ‗world literatures‘ section – these rotate in part every year. The
children and youth programme relies on more informal advice through collaborators at schools and educational
establishments.
78
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festival in Germany.80 UNESCO has also been instrumental in linking the ilb with
writers‘ and translators‘ organizations in different countries.
Local cooperation partners: this category includes local schools and libraries
(German or foreign-language) with which the ilb regularly cooperates to realize its
children and youth programme. Young people account for around one third of the ilb
audience and its revenues. Most KJL events take place at school or public libraries
during school time and this also explains why the festival takes place at the
beginning of the school year in September. School partners of the KJL pay an annual
fee to the festival and get the opportunity to make recommendations as to invitees in
addition to hosting events.
In addition to the above formal networks, the festival director relies on a set of
friends and advisers—usually authors from different countries who are
knowledgeable about literature in different countries and can therefore make
recommendations about whom to invite.
3.4
A stage for literature and the world
The International Literature Festival Berlin understands itself as a high-brow event
dedicated to literature and the world. Every year it brings together between 100 and
200 international authors and a team of well-known translators and actors to stage
readings and discussions of their work. The underlying idea is that of ‗building
bridges between words and the world‘, as Schreiber wrote in his welcome editorial to
accompany the first printed programme of the festival in 2001:
Look what is coming together here in Berlin! So many minds and
authors, so many continents, regions, languages, traditions and
temperaments. We will be building many bridges between words and the
world in the coming days: we will travel to the New York of 1990, to
Bombay, to South Africa and to Apartheid; we will observe fishermen in
the Philippines, those who behold themselves and others (…) memories
of a Berlin past, writings on writing, letters that were never sent, writers
in Toronto, Goethe and Kleist discussing literature (…)81
The twin themes of diversity and border-crossing are the fundamentals of this
festival and are best encapsulated in its section ‗Literatures of the world‘. Presenting
new ‗national‘ literatures is as important as opening up to experimental or fusion
styles used by different genres or authors‘ communities. Poetry is idealized as a
defence against the leveling off trends operating within a globalized environment and
fiction is presented as that which ‗invents what the world lacks, what the world has
forgotten, what it hopes to attain and perhaps can never reach‘—all in the spirit of
Cervantes‘ Don Quixote, as eloquently presented by Carlos Fuentes in his opening
80
The Hamburg ‗HarbourFront‘ Festival was launched in 2009 with private sponsoring money from the KlausMichal Kühne Foundation. At first there was some concern that the festival might represent competition for the
ilb given that the two festivals take place at the same time. In the meantime an arrangement seems to have been
found whereby the two festivals cooperate by sharing in part literary resources (i.e. invitees).
81
ILB Programme 2001, editorial by U. Schreiber
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speech82 to the festival in 2005 entitled ‗In Praise of the Novel‘. In a similar vein
three years later, Nancy Huston pleaded for literary lies rather than nationalist myths:
Whence the value of literature – which instead of presenting itself as
truth, like the millions of other fictions which surround, invade and
define us, lays its cards on the table. I am a fiction, it tells us. Love me
for what I am. Use me to feel your freedom, push back your limits,
discover and awaken your own creativity. Follow the twists and turns of
my characters and make them your own; allow them to enlarge your
universe. Dream me, dream with me, never forget to dream.83
The festival presents mainly fiction (and poetry) in the form of readings followed by
discussion with authors. It lays emphasis on both language as a medium of literature
and on oral readings. Accordingly, the readings are first held in the original language
(often by the author) followed by readings in translation (often by the translator or an
actor). A discussion with the author and the translator follows—either in
simultaneous translation into German or in delayed translation with the help of the
translator. The format of the ilb presentations is thus somewhat laborious, demanding
attention and tolerance from its audience, as signs of commitment to Literature (with
a capital L). Similar formats, albeit adapted, are followed by the children‘s and youth
programme which also comprises workshops with graphic designers; whereas in the
debate forums precedence is given to roundtable discussions in English or in
German.
Authors attending the ilb are not necessarily prominent in German translation; but
several of them are well-known in their own countries. Moreover, even though the
festival does cover a remarkable number of countries around the globe, a closer
observation shows that a significant number are dual citizens, many coming from
major emigration such as the UK, USA, France and Spain (and their literary
metropolises). Hence: of the 62 UK authors invited to the ilb between 2001 and
2009, 29 had a migration or mixed ethnic background; the same was true of 50 out of
111 US authors, 52 out of 82 French authors and 33 out of 220 German authors84—a
finding that raises questions of representation, an issue addressed by Shashi Tharoor
in his opening speech in 2003 entitled ‗Globalization and the Human Imagination‘. It
is also for this reason that more recent festival editions have turned their attention to
82
The opening speech which is the highlight of the ilb is often used to celebrate literature – in and for itself or
with a political message. In 2001 Charles Simic spoke up for literature as a utopia, but a better one than those
within political ideologies. In different variations this was also the message of Dzevad Karahasan speaking about
literature as the defense of history in 2002; Shashi Tharoor talking about the dangers of globalization in 2003;
Carlos Fuentes praising the novel in 2005; David Grossman distinguishing between mass language and individual
language in 2007; and Nancy Huston defending literary lies in 2008. The 2009 opening speech by Arundhati Roy
was more explicit political on a critique of democracy and similarly, in 2004, Antje Krog talked more directly on
the process of reconciliation going on in post-Apartheid South Africa. In 2006 Eduart Glissant remained more
firmly within literary ground and spoke about difference.
83
Opening Speech by Nancy Huston, 2008, ‗Why Literary Lies are Better than Other Lies‘
84
Based on a systematic analysis of the biographies of authors attending the festival between 2001 and 2009.
Furthermore, the analysis shows that the main countries of origins of authors living in the UK are Pakistan, India,
China and Europe; for those in the U.S.: Europe, Asia, Latin America; whereas the majority of authors of foreign
background living in France come from Africa. Frequent countries of origin found among authors living in
Germany include Eastern Europe, Arab-speaking countries and Turkey.
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those parts of the world with a smaller literature field and less well- known, namely,
Africa and the Arab world.
Migration, modern travel and political developments—but also globalization in the
more commercial and professional sense—are giving rise to a new generation of
multi-ethnic, multi-national, multi-religious, multi-disciplinary and cosmopolitan
writers and their audiences. In former times, writers working in countries other than
their own tended to be living in exile—self-imposed or effected by necessity. This
writer profile still exists, but is now complemented by others, mainly two: that of the
writer with roots in more than one country as a result of inter-community marriage,
education or choice; and that of the writer who likes experimenting with different
styles or genres from within one or several cultures. Some examples from authors‘
biographies will suffice to illustrate this point:
Mario Ramos (ilb, 2004) – was born in 1958 as the son of a Belgian and a
Portuguese in Belgium (…) after his studies he travelled around Europe and
worked as cartoonist, graphic designer and poster artist prior to deciding to
turn to illustrations and children‘s books
Peter Carey (ilb, 2004) – was born in Bacchus Marsh (Victoria, Australia) in
1943 (…) He began to study natural sciences but dropped his studies because
of writing. He has been earning his living writing text for advertisements in
Melbourne, London and Europe (…) He then returned to Australia to
establish his own advertising company; since 1990 he lives in New York.
Nadine Gordimer (ilb, 2001, 2009) was born in a small gold mine city in
South Africa. Her parents were Jewish immigrants, her mother from England,
her father from Latvia
Dalia Taha (ilb 2009) was born in Berlin but grew up in Ramallah where she
also studied architecture
Sinan Antoon (ilb 2009) is a poet, novelist and translator; he was born in
Bagdad to an Iraqi father and an American mother. He studied literature in
Iraq, then migrated to the U.S.
Vikram Seth (ilb 2006) was born in Calcutta and grew up in India and
London. His mother was the first woman judge in a constitutional court in
India. He studied in Oxford and then at Standford
Jorie Graham (ilb 2007) was born in New York City; her father was a
journalist, her mother a sculptor. She grew up in Italy but attended the French
school
Kazuo Ishiguro (ilb 2005) was born in Nagasaki but grew up in England
where his father worked at the National Institute of Oceanography. He
studied in Surrey, then worked in hunting for the Queen. He tried to become a
rock musician, worked as a social worker with the homeless in London and
Scotland and studied English and Philosophy in Kent.
Ilija Trojanow (ilb 2008) was born in Sofia, Bulgaria from where he fled as a
young boy first to Italy, then to Germany and then to Nairobi, Kenya where
he grew up.
Aris Fiorettos (ilb 2003) was born and raised in Sweden as the son of GreekAustrian parents. He studied in Stockholm, Paris and Yale
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Bessora (ilb 2002) was born in Belgium. Her father comes from Gabun, her
mother from Switzerland. She grew up in Africa, Europe and the U.S.85
The demographic and biographical dynamics reflected in the above authors‘ life
stories are not specific to them alone; they are indicative of more general trends
within modern societies concerning mobility and migration. To this, globalization
must be added. This is how Shashi Tharoor put it in his opening speech in 2003:
Our major news stories reek of globalization. Take, for instance, an item
circulating on the Internet about the death of Princess Diana. An English
princess with a Welsh title leaves a French hotel with her Egyptian
companion, who has supplanted a Pakistani; she is driven in a German
care with a Dutch engine by a Belgian chauffeur full of Scottish whisky;
they are chased by Italian paparazzi on Japanese motorcycles into a
Swiss-built tunnel and crash; a rescue is attempted by an American
doctor using Brazilian medicines; and the story is now being told to you
by an Indian visiting Berlin. There‘s globalization.
Contemporary societies are inter-connected in various ways. This is already
impacting on peoples‘ perceptions of events, but also on the way stories are
experienced and told, whether in the media or in novels. It is this new ‗international‘
literature that the ilb is increasingly coming to represent.
3.5
Politics after the comma
At the time of writing this chapter, the ilb organizers sent out an appeal for a
worldwide reading on June 4, 2010 to commemorate the Tiananmen Square
massacre in 1989. The reading included works by the Chinese author Liao Yiwu,
whose stories may not be published in China and who was prevented from attending
the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair (and possibly also the 2010 edition of the ilb).
The coordination of such readings remains the core activity of the Peter Weiss
Foundation, which served as the organizational seat of the festival during its first
years, and is indicative of the political character of the International Literature
Festival Berlin. Ulrich Schreiber is political in the tradition of the 1968 generation
like friends who joined him on the board of the Peter Weiss Foundation, namely:
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, George Tabori, Marcea Dinescu, Ignatz Bubis and Pierre
Bourdieu. He also considers literature as having a political function—directly
through its practitioners and indirectly through the messages it transmits. Literature
is a special and effective instrument for ‗enlarging and deepening one‘s emotional
and spiritual horizon‘, hence also for dispelling prejudices vis-à-vis the other and for
combating racism and xenophobia. Authors‘ politics or rather their political
commitment is also, in his view, absolutely acceptable as a selection criterion besides
literary quality.86
85
Extracted from the authors‗ biographies as presented in the annual festival programmes and on the festival‘s
website.
86
Interview with U. Schreiber, November 11, 2008
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The political character of the festival, and also its political correctness, is evident
throughout its programme, specifically as follows:
in its commitment to internationalization through its programme ‗Literatures
of the World‘ and its country focus, also understood by sponsors such as
UNESCO as upholding the European cultural responsibility not to dominate
at the expense of cultural and linguistic diversity;
in its social inclusion agenda exhibited through a strong ‗Children and Youth‘
sub-programme and the organization of readings and discussions in prisons
and public libraries;
in the political message for a reflective democracy and for political
mobilization through literature transmitted through the festival‘s opening
speeches;
in the dedication of part of the programme (Memory: Speak) to speaking
about the past—by commemorating authors of the past and by remembering
historical legacies, which in Germany carries a particular weight in view of
World War II, Nazism, but also the Communist past of the GDR;
in the organization of discussions around contemporary political topics under
the sub-programme ‗Reflections‘: themes discussed in recent years have
included 9/11, fundamentalism, the meaning of ‗Europe‘ in relation to the
EU,87 the role of the UNO, Putin‘s Russia, the Middle East, the Iraq war,88 the
war in former Yugoslavia, the war in Rwanda, the political situation in India,
China, Africa and Latin America, Italy and Berlusconi,89 migration and
racism and nationalism.
According to many of the people interviewed for this research, it is not possible to
design and implement a programme like that of ilb on a market basis, i.e. through
ticket sales and private sponsorship. This is also why the festival relies so heavily on
public subsidies. In addition, public subsidies are considered a guarantee of
independence. Both Schreiber and Sartorius (as the overall curator of the ‗Berlin
Festspiele‘) were adamant on their curatorial independence, and similarly the
sponsors‘ representatives we talked to (Berlin Kulturfonds, Foreign Office,
UNESCO) stressed that the funding was not attached to any conditions with regard to
contents. The ‗pressure‘ if any is more bureaucratic and administrative in nature:
87
A discussion on the ‗erosion‘ of Europe was organized in 2008 to address the forces of societal and political
disintegration in several European countries (extreme right wing, Berlusconi in Italy, the failure to re-think
history in Spain etc.) despite the forces of economic and political integration operating at the EU level. Otherwise
the EU as a political process and EU democracy have not been directly thematized by the festival, even though
many of its subjects are directly or indirectly relevant for the EU.
88
Examples: Weinberger is a regular at the ilb where he among others participated in discussions on the US and
presented his books What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles (2005) and his theatre piece ‗What I Heard about
Iraq‘. The 2009 ilb also featured Sinan Antoon and his debute novel I‘Jaam about life and love in Saddam
Hussein‘s Iraq.
89
Italy was a smaller country focus of the ilb in 2009 with presentations from Roberto Saviano, Rafaelle
Cantone, Paolo Giordane and Stefano Rispini performing special slam poetry on Berlusconi at the International
Slam Revue in Kreuzberg. A discussion on Sicily and the Mafia to commemorate the work of Leonardo Sciascia
brought together Amara Lakhous (an Algerian origin Italian and author of ‗Clash of Civilizations over an
Elevator in Piazza Vittorio‘), Vincenzo Consolo (author of books on Mafia) with Roman study scholars and
publicists.
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namely with regard to the types of expenditures that are considered eligible; or more
substantively, right at the beginning of the ilb, in the form of a proposal for the
festival to merge with other initiatives thus bringing about an institutional
consolidation of different literary organizations in the capital city. Bureaucratic
excess was also the main reason given for not seeking financial or aegis support from
the EU for the International Literature Festival Berlin.90
3.6
The role of the media
Like any other modern cultural event, a literature festival like the ilb would not be
able to establish itself without media partnerships. The media partners of the festival
over the last few years have included ARTE, the cultural radio station Deutschland
Radio Kultur, the weekly Der Spiegel, the UK-based The Guardian, the Times
Literary Supplement TLS, Le Monde Diplomatique, the Berliner Literaturkritik and
the Berlin dailies Die Tageszeitung and Zitty. Media partnership is not linked to any
major financial sponsorship other than the insertion of an advertisement in the
programme and has mostly to do with sending a journalist to attend one or several
events and hopefully report about them.91 Achieving media presence is thus the result
of professional press relations92 aimed at increasing the festival‘s publicity or indeed
branding. Both Miriam Moellers and Ulrich Schreiber were of the opinion that such
branding, which is to be distinguished from commercialization, makes a substantial
contribution to the festival‘s success. This also includes reacting to media criticism if
this is felt to be legitimate—as during the first year, when the German press called
for the continuation of the festival,93 albeit its professionalization.94
A longer-term festival impact by the media takes place through its participants,
considering that a significant number of authors are also active in journalism, either
as editors of literary journals or as contributors to newspapers or radio shows. Of the
90 ilb authors‘ biographies selected randomly and studied in detail for the purpose of
this research, 30 (i.e. one third) were found to be active also as journalists. They are
thus not only authors participating in festivals, but also potential multiplier effects
with respect to publicity and branding.
90
The only exception is the series ‚Scritture Giovanni‗ done in collaboration with Hay, Mantua and a literature
festival in Norway. This receives a small subsidy from the EU for the purpose of supporting the exchange among
young writers across national borders.
91
For instance, the Deutschland Radio Kultur will usually have a feature about the festival at the latter‘s outset
and at the end; and will upon occasion broadcast specials on authors or books featured on the festival. Source:
Interview with B. Wahlster, April 2, 2009.
92
This includes a detailed collection and archiving of every media report about the festival every year – in
Germany and abroad. Still, according to Miriam Moellers, the festival‘s press relations are still largely dependent
on the contacts of Ulrich Schreiber.
93
This was at the time not evident. The ilb administration had to fight to obtain funding for a second and third
year prior to assuming quasi a ‗budget line‘ within the capital‘s Cultural Fund. In order to secure funding for the
second and third year, Schreiber mobilized several German and international intellectuals to write support letters
to the Berlin mayor. This mobilization was both supported and publicized by the media and this was instrumental
for the continuation of the festival‘s funding.
94
Interview of U. Schreiber to media to ‗Berlin Magazin‘ in 2002
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The media is also thematized by the festival as such—often critically. This fits the
self-framing of the ilb as a platform for literature as opposed to mass
communication. This is a favourite topic in opening speeches and a recurrent theme
in roundtable discussions.
3.7
The ilb audience
The audience of the ilb is made up of several niche communities which are defined
by language, special interests or professional backgrounds:
Language communities: Through its regular country focus but also the concentration
on international authors, the ilb simultaneously addresses the multi-cultural
community of Berlin, which has been on the increase since 1989 and the subsequent
upgrading of Berlin to Germany‘s capital. On average, between 50 and 60 per cent of
the participants at events featuring foreign authors are from the author‘s language
community resident in Germany.
Special interests: Specific events of the ilb cater to specific cultural communities.
The International Slam Poetry Review, for instance, which is organized by Martin
Jankowski, caters to the alternative and youth culture of Berlin; Jankowski is also the
person in charge of organizing those events targeting atypical (for literature)
audiences, such as prisoners or lower status communities. These events take place
within the framework of the ilb‘s ‗social‘ programme
Professionals: Debates organized within the framework of the ilb usually bring
together authors with translators and literature intermediaries to discuss issues of
interest for contemporary writing. Within the framework of the festival‘s focus on
Arab-language literature in 2009, for instance, a few debates took place to discuss the
problems faced by writers living and working in Arab countries and the opportunities
and barriers faced by translators in the field. Another debate at the ilb in 2009 was
concerned with the role of literature prizes for assigning value and prestige; yet
another with the study of community conflicts in the region. Such workshops tend to
attract a more professional audience, made up largely of literary critics and
academics.
More generally the ilb attracts a more educated and high-brow audience; and among
these mostly women. A survey carried out among the festival participants is
illustrative in this and other ways. The results of the survey are summarized in the
following:
3.7.1
The ilb audience survey
The audience survey was conducted with the aid of volunteers working for the
festival in September 2009. A total of 12 students distributed 20-40 questionnaires at
different events and locations over the period 9-20 September 2010. The events and
locations were selected in a stratified manner to represent the different types of
events and programme activities, whereby events held at schools were not covered.
This, in turn, means that the share of very young people (i.e. less than 20) is probably
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underestimated, extending only to those attending youth activities at the ilb outside
the school programme. A total of 436 completed questionnaires were returned. The
questionnaire used for the survey can be read in the Methodological Annex of the
project‘s Inception Report (Deliverable 1.1, 2008).
Three out of four ilb participants are women. In terms of age, the festival displays a
relatively balanced distribution and the majority are Berlin residents. Table 1
displays the basic demographics of the festival. A key characteristic besides gender is
the high educational level of the participants, with 75 per cent reporting a completed
university education (first or second degrees).
Table 1. ilb demographics
Dimension
Gender
Age
Education
Residence status
Categories
Women
Men
Less than 20
20-25
26-35
36-50
51-65
University
Below secondary
Living in Berlin
Coming from abroad
Share (in %)
74
26
7
10
24
22
29
75
7
83
5
The majority of the participants (79%) attended or planned to attend more than one
festival event and about every second participant knew the festival from previous
festival editions. Participants younger than 30 are more likely to be attending the
festival for the first time: 76 per cent report being there for the first time as compared
with 42% of those aged 31-50 and 39% of those aged 51-65.
The main motivation for attending the festival is stated as ‗love of literature‘ (71%)
and the wish to hear specific authors or attend specific performances (70%).
Interestingly, the ‗international‘ branding of the festival is not a prime motivation:
only 28% state they attend the festival in order to find out about international trends.
In similar vein, only 24% appear to perceive or be aware of the festival‘s programme
as a whole, the majority cherry-picking specific events as publicized in daily
newspapers or postings. Nor are locations and social events the main attraction,
which is understandable considering that the majority of the participants are residents
of Berlin.
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Table 2. Motivation for attending ilb festival
Motivation
Share (in %)
Love of literature
Specific performances
To learn about international trends
This year‘s programme
Specific locations
To meet people
To meet prominent people
Events around festival
Just happened to be around
Total
71
70
28
24
11
12
7
6
6
436
Unsurprisingly, when asked as to their cultural and artistic preferences, a strong
majority, namely 75 percent, say that they are very interested in literature. The ilb
participants are, however, also quite interested in other cultural fields, with 63%
reporting a strong interest in film, 50% in music, 48% in theatre, 40% in the visual
arts, 23% in dance and 19% in architecture.
However, only a small minority of 18 per cent is seriously interested in five or more
artistic fields. One out of ten is in fact not very interested in anything in particular,
whereas the relative majority of 32 per cent is interested in one or two cultural fields.
A common combination of taste preferences is that between literature and theatre; 95
another that between architecture and the visual arts.96 Cinephilie is a frequent
occurrence among those with multiple cultural interests and a common three-fold
cultural interest97 is that between literature, film and theatre or literature, film and
music. By contract, interest in film does not fit in well with interest in architecture or
dance.
The questionnaire used in the survey also asked festival participants to indicate their
associations with the ilb. The results provide an interesting insight into both how the
festival is perceived and the type of audience it attracts. Table 3 displays the shares
of respondents stating ‗very‘ or ‗quite‘ relevant for the festival characterizations
listed. Table 4 shows the factor loadings of a factor analysis carried out on this
battery of items.
95
57 per cent of those stating they are very interested in literature also say they are very interested in theatre.
78 per cent of those stating they are very interested in architecture are also very interested in the visual arts.
97
22 per cent display this cultural orientation.
96
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Table 3. Associations with the International Literature Festival Berlin
The ilb is …
Share (in %)
A way to fulfil specific cultural & educational goals
93
An opportunity to learn about literature in other countries
92
An expression of multiculturalism
87
A way to promote literature
76
An opportunity for experimentation
79
An internationally renown festival
68
The means to promote specific artists
66
An expression of cosmopolitan culture
62
An expression of liberal ideas
62
A festival for all Berlin citizens
53
Means to make a political statement
40
Good for tourism
48
An expression of consumerist culture
14
The means for some people to make money
6
N
436
Table 4. Factor analysis … on associations with ilb festival
Factor items
Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4
Learning about literature in other countries
0.722
Opportunity for experimentation
0.700
Fulfil specific cultural & educational goals
0.694
Expression of multiculturalism
0.573
Expression of cosmopolitanism
0.425
0.461
Expression of liberal ideas
0.531
Means for some people to make money
0.497
Means to promote specific artists
0.641
Means to make a political statement
0.575
Internationally renown festival
0.683
Good for tourism
0.806
Means to promote literature
0.742
A festival for all Berlin citizens
0.457
Note: Total variance explained 52%; factor 1 explains 22% of variance, factor 2 13%. The factor
analysis was done with principal components analysis and following varimax rotation
The factor analysis suggests that there are four ‗opinion frames‘ associated with the
International Literature Festival in Berlin:
The first links the festival to multiculturalism, high-brow cultural and
educational goals, learning about literature in foreign countries,
experimentation and cosmopolitanism
The second is more wordly but also more cynical: the festival is linked to
politics and to liberal ideas, but it is also viewed as a means of promoting
specific artists and making money
The third frame sees the ilb principally as an international cultural event that
is good for tourism;
Finally, the fourth opinion frame considers the festival as a principal means
of promoting literature and as a festival for all citizens of Berlin.
Interestingly, cosmopolitanism is the only item with a significant loading on two
factors, namely factors one and two. This is an illustration of both the positive and
negative connotations of the term and also this specific worldview. For some,
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cosmopolitanism is something associated with humanistic ideals, for others, it tends
to be linked to economic liberalism as a political ideology.
The results of this analysis further suggest that even if the ilb audience is
comparatively homogeneous in terms of educational background and its positive
orientation towards the arts, it differs with respect to both taste and attitudes to public
culture.
3.8
Conclusions
The International Literature Festival Berlin is a festival committed to high-brow
ideas and humanistic orientations and has come to meet a niche market in the
evolving field of literature, i.e. international literature. This covers both new and old
‗national‘ literatures, but also emerging forms of literature at the interface with the
local and/or the global. Berlin appears to be the ideal capital city for such a festival in
view of its multi-ethnic and international characterstics, its history and, not least, a
generous and internationally-oriented cultural policy.
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4
The Borderlands Festival in Search of an Academic Topos between Europe and
the European Union
Liana Giorgi
The market is today the main vehicle for economic prestige also in the field of
culture and the arts. But there remain several other means for supporting artistic
initiatives. Traditionally, public subsidies have been used to support those genres,
types or styles that were thought less likely to attract public interest on their own as
well as for promoting younger artists or artists from less recognized countries,
continents or languages. But as public subsidies have been reduced year after year,
private sponsors or endowment funds have emerged to take their place. This has been
evident for some time in the field of the visual arts, but the trend is also now
beginning to spill over to the less performance-oriented or exhibition-contingent art
forms, such as literature. The European Borderlands Festival, the third literature
festival studied by the ‗Euro-Festival‘ project, is one such example.
Borderlands was launched in 2006 by the Allianz Cultural Foundation in conjunction
with the Literary Colloquium Berlin with the aim of supporting young poets and
writers working in Eastern Europe (both new EU members and non-members) and
promoting networking among themselves and with their colleagues from Western
Europe. The Allianz Cultural Foundation is the non-profit arm of one of the biggest
insurance companies in Europe, namely Allianz SE. It was founded in 2000 with the
aspiration of ‗bridging bridges for the youth of Europe‘. The Literary Colloquium
Berlin is one of the oldest literature organizations in Berlin, established after the end
of the Second World War in 1959 with funds from the American Ford Foundation
and the objective to sustain cultural and literary exchanges within Cold War Europe.
The ‗Borderlands‘ festival continues this tradition in the new adapted circumstances
of the enlarged European Union following the fall of the Iron Curtain.
4.1
Towards the re-discovery of European space
As instituted by the European Union, the European integration project
simultaneously implies a process of delineating new borders—also within a space
which has historically belonged to Europe. It is these old European spaces that have
been transformed into the European borderlands targeted by the European
Borderlands Festival. The first festival edition in 2006 took place in L‘viv in
contemporary Ukraine, a Ruthenian town founded in the 13th century, which formed
part of Galicia during the time of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and was Polish in
the inter-war period. This is a city with 18 names, wrote the Sued Deutsche Zeitung:
‗Lemberg (…) L‘viv (…) one of [the names] was Löwenburg; in Sanskrit it is called
Singapur‘.98 In 2008 the festival began in Bucharest in Romania to move to the
border city of Iasi and then to the capital of Moldavia in Chisinau. In 2009 the
98
Suedeutsche Zeitung 23 September 2006 ‚Brüchiges Papier, ungestüme Fans‗ by Jörg Magenau
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journey took the festival from Vilnius in Lithuania, the Rome of the North and the
Jerusalem of the East, to Minsk in Belarus, the ‗dream city of the sun‘.99
As Martin Pollack, an Austrian author and festival participant in 2006 and 2007,
stated:
Borders may mean different things, negative as well as positive ones,
separation and distrust but also connection and exchange, thus
enrichment. It depends on the perspective, on attitudes. This is also true
for those borders newly drawn through our continent in the course of
eastern enlargement (…) Literature has always had the magical power to
bring about the penetration of borders, even of the well-guarded ones.
Especially of those. The young authors from Belarus and Ukraine prove
this power, they are used to transgress, to ignore borders, they are versed
frontier runners, so who would be better suited than them to tell us about
these regions.100
In the festival programme of 2008 it is stated:
The eastward enlargement of the European Union also defines new
borders. Historically grown cultural regions were separated and
disrupted. Borders may be spaces of contact but also of friction. However
Europe has yet to learn to experience its old and new borders as
something positive – as spaces where different cultures coalesce and mix,
spaces which create something new. But how do the ‗borderlands‘ of
Europe actually look like? What sort of cultural exchange takes place at
the margins of Europe?101
Borderlands is thus a festival of and for the periphery—an attempt to re-discover and
re-claim102 yesterday‘s cultural centres which are today‘s peripheral regions. At the
same time it represents an attempt to keep alive the literary and cultural contacts
within the former countries of the Communist Eastern bloc which were set aside
upon the onset of the transition process as everyone oriented themselves towards the
West. According to Michael Thoss, one of the two festival founders, Eastern
enlargement has dispirited the East-East links between writers and translators and it
is these links that the Borderlands Festival wishes to recuperate. According to Thoss,
culture is the missing link of the European political integration project by reason of
99
As described in the 2009 festival programme – see www.european-borderlands.org
Statements on impressions from festival by the festival participants. This one is from Martin Pollack, an
Austrian author, journalist and translator. Between 1987 and 1998 he was a regular correspondent for ‗Der
Spiegel‘. His books are often in the tradition of narrative non-fiction relying on real historical events.
101
Festival programme 2008
102
The idea of ‗reclaiming space‘ is also at the core of the LCB itself which is situated at the Wannsee, the site
also of the Wannsee Conference organized by Hitler to decide the ‗Final Solution to the Jewish Question‘. The
villa where this conference took place is today a memorial and museum site. The LCB House is also on the lake,
about 1.5 km from the Villa of the Wannsee Conference. In-between there is the Max Liebermann Villa – Max
Liebermann was Jewish impressionist painter who died in 1935. His wife committed suicide in 1943 in
anticipation of deportation. Today the Max Liebermann Villa is also a museum.
100
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the fact that cultural policy remains subsumed under national sovereignty. It is thus
left to private initiatives to advance the process of cultural integration.103
Germany has a special position in this conundrum for two inter-related reasons. First,
within the former political power geography, East Germany, or the GDR, represented
a cultural pole through the Leipzig book fair. This link has been sustained by the
Borderlands Festival, which, at regular intervals, makes an intermediate stop-over in
Leipzig to present its authors and make publicity for the festival. These stops are also
important as entry points for young authors originating from the East and seeking
access to the European publishing industry. This is also the second reason for
Germany‘s special role within the space being reclaimed by the European
Borderlands Festival: namely, the opening to the East and the Eastern European
borderlands simultaneously represents an opportunity for the German publishing
market (and the German language) to assert itself on the European literary scene.
According to Ulrich Janetzki, the second founder of the European Borderlands
Festival, the German publishing market is significantly less saturated than the
English-language market and also offers more opportunities for exchange through a
web of cultural centres and subsidies. The selection of the LCB to run the
Borderlands Festival was not incidental either. The LCB has long-standing
connections with countries in Eastern Europe and has many guest scholarship
programmes targeting authors from the East.104 In addition, it is the headquarters for
of the HALMA network of European literary centres and translators.105
In other words, by supporting East-East and East-West exchanges the Borderlands
Festival also becomes an instrument for supporting the literary scenes in Germany
and its neighbouring countries in the East. For the borderlands countries this support
also has a strong political dimension in view of the ongoing democratization process.
Many of the participating authors are ‗movers and shapers‘ in their countries‘
democratization processes,106 and this is reflected either directly or indirectly in their
works.107
This European political character of the festival is also evident in the festival
programme contents. Thus, the 2006 festival was organized around the theme of
‗geopoetics‘ and the role of the writer in European borderlands; in 2007, the
programme theme was ‗Outside the door‘ and was intended to underline the
separation effect of borders; while in 2009 the theme was ‗Revolution and literature‘,
103
Interview with Michael Thoss, Allianz Cultural Foundation March 3, 2010
The LCB also houses authors from abroad living in Berlin for a short period of time. These exchanges are
either funded by the LCB directly or in collaboration with the German Exchange Service DAAD.
105
See www.halma-network.eu HALMA was initiated in 2006 (the same year of the creation of Borderlands) by
LCB, the Robert Bosch Foundation and the Polish Fundacja Pogranicze. Currently it is supported by the DG
Education and Culture.
106
Examples from the authors‘ biographies: Uladzimir Arlou (Belarus) worked as teacher and journalist till 1997
when he was dismissed for political reasons; Martin Pollack was refused entry into Poland because of his political
activities between 1980 and 1989
107
See article on first festival edition in the ‚Neue Zürcher Zeitung‗ September 26,2009. Also, the interview with
Attila Bartis, one of the festival participants, published in www.sandammeer.at in December 2005. There the
author says: ‗Politics, history, the past – all this is like a stigma and undoubtedly present in my texts. But politics
do not interest me in themselves. I am rather interested in what politics (and history) makes of us and what
contortions it causes us to suffer‘
104
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also in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the onset of transition in Eastern
Europe.
4.2
Organization and finances
The Borderlands Festival represents a small initiative, bringing together 15-18
writers and translators every year to travel together, discuss, network and present
their work at book fairs or events organized by cultural foundations and literary
organizations in the countries visited. Its yearly budget amounts to 110,000 Euros
and 90 per cent (i.e. 100,000 Euros) are covered by a grant from the Allianz Cultural
Foundation. The remaining 10 percent comes from smaller sponsors or in the form of
in-kind support from other cultural organizations such as the Goethe Institute and its
satellite partners in Eastern Europe. The Literary Colloquium Berlin (LCB) acts as
the operating partner of the festival and the money is used mainly for covering travel
and subsistence expenses and for the organization of events in the host countries.
Most of the events featured by the festival take place in the framework of book fairs
or literary evenings and are for free.108
For the LCB the Borderlands Festival is interesting even if not profitable because it
fits into its general programme activities. The LCB stages literary evenings on a
regular basis, often with Eastern European writers and translators living in Berlin; it
hosts scholars with short-term scholarships at its premises all year round; it
participates in the selection procedures for translators‘ prizes in the framework of the
Leipzig book fair; and it is the organizer of the HALMA network. Against this
background, the Borderlands Festival facilitates the consolidation of contacts by
offering an opportunity to the LCB to be present in Eastern European countries at
regular intervals.
4.3
Directing and networking structures
Travelling to Eastern Europe with a motorcycle is what Ulrich Janetzki, the LCB
director and Borderlands Festival organizer, likes to do to familiarize himself with
the culture and politics of those borderlands countries his activities focus on.
Janetzki, like Thoss, is well-established on the German cultural studies scene.
Following a somewhat rebellious adolescence, Janetzki graduated from high-school
at 24 to study German studies and philosophy at the Technical University of Berlin.
He was a student of the legendary Walter Höllerer,109 whose position as director of
the LCB he inherited,110 and wrote his Ph.D. thesis (and two books) on Konrad
108
Interviews with Ulrich Janetzki November 13, 2008 and Michael Thoss March 3, 2010
Höllerer was among the founders of the ‗Gruppe 47‘ a literary circle established after the end of WWII to
support the democratization process in Germany. Several of the most well-known post-war literary figures such
as Günther Grass, Ilse Aichinger, Ingeborg Bachmann and Martin Walser were active in Gruppe 47. Höllerer was
also one of the main editor of the two most prominent German literary magazines of the post-war phase, namely,
‗Akzente‘ and ‗Spr.i.t.Z‘ (Sprache im technischen Zeitalter).
110
In the interview, Janetzki described his relationship to Höllerer as ‗father-son‘ with all challenges entailed by
such close relationships.
109
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Bayer, one of the main representatives of the avant-garde ‗Vienna Group‘.111 Michael
Thoss‘s career was more straightforward but more international: he studied cultural
studies in Bonn, Barcelona and Paris, then to take up a post at the ‗Berliner Haus der
Kulturen der Welt‘. Prior to assuming the directorship of the Allianz Cultural
Foundation he was the director of the Goethe Institute. In his present position he
recently edited a book entitled Das Ende der Gewissheiten: Reden über Europa (The
end of certainty: talking about Europe)112 based on contributions to the series
‗Dialogue about Europe‘ held at the Vienna Theatre and the Berlin Opera.
The LCB and the Allianz Cultural Foundation (and their directors) find themselves at
the centre of a network of German cultural and literary organizations, including,
apart from themselves, the Goethe Institute (previously directed by Michael Thoss),
the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD (whose director formerly worked
for the LCB) the ‗Berlin Haus der Kulturen der Welt‘ (where Thoss worked
previously), the HALMA network (run by LCB) and the Leipzig book fair (where
LCB is a partner organization). The personal contacts within these organizations are
long-standing and so are those with writers and translators living and working in
Eastern Europe.
It is an ‗old boys‘ club‘ said Janetzki in an interview with little concern about the
negative connotations of the association. Instead, this is what guarantees that things
get done and that the best get selected because ‗they‘ collectively can judge literary
quality better than anyone else since they have been in the business for so long:
(…) because continuity is something I miss in our profession. It is
because we can guarantee this continuity that we are able to counteract
the negative trends. All my ‗boys‘ with whom I work are old crocks –
they have been around, like I, for 15, 17, 20, 22 years. This is what
creates synergies. As for disadvantages, well these we must counteract
through the influx of younger people, people who bring something
new.113
Thus well entrenched, the LCB and by default the Borderlands Festival aim at acting
first as testing grounds for new authors (in part through the institute‘s journal SpritZ)
and then as service providers mainly for the facilitation of contacts:114
The idea of the LCB was not only to get to know and establish contacts
with people but also to test them. Testing, that is perhaps a silly word, but
111
The group emerged in the post-WWII phase to question the standard literary forms and styles by producing
meaningless-like text and performing it in a Dadaistic provocative mode. The group ceased to exist after being
criticized by ‗Gruppe 47‘ whose opinion counted in view of the political ideological affinities.
112
This was the second volume – the first was entitled Abendland Unter? (Down with the Occident?). Both
volumes were published with Diederichs. The first (2007) was edited in collaboration with Henning SchulteNoelte, the second (2009) with Christine Weiss. The books include contributions from scholars and politicians
such as Ulrich Beck, Tony Giddens, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Konrad Paul Liessmann and others.
113
Interview with Ulrich Janetzki, November 13, 2008
114
An example offered by Janetzki was that of Daniel Kehlmann who was an LCB scholar in his early twenties.
Kehlmann landed a well-acclaimed best-seller in the recent years with Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the
World) which was translated in several languages.
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testing means nothing else but to establish whether they are a match for
what is coming – which is important if they are as good as they claim. If
you want to be published by Suhrkamp then a guarantee is expected, not
that one tries it out. A publisher cannot afford that; if they do that, they
will never again be nominated [for a prize] (…) Hence it is important to
invite the authors, to translate them, to offer them the opportunity to get
published in our journal which has highest quality standards. (…) To be
published in the journal is also an entry point (…) nothing gets published
by chance in our journal. (…) And if we think that certain authors need to
find a German audience, then we translate 20-30 pages from the
festival.115
The claim to literary quality raised by the LCB and especially the manner in which it
is made is characteristic of a high-brow approach to literature. In a similar manner
Janetzki considers his festival ‗better‘ than other and most festivals, solely on
‗objective‘ grounds.116
4.4
A limited role for the media
The Borderlands Festival is a festival that originates from within the core of German
cultural studies. By being more academic and high-brow, it almost snubs at
conventional media presence as represented by daily newspapers or radio features.117
The festival is better known within the specialized literary criticism press. This is
also because several of the writers participating in the festival work as editors or
contributors to literary magazines.
4.5
Representations – literature
The ‗polyphonic European literature‘118 is the literature represented and promoted by
the Borderlands Festival. As such the festival is very much in the tradition of the
promotion of ‗national literatures‘ through internationalization, hence also the
facilitation of translations.
Translation is assigned enormous importance within the LCB circle,—which is also
why the LCB places a big emphasis on increasing the prestige of translators through
prizes. A translator‘s prize is already awarded by the Leipzig Book Fair in
collaboration with the LCB;119 Janetzki would like to see even more done in this
field—for instance, through a prize solely devoted to translation, which is better
115
Interview with Ulrich Janetzki, November 13, 2008
Interview with Ulrich Janetzki, November 13, 2008
117
The exception were two articles appearing in 2006 upon occassion of the festival launch in quality
newspapers, namely, the Neue Zürcher and the Suddeutsche Zeitung.
118
From the 2007 festival programme
119
The Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair is awarded on a yearly basis and decided by a jury of seven mainly literary
journalists working for quality German newspapers like the ‗Sueddeutsche Zeitung‘, ‗Die Zeit‘ or ‗Die Welt‘.
The prize is quoted with 45.000 Euro and shared by four categories: fiction, non-fiction, essay and translation.
116
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quoted (in terms of money).120 The Allianz Cultural Foundation recently instituted a
translator‘s prize targeting a different Eastern European country every year and
quoted with 10.000 Euro.121
Even though the European countries are known for publishing much more in
translation than either the US or the UK, the literary world remains divided between
majority and minority literature cultures even outside the hegemonic Englishlanguage geographical region. According to Michael Naydan, professor of Slavic
Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University and translator from Ukrainian,
While some writers become worldwide phenomena (like Umberto Eco
and Milan Kundera), most foreign writers will have a much more limited
audience. For whatever reason it is easier for a homogeneous colonial
culture like Russian to get more international attention. Virtually
everyone in the world knows Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,
Checkhom, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Pasternak, etc. Few people realize
that Gogol was Ukrainian and Akhmatova was of Ukrainian extraction
(…)122
Translation is quite important for writers, too—even if the confrontation with one‘s
writings in a different language is also often associated with a slight feeling of
alienation:
When I had my first book in English translation, earlier this year, I
looked at the first copy I received for a long time and then I slowly
started to read the book and I thought I didn‘t write this. It was smoother
and easier, but it was strange. And yet I love the fact that I am getting out
of myself right now and I try to translate that feeling. Another me,
subtler, swims on the surface of the words123
According to Naydal, ‗supporting translations is the means to create world literature‘,
even if the latter remains a chimera, according to Michalopoulou, due to the
hegemony of the English language: ‗English and American writers are in front, some
Spanish and German too, but world literature, small languages, locality, these are
very important things in theory, but look at the book shelves‘.124
In order to support these ‗smaller‘ minority literature languages and their localities,
national gatekeepers have a central role to play in the form of literary and cultural
organizations. They are heavily relied upon by the Borderlands Festival organizers to
‗filter‘ out the good writers and translators to be nominated for participation in the
120
Interview with Ulrich Janetzki, November 13, 2008
For instance, in 2007/2008 the prize was granted to Romania in collaboration with the Frankfurt Book Fair,
the B.I.Z. Bucharest and the Goethe Institute in Bucharest
122
Interview with Michael Naydan, February 17, 2010. The difference between a majority and a minority
literature, added Naydan, is well illustrated by the following joke: (…) when the Yiddish poet Jacob Gladstein
was asked the difference between a major literature and a minority literature, Gladstein responded: It means that I
have to read T. S. Eliot but T. S. Elit doesn‘t have to read me.
123
Blog by Amanda Michalopoulou at http://www.redroom.com Michalopoulou was resident-writer at the LCB
and participated twice at the International Literature Festival in Berlin
124
Interviews with Michael Naydal (February 17, 2010) and Amanda Michalopoulou (March 7, 2010).
121
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festival(s).125 This modus operandi, i.e. through the national literary scenes, is quite
different from that described by Casanova126 with reference to the world literature
emerging through exile or migration in the metropolises of the West (Paris, London,
Berlin, New York).
Despite this ‗national‘ orientation in terms of entry structures, a review of authors‘
biographies suggests an increasingly more international and, indeed, cosmopolitan
orientation among the younger generation of authors participating in the festival.
Here are some examples:127
Irena Karpa, Ukrainian: Teaches French, English and world literature. After
completing her studies, she made a journey to Southeast Asia (which is also
the topic of her novel ‗Freud would cry‘). Besides, she is soloist in the
alternative music band ‗Faktyschno Sami‘ and hosts the programme
‗SexCetera‘ on ICTV.
Ilma Rakusa, Czechoslovakian, works in Switzerland: Her father comes from
Slovenia, her mother is of Hungarian origin. She grew up in Budapest,
Ljubjlana, Triest and Zürich and studied Slavic and Roman languages in
Zürich, Paris and St. Petersburg
Sergej Timofejev, Lithuanian: Poet and action-artist; writes in Russian. He is
leader of the rock bank ‗Dakota‘ and member of the group ‗Orbita‘. He is coorganizer of the festival of poetic videos entitled ‗Word in Motion‘ and works
at the interface between poetry, music and video.
Ingo Schulze, German: studied classical philology to then work as theatre
dramaturgist and journalist prior to going in 1983 to St. Petersburg to create a
free advertising newspaper, lives now in Berlin
Serhij Zhadan, Ukranian: poet, translator, essayist and organizer of literary
festivals, rock concerts and theatrical performances
Daiva Cepauskaite, Lithuanian, studied medicine, now poet and playwright,
works for the Kaunas Youth Chamber Theatre
The above authors are only six out of a total of 24 featured by the Borderlands
Festival—some more than once—since 2006. The rest of the writers display more
‗traditional‘ biographies having studied literature, philology or languages and
working at university, as translators or as editors or contributors to literary journals.
4.6
Audience
The Borderlands Festival is mainly conceptualized as a formation in Raymond
William‘s terminology,128 i.e. as a gathering not only of, but also for writers. The
audience is therefore secondary, comprising the visitors of book fairs or literary
125
Interview with Michael Thoss, March 3, 2010
126
See P. Casanova, 2004, The World Republic of Letters, Harvard University Press (translated from French).
This is also one difference between the International Literature Festival in Berlin and the Borderlands festival to
which I return to in the comparative chapter on the literature festival genre in this volume.
127
Short biographies compiled by authors themselves and available at the festival‘s website.
128
See R. Williams, 1958, Culture and Society, New York: Columbia Press
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evenings in countries where the literary public sphere is both smaller and organized
in niches—highly educated among the older generation or the ‗culture hungry‘
among the young. The first festival edition especially, which took place in L‘viv, a
university city, within the framework of the largest book fair in Western Ukraine,
was described by Martin Pollack in these terms:
Most impressive were the young people, their alert interest and arresting
excitement.
Jurij Andruchowytsch had this to say:
The public—and the Lemberg public is the best in the world—was
unbelievably enthusiastic
and Thomas Brussig thought:
There is a certain age when people have questions and they want these
answered. That is how book get to be important. Ukraine is a small
country, Lemberg a university city. The country is on the search
following the Orange Revolution and students are eager to learn. I was
therefore not surprised that the festival was very well-received. All
lecture rooms were full and even the most boring of discussions took
place in a packed hall
Ilma Rakusa, a festival author who also wrote about it in the ‗Neue Zürcher Zeitung‘
had this to say:129
The interest in the biggest West Ukrainian book fair is huge. There is
congestion already in front of the outside booths the assortment of which
is mixed ranging from computer literature to esoteric. (…) The entrance
to the three-floor building is emblazoned with the motto ‗Ars longa, vita
vrevis‘; once inside there is no doubt as to the cultural hunger of the
people of Lemberg. The offer of literature in translation is nevertheless
limited. Apart from Dan Brown, there is Haruki Murakami, EricEmmanuel Schmitt, Max Frischs ‗Stiller‘, Ingeborg Bachmann‘s Malina
– but also Nietzsche, Arend, Paul Ricoeur and Eric Hobsbawm.
Extending this already impressive list of translated works by building on a niche
audience which is ‗culture hungry‘ and international-oriented is the value
commitment of the Borderlands festival.
129
Neue Zürcher Zeitung September 29, 2006
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Methodological Appendix
The analysis reported in the three chapters builds on documentation compiled and
assessed through the MaxQDA programme. This included 236 texts of variable
length, some of which comprised several parts, producing around 2,000 coded
material. The documentation comprised:
Festival programmes (selection of the years between 1988 and 2009)
Biographies – fully for directors and management team; selective for authors
according to year (for Hay, Berlin), fully for 2008 and 2009 for Hay
Alhambra and Borderlands
Literature notes and quotations
Media clippings – print and electronic for 2007-2009
Fieldwork notes for 2008 and 2009
Interview protocols and/or transcripts
Interviews with authors / directors carried by third persons
The following interviews were carried out in the course of the research for this part
of the project (in alphabetical order):
Horatio Clare, Author & Journalist
Ben Crystal, Author & Actor
Peter Florence, Director, Hay-on-Wye Festival
Steve Fuller, Author & Philosopher
Katrin Hesse, ‗Childrens‘ and Youth Programme‘, International Literature
Festival Berlin
Ulrich Janetzki, Director Borderlands Festival
Wiltrud Kern, Literaturfoerderung, German Foreign Office
Siegfried Langbehn, Director & Manager, KulturFonds Berlin
Christine Merkel, German Commission for UNESCO
Amanda Michalopoulou, Author
Miriam Moellers, Former Director Children & Youth Programme,
International Literature Festival Berlin
Michael Naydal, Translator
Maggie Robertson, Development Manager, Hay-on-Wye Festival
Mark Sands, Marketing Director, The Guardian
Joachim Sartorius, Director Berliner Festspiele
Ulrich Schreiber, Director, International Literature Festival Berlin
Michael Thoss, Director Allianz Kulturstiftung
Barbara Wahlster, Deutschlandradio Kultur
The data from the survey of the audience carried out in the framework of the ilb was
analyzed using the SPSS statistical package.
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Part II. Music
Marco Santoro
Music is the most general, abstract, and evanescent of the arts and for this reason also
that which can be filled with the most diversified of contents and experienced in the
most sociable and emotional of ways. This renders music a vantage point for
exploring festivals as a vector of cosmopolitan culture and public awareness. At the
same time, and despite its ubiquitous and abstract nature, music can be promoted as
an instance of particularism. Indeed, it has been used extensively as a symbol of
regional cultures and nationalism: think of Wagnerism and German identity, of
Italian opera and Risorgimento, of the many nationalist movements which continue
to use music as a means of representing local identities, not least through folk revival
movements; but consider also how rock music has come to symbolize the ‗West‘ (or
the English-speaking West) in less developed countries; and let us not forget that
national anthems are one of the most widely known and respected music genres,
bearing witness to the link between music and the nation-state.
Music fabricates and reproduces several cultural and social boundaries—between
elite and popular classes, between blacks and whites, between mods and rockers
within the same white generation, or between fans of different music groups (be they
the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Michael Jackson or only locally known
stars such as Dalida in France and Claudio Villa in Italy). Music preferences and
correlative music dislikes—‗anything but heavy metal‘ is a common response when
asking about musical tastes—are at the same time means for producing and
reproducing social exclusion. Think about the way in which parents and
conservatives—or, more often, conservative parents—will advance moral arguments
against the supposedly negative contents of music lyrics in some rap and heavy
metal; but also about the violent and self-destructive lifestyles of well-known and
even celebrated musicians.
Clearly music genres make a difference: not all music can be labelled national, not
all songs make good national anthems, not all lyrics are causes of moral concern—
even if moral concern for supposedly antisocial or dangerous values has been
ubiquitous in the history of music. Music exists in the plural, i.e. through the many
different kinds and forms of sound organization humanity has created, listened to,
promoted, commercialized, imposed, loved and also hated.
In the Euro-Festival project we have studied three of the most cosmopolitan
contemporary music genres and their festivals:
Jazz is ‗black‘ music and more specifically the music of slaves. Over time it has been
transformed into a symbol of inter-racial communication and experience. It was used
as an artistic instrument by the civil rights movements, and currently works as a
cultural vector of anti-racist values and politics. It has also been legitimated as
‗American classical music‘—i.e. as a mark of national pride—but this has not
prevented it from spreading all over the globe, merging with local traditions and
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producing a wide range of music styles all marked by its improvisational feature
(French jazz, German jazz, Scandinavian jazz, Italian jazz, even Japanese jazz etc.).
World music was from its very beginnings codified—also within the music
industry—as that kind of music which merges different cultures into a global one, in
other words, as that which aspires to represent the transnationalism which is one
benchmark of our times. World music is possibly the most ideologically conscious
form of cosmopolitan music currently available and an obvious reference point for
people eager for cultural diversity and ready to adopt cultural relativism as a way of
life.
Electronic and dance music are technologically grounded forms of music production,
and as such clear products of the developed world (West and North). Still, electronic
music is so abstract and content-free that it can be experienced everywhere by
everyone. This is facilitated by the ease with which it can be articulated within
different local and cultural settings as well as the global spread of relatively cheap
technological devices which can be used for listening to it, but also, for its
production.
The three festivals under study are, therefore, potentially strong venues for realizing
translocal, transnational and possibly cosmopolitan values and dispositions. This is
perhaps not obvious in the mission statements or publicity material of the festivals.
Indeed, music festivals do not dress themselves up as cultural institutions engaged in
discursive production. They exist more in their practices, and performances, than in
their statements and declarations. Overall, they are not particularly concerned about
ideological or even ideal elaborations about what they are and whom they benefit.
But as the interviews with relevant stakeholders make clear, this should not come as
a surprise considering the abstract character of music and its non-discursive form of
expression and mediation in contrast to literature or cinema which are both much
more text-based. Furthermore, the public meanings and connotations of specific
music genres are already internalized by their audiences.
However, behind this common feature, there are different degrees of awareness as
well as different motives that are worth exploring. Moreover, the three festivals
differ in terms of their organizational structures, financial basis, and interorganizational networks and this could account for their different degree of
involvement in a public and cosmopolitan culture. I will begin this introductory
comparative examination with organization and financial structure. I will then
compare the networks—political, economic, civic—in which the festivals are
embedded. Finally, I will discuss the discursive frameworks through which the three
festivals present themselves and also work in their actual performance as public
venues. My aim is not primarily explicative but rather descriptive, but I expect
something useful can be gained from this approach also theoretically.
Organization and finances
Festivals are organizations. It is through organization that they materially exist, work
and can organize those products people know as a festival, i.e. the more or less long
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cycle of performance for an interested audience. This is what differentiates our ‗posttraditional‘ festivals from the traditional ones studied by anthropologists. The posttraditional festivals are formal organizations, and this has an effect on their life,
image, needs, and outcome.
But as (formal) organizations festivals differentiate among themselves, and this
differentiation can make a big difference. According to our research, the main
distinction is two-dimensional: between professionally-based and voluntary-based
festivals, on the one hand; and with respect to different degrees of public support (or
alternatively market profitability), on the other hand. The two dimensions are
associated to some degree: more profitability tends to imply more professionalization
or vice-versa while voluntarism fits better with public support than with profitmaking. This is what makes Umbria Jazz the less professionalized of the three
festivals and Sónar possibly the most professionalized.
Umbria Jazz evinces all the traits of a charismatic organization, with people working
under the aegis of a personal supervisor who is also the decision-maker in the last
instance. Personal relationships are the bread and butter of this organization;
financial resources too move according to personalized channels and are acquired
through personal contacts. This is very different from both Sónar and Womad, which
exhibit both a higher degree of institutionalization and a stronger trust in the market.
Womad mainly functions as a company with strong links, both historical and
personal, to a recording label, which is a source of revenue as well as a useful brand
in the search for new artistic talents and new musical products. Sónar is the most
clearly for-profit organization, working towards the maximization of sales tickets and
the corresponding revenue, with only a limited concern for educational or, generally
speaking, ‗cultural‘ objectives and outcomes.
This does not mean Sónar is not doing any ‗cultural‘ work, or that its managers are
not aware of this aspect of their activities. On the contrary: were this cultural
dimension to be absent, Sónar would not constitute an interesting venue for the
public regional institutions which support it financially and, above all, with logistical
and promotional facilities. Through Sónar, the Autonomous Region of Catalunya is
able to present itself as a modern, even postmodern, and efficient country with a
strong cultural industry. Indeed, when comparing the three festivals we get a clear
sense of the importance of the institutional form for cultural institutions (the main
difference here being that between profit vs. no-profit), and of their embeddedness in
a certain local system of social relations (social embeddedness) and a certain local
cultural system (cultural embeddedness). This latter point is the subject of our next
comparative exploration.
Networks and embeddedness
Studying festivals is also an indirect way of studying the countries or regions where
festivals are located. Festivals are, of course, not rigorously place-bounded, and one
of their favourite formats is the itinerant one. This is, in particular, the choice of
Womad, which exists in many different versions all around the world. But Womad—
as any other formally constituted organization—has a location, be it a transnational
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or a national one. For both experts and consumers, it is clear that Womad is a British
institution, born in the UK, composed of a set of organizations which are located in
the UK (a Foundation, a company, a recording label), which profit from the
advantages, and have to suffer the constraints, of the British institutional system. In a
certain sense, Womad is an outcome of the long-lasting British imperial system, and
it is not strange, sociologically speaking, that Womad was originally imagined and
started in Great Britain, even if it is now possible to attend a Womad event in Spain,
in Sicily, or the Arab Emirate of Abu Dhabi as well as in Australia and New Zealand.
It is equally clear that Sónar is a Spanish festival, or better perhaps, a Catalan
organization, which benefits from the regional autonomy of the region in its drive to
establish itself culturally as well as economically. Simply put, as regional autonomy
is grounded on historical, ethnic and linguistic traits, culture is the most obvious
means for asserting autonomy and a means to legitimize regional public institutions.
Sónar‘s success as an organization working in the public provision of cultural
entertainment is a benefit for the image of the region, and by default its institutions,
and this fact is hard to ignore. Sónar‘s post-modern and hybrid image fits well with
the image cultivated by Catalonia vis-à-vis cultural tourism. Consequently, the
success of Sónar confirms the self-image of the region and contributes in making it
not only a symbolic token but also a source of wealth.
Of the three festivals, Umbria Jazz is the most place-based organization, also as its
name denotes. The festival has been strongly linked to the Region of Umbria ever
since its inception—and it remains strongly embedded in the region even after thirty
years of existence and a series of institutional changes both at the level of the festival
organization and within the regional authorities. It is not only the festival location in
the old town of Perugia which makes for the festival‘s identity and success, but also
the conscious mutual exploitation of the region, on the one hand, and the festival, on
the other hand. The festival exploits the region‘s historical landscape and
gastronomic resources as well as its touristic programs for gaining assets from the
same region, whilst the region exploits the Umbria Jazz image, activities and success
to promote itself as a brand at home and abroad (in the US, in particular, where UJ is
trying to establish part of its activities, also thanks to the work of one of its main
advisers, gatekeepers and jazz experts). But it is hard to neglect the regional culture‘s
influence also on the working of the festival, in its ways of doing, in its informal
norms and practices, in its personalization and even friendly, almost domestic
outlook. What is surprising is that this very local way of ‗being‘ and ‗working‘ fits
well the transnational art world of jazz music. Of course, UJ is not just about the
people located in Perugia—even if it is here you find the decision-making team. It
also comprises the network of artists, producers and critics who contribute to the
festival each year. This group includes people living in New York, Rome or Mexico,
just to name a few. If you need a formula for this, you can use the bad neologism of
‗glocalism.‘
Discourses: cosmopolitan politics
Music is essentially about performance, therefore especially prone to festivalization,
unlike literature but also film. From the economic perpective and also that of the
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music industry, festivals represent a suitable channel for organizing concerts without
incurring the maximum of costs. After all only very prominent and commercially
successful music artists can afford the infrastructural and operational costs of music
concerts. What is also known as the festival experience is something best known
from music concerts, thus the essential tools and motivations are there for organizing
music festivals. What is perhaps less obvious in the case of music festivals is that
they might also be interested in making a aesthetic statement about music as such
rather than just representing a platform for entertainment and commercialization. Yet
as the research reported in this volume shows they do that too besides also seeking to
impact on political opinion formation, even if in more indirect ways than either
literature or film festivals.
The symbolic connotations of the three music genres represented by our three music
festivals have already been noted. The Umbria festival is one of the oldest jazz music
festivals, Womad is the music festival of world music whilst Sónar, the youngest,
deals with electronic music. Furthermore, both Womad and Sónar were instrumental
for establishing the music genres they represent—therefore in many ways the history
and development of both world and electronic music are intrinsically linked to the
history and growth of the Womad and Sónar festivals respectively.
The three music genres have their own cultural as well as social and political history.
Jazz is the music of the slaves and the under-privileged, America‘s ‗classical‘ music
as well as the banner for the civil rights and anti-racism movements. World music is
the ‗internationalist‘ music par excellence, the melting of different musical styles
from different countries and parts of the world for everyone to listen to and enjoy.
And electronic music is the music of our brave technological world used for
empowerment rather than separation. These social and political histories are certainly
internalized by the artists performing in each field and by a great part of the
audience, even though concerns are gradually being raised—for instance among the
Womad stakeholders—that this might be on the decrease (and something that ought
to be counteracted).
Beyond these intrinsic political messages, each of the festivals has its own agenda:
Womad is often used for mobilizing support for specific regions of the world, social
or political movements and is among the festivals under scrutiny, the most conscious
of its symbolic power as an actor in the public sphere. Sónar, which is possibly the
most commercially driven festival of the three, is actively supporting the
democratization of digital culture while Umbria Jazz is explicitly multicultural in its
mission and typically open to aesthetic diversity—even too open for part of its
audience. Raising cultural curiosity and believing in the latter‘s strength in
overcoming conflicts is a key value of all three. In the words of one of the
interviewees‘ for Womad: ‗when the world becomes less foreign, then it‘s easier to
empathize.‘
There are however limits and contradictions in this cosmopolitan politics, which our
research has disclosed. Albeit working and thinking in terms of global culture, and
open to artists from every part of the world, these festivals are strongly embedded in
the institutional matrix of the contemporary global, or network society, with its
structural inequalities. It is the Northern part of the globe that is characteristically
involved as consumers in these festivals. The organizers do not always seem
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conscious or interested in the cosmopolitan and multicultural missions their
organizations and activities could have, and a few of them (especially in Sónar and
UJ) explicitly try to remove any overtly political implications of their work
considering politics as an intrusion to aesthetic considerations or, less overtly, as a
constraint to the market potentialities of their creation.
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5
Umbria Jazz
Marco Solaroli and Marco Santoro
5.1
Introduction
Over the past three decades Umbria Jazz has become one of the most artistically
legitimated as well as publicly successful jazz music festivals in the world. The tenday long 2009 edition confirmed the festival‘s prominent role, with about 400.000
visitors for almost 400 concerts and total takings of more than one million Euros. In
particular, on the one hand, it definitely marked the success of the ―new formula‖
that was founded in 2003 (on the 30th anniversary of the birth of the festival); today,
in fact, the festival is structured on the basis of the fertile intersection of what could
be called, drawing on a renowned analytical concept developed within the field of
New Institutionalism, three different but complementary institutional logics, 130 or
organizational patterns of activity which work both materially and symbolically in
order to make the experience of time and space at Umbria Jazz differently
meaningful: the communal logic (free concerts in public squares), the aesthetics logic
(concerts with consecrated jazz artists within historical high-brow theatres) and the
commercial logic (costly concerts with mainstream jazz and pop music stars in the
stadium). On the other hand, the last edition also highlighted the delicate as well as
crucial transitional phase that the festival has been living over the last few years, and
which mainly deals with the organizational structure and the institutional guarantees
concerning the dynamics of funding. Most notably, the 2009 edition represented the
moment of inauguration of a new institutional-managerial structure, which proved
successful despite a number of potentially problematic complexities and uncertainties
(that will be underlined at the end of this chapter).
By drawing particularly on the results of the research carried out on the field during
the 2009 edition, the following pages offer a closer and updated analysis of specific
characteristics of the festival (which have been already and briefly outlined in WP2),
in order not only to portray Umbria Jazz in its multiple historical paths and
institutional logics but also to highlight its most critical aspects as well as to suggest,
more widely, what such a manifestation might reveal on the role of arts festivals in
contemporary society.
From a methodological viewpoint, this chapter is based on multiple sources: face-toface interviews (carried out between April 2009 and May 2010) with the artistic
director as well as with managers, critics and artists involved in the Umbria Jazz
festival; ethnographic observation of music performances and related social events
during the 2009 edition (July 10-19); qualitative as well as quantitative audience
analysis (one focus group and one quantitative survey); textual analysis of festival
programmes, official press releases, other local and national online and offline media
reports; review of recent and specific scholarly research.
130
See DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W. W. (eds.) (1991) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis,
Chicago, University of Chicago Press
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5.2
Organization and finances
As we have already seen in details (cf. WP2), since the beginning of the 1980s the
organization of the Umbria Jazz festival has increasingly benefited from a variety of
economic sources. On the basis of our elaboration of available data concerning the
last ten years, the different forms of income can be listed as follows: a) private
sponsors (which, since the late 1990s, have increased even up to 40-45% of the total
budget, with significant exceptions in 2002 (50%) and 2006 (35%)); b) tickets (3035%); c) public funds (about 25% of the total budget, mainly coming from the
Umbria Region); and d) merchandising (a scarcely relevant percentage).
Since the beginning of the 1990s the private sponsors were subdivided in a major
player as well as a number of minor funding actors. Until the beginning of the 2000s,
the major sponsor usually constituted the biggest as well as the longest private
funding source of the festival. It was also crucial as far as it annually developed a
strategic advertising campaign to nationally promote its brand as well as its presence
at Umbria Jazz – therefore promoting the festival as a whole131.
We were lucky because when public funds started decreasing, private
sponsors arrived… We used to spend a fortune in posters… now
sponsors pay everything for the promotion… Otherwise, we would have
been in troubles. At the end, in life, that [luck] is important, too.
[Pagnotta 2009 – interview]
The tickets, instead, have historically constituted about one third of the total
economic resources of Umbria Jazz. Until the beginning of the 2000s, however, they
sometimes constituted less than that: both in 2000 and in 2002, for example, the total
ticket sell amounted at less than €400.000, about 20% of the total budget of the
festival. This general trend has strongly changed since 2003, with an annual average
total ticket income of slightly more than one million Euros for the period 2003-2009.
According to the official numbers provided by the organizers, since 2003 the number
of tickets sold moved from an average 20,000 in 2000-2002 to the pick of about
50.000 in 2003 and 2006 and to an average of more than 40.000 in 2007-2009. As we
have already highlighted in the historical reconstruction of Umbria Jazz (cf. WP2),
these data clearly show that the new artistic formula inaugurated in 2003 and
including big music stars proved commercially successful.
Finally, the public funds are constituted by the sum of the donations that every
political-institutional partner of the festival annually offers. Over the last decade, the
total amount of economic resources represented by the public funds has increased
from about €600.000 (in the period 2001-2002, about 27% of the total budget), to
about €800.000 (2007-2008, representing only about 25%).
131
The longest private sponsorship in the history of Umbria Jazz has been in the field of beer, primarily and most
significantly with Heineken, which has constituted the major sponsor of Umbria Jazz from 1992 to 2004 when,
following a strategic marketing plan, it left Umbria jazz to begin sponsoring the big pop Heineken Jammin‘
Festival (annually held within the Formula1 car racing circuit in Imola, near Bologna). In 2005 Heineken was
substituted by another beer brand, Peroni (major sponsor of Umbria Jazz 2005-2007).
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Over the last very few years, this situation as a whole has undergone significant
changes, which can be summarized in terms of strongly increasing costs vis-à-vis
decreasing funds and funding guarantees, which have eventually led also to the
implementation of a new formal institutional-managerial organization officially
inaugurated during the 2009 edition. A crucial turning point, which has made
organizers definitely realize that the public appeal of the Umbria Jazz festival was
potentially very high (and higher than what it used to be during the earlier decade)
and, at the same time, that the organizational machine was highly insecure in terms
of institutional funding guarantees, was the 2006 edition. In 2006 Umbria Jazz had
the highest total takings (€1.265.524) and the highest number of sold tickets (about
50.000), but also the highest costs (€3.648.149) in the history of the festival.
Moreover, in 2006 the contribution of the private sponsors was lower than the
previous years, representing only 35% of the total budget. As a consequence, at the
end of the ten-day edition the festival reported a significant (and unusual) economic
loss, which eventually induced the organizers to be more cautious and wise in the
planning of the 2007 edition – as we can see in the following profit control chart.
Tab.1 Umbria Jazz annual economic balance (in thousands of euro), 2001-2007132
Accordingly with what we have called the commercial institutional logic of the
festival, the new formula inaugurated in 2003 (in occasion of the 30th anniversary of
the birth of Umbria Jazz) requires annually allocating a consistent part of the total
budget to the ―big‖ (and costly) music stars who usually perform within the stadium
(Arena Santa Giuliana) for an audience of a few thousands. In 2006, for example,
among these mainstream artists there were Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton; in 2008
the R.E.M. and Alicia Keys. In front of the increasing costs of the manifestation
132
Bracalente, B. and Ferrucci, L.2009 Eventi culturali e sviluppo economico locale. Dalla valutazione d‘impatto
alle implicazioni di policy in alcune esperienze umbre, Milan, Franco Angeli, p.85
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(necessary to grant the presence of these kind or artists as well as the technical
organization of their performances133), over the last few years the economic resources
coming from all the three sources of funding of the festival (the private sponsors, the
public-institutional sponsors, the tickets) have registered a steady decrease. In terms
of private sponsors, since 2004, when Heineken definitely left Umbria Jazz, no one
of the new big private sponsors of the festival (namely Peroni (beer), Hag
(decaffeinated coffee) and Conad (supermarket chains)) has been available to offer
the same conditions.134 Over the last five years, in fact, a slightly constant decrease of
the total amount of private funds was registered. Therefore negotiations between the
festival organizers and the private sponsors are increasingly crucial as well as
difficult, also because of the lowered availability of the latter towards the realization
of longer-than-one-year formal contracts of sponsorship. In terms of public funds,
instead, as we have anticipated above, over the last ten years the average percentage
of their support has constituted about 25% of the total budget of the festival. For a
variety of reasons in 2007 a few institutional actors began decreasing the own
economic resources allocated to Umbria Jazz, with consequently increasing tensions
between local political entities and the festival organizers.135 In this contexts it turns
out to be particularly relevant (and unusual) the fund of €300.000 allocated to the
Umbria Jazz 2008 edition by Romano Prodi‘s government‘s Minister of Arts and
Culture Francesco Rutelli, honouring a commitment taken during his visit to Perugia
in the 2007 summer edition of the festival. It has clearly represented an exception,
given that over the years such forms of public funding have been constantly asked
for but very rarely received by various National Ministries. However, since 2008
(and since this national funding) the Council of the Umbria Region has been
increasingly asking the artistic directors of the region‘s two main festivals (Umbria
Jazz in Perugia and Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto), Carlo Pagnotta and (recently
established) Giorgio Ferrara, to put aside the historical competing tensions and to
establish forms of collaboration which might eventually turn out to give both of them
greater strength in their requests to the national government(s). Finally, in terms of
tickets, over the last few years (assumedly also because of the financial crisis) the
numbers of visitors willing to pay for the concerts of Umbria Jazz have slowly even
if steadily decreased: from about 50.000 (2006), to 45.000 (2007 and 2008), and
40.000 (2009). In the 2009 edition, on the basis of the lower number of visitors
registered in the previous year, the organizers decided to reduce the costs of the
tickets (in 2007 the range was €15-80, in 2009 it was €12-45) as well as to keep two
133
In this context it is useful to recall that the huge stage and all the technical means which are functional to the
performance of such a kind of artists are annually rented, assembled at the beginning of the festival and
disassembled after its end, within the stadium of Perugia (Arena Santa Giuliana). The costs of these choices
represent a constant source of tensions between the organizers of the festival (who have been asking for years the
realization of a fixed and adequate structure for this kind of manifestations), various civil groups and association
of citizens (who do not want to see the stadium transformed and their sport activities reduced), and the City
Council (which is trying to mediate and think about possible alternative solutions).
134
During the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, such a major sponsor as Heineken could provide annual
funds for about €300-400.000. In 2008, for the first time, there was not one major sponsor, but only minor
sponsors: despite being the biggest among the private contributors, Hag did not gain the official status of major
sponsor, also because the funds it provided were consistently lower than those usually allocated by the earlier
major sponsors.
135
For example, in 2007 the Council of the Province of Perugia decided to reduce its support from €75.000 to
€30.000 (and to communicate its decision by a two-line long email), rousing Carlo Pagnotta‘s public indignation.
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historical venues of the festival in the centre of the city of Perugia (the Pavone
Theater and the Rocca Paolina) closed.
Increasing costs and decreasing funding guarantees obviously lead to higher risks,
which have been further exacerbated by the global financial crisis. On this basis,
after the end of the 2008 edition the organizers of the festival decided to discuss the
situation with their institutional counter-parts, in order to develop a managerial and
organizational restructuration which might lower the uncertainties for the future. As
it was previously described (cf. WP2), since the mid-1980s the major social actors
involved in the planning, organization, promotion and realization of the festival, and
more generally of the cultural project of Umbria Jazz, have mainly belonged to the
Umbria Jazz Association (founded in 1985) and, then, especially from the late 1990s,
to the Umbria Jazz Foundation (founded in 1991). In December 2008 both entities
were formally dissolved, and the new Umbria Jazz Foundation of Participation was
founded, with the explicit aim of ―assuring the continuity of Umbria Jazz through the
realization of all the necessary initiatives for its development and diffusion, granting
the supply of financial means and favouring the involvement and the participation of
public as well as private subjects and entities‖ (Umbria Region Law n. 21/2008
passed on December 19, 2008, art. 1, paragraph 2). As it can be seen in Tab. 2, the
main differences with the previous institutional structure(s) deals with the presence
of two private sponsors (Aria S.p.a. and Tione S.r.l.) among the members of the
Board of the Foundation of Participation, as well as a renewed group of members of
the (historical) Association (with two entries). As a whole, the Umbria Region has
increased its power, given that now not only must it grant the higher portion of funds
but it also has the legal responsibility to elect the artistic director. The peculiarities of
this atypical model of legal institution (the Foundation of Participation) should give
stronger (political and economic) guarantees towards the future stability of the
festival, and at the same time it should keep leaving high degrees of organizational
flexibility to the members of the Association.
Artistic Director: Carlo Pagnotta
UMBRIA JAZZ Foundation of Participation
Members:
Umbria Region
Perugia City Council
Orvieto City Council
Province of Perugia
Chamber of Commerce of Perugia
Umbria Jazz Festival Association
Bank Foundation Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia
ARIA S.p.A.
TIONE S.r.l.
President: Renzo Arbore
Vice-President: Stefano Mazzoni
Board of Administration:
Alviero Moretti
Aldo Bruni
Alba Peccia
Mario Vincenzo Alfredo Citelli
Emanuele Floridi
Administrative Officer: Domenico De Salvo
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UMBRIA JAZZ FESTIVAL Association
Members:
Alba Peccia
Luca Ferrucci
Paolo Micheli
Paolo Occhiuto
Stefano Mazzi
Carlo Pagnotta
Artistic Director‘s Assistant: Annika Larsson
Secretary Head: Diletta Peducci
Administrative Office: Marta Grassini
Technical Oganization: Stefano Lazzari
Press Office: Cristiano Romano
Advertising and Sponsorship: Claudia Galli
Tab. 2 The structure of Umbria Jazz Foundation of Participation (founded in December 2008).
Source: umbriajazz.com.136
5.3
Networking structures
Umbria Jazz can be quite easily conceived as a node in a wider and heterogeneous
social network, articulated within different and often intersecting domains at the
local, the national and the international level.
First of all, the history of Umbria Jazz clearly shows the relevance of the local
political-territorial networks. The festival could not have even been funded and
developed in the 1970s without being strongly embedded within the urban and
regional webs of political power. The festival‘s local insertion proved particularly
crucial during the inception period, but it equally remains extremely relevant still
today. Given also the success gained over the years, and besides the constant tensions
concerning the economic sustainability and the formal-political recognition of the
territorial value of the manifestation, it is clear that the relationships between the
festival and the local institutions cannot be set aside.
Secondly, such a major yet scarcely autonomous festival as Umbria Jazz highly
depends on developing and maintaining the economic networks necessary to its
realization and continuity over the years. For an organization relying so heavily on
private sponsorships, these networks turn out to be indispensably precious in order to
secure financial resources. For both the realization of the festival and the
international activities of the Foundation local entrepreneurs and firms have always
constitutes a crucial interlocutor. However, as we have seen in the historical
reconstruction (cf. WP2), since the early 1980s the festival organizers were able to
attract both local (e.g., Perugina, Buitoni), national (Alitalia, Barilla, Telecom,
Peroni, Conad, Fiat) and international (Heineken, Marlboro, DaimlerChrysler,
Nestlé) firms and corporations. The local embedding can prove determinant, as it
was in the case of Alitalia in the 1970s, Perugina in the 1980s, and more recently
Aria, a relatively new Umbria-based broadband internet provider whose CEO is a
136
See also Occhiuto, P. and Mazzi, S. 2008 Il caso Umbria Jazz, Umbria Jazz Association, internal historical
report
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huge jazz fan as well as a close friend of Pagnotta‘s. On the other side, for example,
such a historical local sponsor as Banca dell‘Umbria (Umbria‘s Bank), which has
annually offered €75.000 to the manifestation, in 2005 was acquired by the national
UniCredit Bank, which might decide to lower the contribution, given the presumably
reduced locally rooted strategic interests.
Thirdly, and most evidently, every annual edition of Umbria Jazz represents the
paradigmatic outcome of variously interweaving artistic networks. For analytical
purposes, it is possible to subdivide the artistic dimension into three main and
interrelated sub-networks: the artists‘ networks, the festivals‘ networks and the
schools‘ (educational) networks. As it emerged form the interviews with the artistic
director, the organizers and the musicians, as well as from the historic analysis of the
artistic programmes, Umbria Jazz has always aimed at possibly presenting artists
expressing the highest international aesthetic standards. As a founding member of the
Umbria Jazz Association underlines:
It could sound like a promotional spot but it‘s the truth. It really
happened, and it still happens. Our very first criterion of selection is the
quality. Umbria Jazz has never taken artists who don‘t represent specific
standards. It has rather taken top artists and present them in small spots
within the whole economy of the festival, like the theatres, when other
festivals would have probably put them in the front stage… We have
always struggled to respect this criterion, to reach the highest qualitative
standards. I couldn‘t claim we have always reached them, but we always
tried. This mission has never changed over the years. But… thinking in
terms of quality implies also thinking within the different music
categories. That is, the quality which could be attributed to George
Benson (who‘s coming to Umbria Jazz this year for a tribute to Nat King
Cole, and he wants a specific orchestra we must provide him with) is
different from the quality attributable to George Lewis who‘s presenting
an avant-garde project with the AACM – musically speaking it‘s going to
be the buttonhole flower of this year edition. Because… on the one hand
you have a figure of the show business, a popular, famous, commercially
well introduced figure. On the other hand, you have a group of very
creative musicians. Once you would have called them ―alternative‖… the
avant-garde. What do these two artists have in common? Nothing, from
the point of view of the music. Neither the tradition, which is different.
But in their own genre, these two artists are representative of the level in
which they are moving. At the top. This is our aim [Occhiuto 2009 –
interview].
These criteria of aesthetic choice explain also the relatively recent presence of Italian
artists at Umbria Jazz. As it briefly emerged also through the historical
reconstruction of the festival (cf. WP2), during the inception period and in the first
two decades the qualitative level of the Italian jazz artists was quite low, but over the
years, especially since the second half of the 1990s, it has gradually grown up to
international standards of aesthetic excellence. This is the reason why over the last
ten years Italian jazz has gained a steady and significant presence in the programmes
of Umbria Jazz. Nowadays such artists as trumpeters Enrico Rava and Paolo Fresu,
pianist Stefano Bollani, trombonist Gianluca Petrella and young saxophonist
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Francesco Cafiso are international stars, ―brands‖ whose media popularity is
sometimes going beyond the boundaries of the jazz field. As it emerged from many
of our interviews, this is particularly evident in the case of Bollani, who is a
histrionic figure able to collaborate with the most prestigious and established jazz
musicians (during the 2009 edition he performed a piano duet with Chick Corea in
front of an audience of about four thousands, providing one of the most aesthetically
innovative and commercially successful shows of the festival) as well as with
emergent and relatively unknown artists, but also with Italian pop artists or
mainstream TV and radio entertainment programs and commercial advertisements,
by keeping at the same time – and most strikingly – his artistic aura basically
unimpaired.
It is interesting to note that the Bollani-Corea performance was exclusively a Carlo
Pagnotta‘s idea. The two artists had never played together (neither met) before the
2009 edition of Umbria Jazz. After its success, the show is going to be repeated
different times in 2010 in other big public spots such as the Auditorium of Rome and
the International Music Festival MiTo in Milan. This is just one of many examples
which show the role of Umbria Jazz festival in shaping and spreading aesthetic
innovation in the field of jazz music. On the other hand, it clearly implies the
possibility to benefit from an already existent international network which can make
the transnational circulation of jazz artists easier (and cheaper). This represents the
second way in which social networks and related structures play a role for Umbria
Jazz. Over the last two decades, in fact, the complexities of the increasingly
globalized market of jazz musicians (and therefore of the construction of the annual
programmes of the festival) have lead a number of artistic directors to develop
organizational synergies at the international level. In this scenario, 1991 Umbria Jazz
become a member of the European Jazz Festival Organization (which was later
renamed International Jazz Festival Organization) which today includes the twelve
most prestigious jazz festivals worldwide, and it greatly helps for the international
tour programming of the artists and the annual aesthetic choices of each festival,
particularly during the summer.
Finally, besides the strictly artistic dimension (but in relation with it), Umbria Jazz
represents also a crucial node within an international educational network of jazz
music schools. Already in the first half of the 1980s, within a wider strategy of
international linking of the festival, Umbria Jazz developed a specific interest in the
clinics, the school and workshops for jazz students typically diffused in the US. In
1985 Umbria Jazz started a collaborative relationship with the prestigious Bostonbased Berklee College of Music which has proved solid and fertile over the years.
The Berklee College has been in charge of the organization and promotion of the
workshops for students annually held at Umbria Jazz for the last twenty-five years.
Today the UJ Workshops are directed by Italian jazz double bass player Giovanni
Tommaso and Berklee‘s Associate Vice President for International Programs Larry
Monroe. During the 2009 edition of Umbria Jazz, the clinics have also hosted a
workshop for percussionists held by Giovanni Hidalgo e Horacio ―El Negro‖
Hernandez, where also the Juakali Drummers, a group of young boys from a
shantytown in Nairobi (Kenya) who have performed in a public square during the
festival, were invited. In the words of the artistic director Carlo Pagnotta these
dynamics respond to a specific social, educational and even ―humanitarian‖ role of
Umbria Jazz:
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The Workshops are important, the education is a world on its own, but it
represents an important component, which is sometimes forgotten
because the festival phagocytises everything … In the festival there is
also a… let‘s say a social and humanitarian component. Already two
years ago… in the programme it wasn‘t written, but the bags like my
wife‘s are made near Mombasa, where there is a college opened by a
now-defunct Italian guy. What we earn from selling those bags is later
invested in structures for these kids in Kenya… This year we have this
concert by these boys from a shantytown in Nairobi… who were also
invited to the Workshops for some drum lessons [Pagnotta 2009 –
interview].
It is interesting to note also that over the last few years, after the inauguration of the
―new formula‖ in 2003, the historically educational role of the Umbria Jazz
workshops has been more or less explicitly considered increasingly relevant within
the strategic composition of the festival, presumably because of his symbolically
counterbalancing power with respect to the commercially oriented artistic choices of
a consistent part of the programme. In fact, during the interview, UJ Workshops codirector Larry Monroe has stressed the peculiar relevance of the school and its
potential role in preserving the boundaries of the symbolic authenticity of jazz as the
music genre within the wider organizational economy of the festival vis-à-vis what is
described as an increasingly market-lead manifestation with, most importantly, fewer
and fewer clear connotations of genre. In his words,
There has been a decline in the popularity of the jazz alone attracting
festivals … This festival used to be exclusively jazz, it‘s now more and
more ―pop‖… with ―pop‖ people… but it‘s going on all over the world,
it‘s not only a European phenomenon… it‘s a kind of flat period now…
not only jazz, but rock… it‘s a flat phase… a difficult period [Monroe
2009 – interview].
5.4
Umbria Jazz, politics and cosmopolitism
As we have seen in the historical reconstruction (cf. WP2), during the inception
period of Umbria Jazz in the 1970s the very first editions of the festival were
connoted by a tense political climate, a number of youth protests and a general lack
of preparation to handle the situation by the organizers and the local institutions.
However, since the early 1980s and the beginning of the second historical period of
Umbria Jazz, the political elements which had been so strong during the earlier
decade become ever more absent. Today Umbria Jazz is largely considered an
apolitical manifestation by both the artistic director and the organizers and in the
common sense of the general publics (the citizens s well as the visitors of the
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festival), as it is confirmed by this transcript from a focus group carried out with
members of the audience of the 2009 edition:137
A) From outside, Umbria Jazz isn‘t definitely perceived as a political or
politicized festival…
B) It could be interpreted as a political festival for association of ideas…
Musicians from all over the world come here, so one can gain concepts
or ideas about his/her own future, about innovation…
A) Ok, but it‘s not like U2‘s Bono addressing Berlusconi…
B) If there is a political message it doesn‘t come from the organizers, but
from single artists…
C) In a literature festival it could be possible, because specific [political]
issues are addressed in the books…
A) You can address specific issues also with the music…
C) But not with jazz music, with jazz it‘s more difficult. [UJ focus group
2009]
Despite the frequency with which these kinds of lay declarations are usually heard, it
is still possible to outline a number of socio-political issues which have been more or
less explicitly addressed by the festival over the years, particularly regarding the
articulation of peculiar dynamics of cosmopolitan orientations in the context of the
multicultural social life of the city of Perugia. As a premise, it is however necessary
to state that Europe as geographical and cultural source of reference and
identification is very rarely recalled in the discoursive accounts of the festival
organizers, artists and audience. Umbria jazz turns out to be projected
contemporarily towards a micro (local, that is, mainly urban and regional) and a
macro (international) dimension, and in this constructive tension Europe as a
theoretically definable meso-level of identification comes to be generally
disregarded.
In more specific analytical terms the cosmopolitan dimension of Umbria Jazz can be
investigated through three strictly interrelated sub-fields, reciprocally dealing with a)
the history and peculiar cultural characteristics of the Umbria region and the city of
Perugia; b) the history and peculiar characteristics of jazz as a music genre, and the
kind of social relationships usually developed among musicians and jazz producers
during the festival; and c) the audience of the festival and the relationships among
the members of the publics in the context of the city of Perugia.
First of all, from a historical-sociological perspective it is hardly deniable that the
original context in which the festival was founded, the city of Perugia, has played a
crucial role in shaping the cultural air breathed firstly by the organizers and then by
the artists and the audience. According to both Giovanni Tarpani (ex-UJ Foundation
Secretary and ex-Spokesman for the Arts of the town council of Perugia) and
Adriano Mazzoletti (a renowned Italian jazz historian and organizer of jazz events
and media programs, who used to live in Perugia in the 1950s), the city of Perugia
137
From a methodological viewpoint, the almost 2 hour-long focus group was organized in July 2009 in Perugia
during the festival and it included 8 individuals, 4 women and 4 men, 26-46 years old, 6 of them living in Perugia
and the surrounding areas, 2 of them great jazz fan, as a whole with different political orientations.
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proved to represent a very fertile social and cultural environment for the
development of a jazz festival as a form of artistic and multicultural manifestation:
Perugia has always had an open eye, an open attitude toward the world,
never close on itself … Historically, also the Franciscan message was
configured as a universalistic message, never linked to the Roman
ecclesial hierarchy! But this attitude developed in the post-WWII years,
with the non-violence… and it developed also with Perugia‘s University
of Foreigners… So, denying this profound identity of the Umbria region
means somehow denying the Umbria region itself… Umbria Jazz was a
winning festival because it brought American, very coloured [in the sense
of unusual, folkloric] artists in the mediaeval squares, when there wasn‘t
even yet the highway to go to Rome! The E45, the four-lane motorway
E45 come after Umbria Jazz! You know what I mean? This
cosmopolitism has always granted Umbria an absolutely unique
dimension in the Italian scenario. Unique. There isn‘t an even similar
city in Italy … This is how Perugia was in the 1950s … Therefore the
background on which Umbria Jazz started moving was not an
underdeveloped background, in terms of multiculturalism … because
meeting black people here in Perugia is usual … it‘s unusual if you
don‘t! [Tarpani 2009 – interview]
When I came here in Perugia in the 1950s, I was coming from Genoa, in
Genoa there basically still was the war… the Felice Theater was still
destroyed… So I came in Perugia in 1950 and I found myself shocked…
I was a fourteen-year old boy, and I was shocked: here you could find
everything, music feasts, classical music everywhere, many cultural
activities, and above all boys and girls form all over the world, form the
US, from Finland… I met more foreign friends when I was 15-20 years
old than when I moved to Rome. Here I met guys from Oslo, Helsinki,
Barcelona, Athens… wonderful people! Pagnotta can‘t deny this… here
people used to breath a completely different air if compared to all the
other Italian cities. In Rome you could breath the touristic air, in Milan
you could breath the air of the big entrepreneurs and traders… here in
Perugia you could breath a cultural air, a completely different air. And
also Pagnotta has breathed this air, without any doubts! Here you could
find something interesting around every corner… you couldn‘t exempt
yourself to look at the miracle of this city which, differently from most
Italian cities, is still completely undamaged, it‘s still as it was in 1100, if
not as it was in the Etruscan age! The historical centre of Perugia oozes
with culture from every corner! … in terms of so-called racial
integration, Perugia has never been a racist city: people of all colour were
in good relationships with the citizens, they often rent apartments from
the citizens… It can‘t be claimed that this environment had no
influence… Pagnotta breathed this air too… a multicultural air,
absolutely [Mazzoletti 2009 – interview].
From the interviews it clearly emerged that even if artistic director Carlo Pagnotta –
as part of a more or less conscious discoursive strategy – belittles the role played by
the historical context in the success of ―his‖ festival, most actors involved in its
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realization over the years convincingly claim that Perugia provided a naturally fertile
environment for the development of a multicultural artistic enterprise aiming at
putting jazz – a music genre which has been historically considered itself as a
constitutively cosmopolitan form of cultural expression – to its core. Mazzoletti
underlines also the relationship between the socially collaborative relationships
typically developed among jazz artists at the international level (thanks to the passion
for the music, and notwithstanding the potential language barriers) and the
architectural configuration of the public space of the historical centre of the city of
Perugia, which looks naturally fertile for social interactions. In his words,
Jazz is the most cosmopolitan music of the world by antonomasia. In my
long life of organizer of events, working in TVs and radios, directing
different festivals… I‘ve always seen a sort of brotherly relationship
among musicians from all over the world… They couldn‘t even verbally
talk to each other because some of them couldn‘t speak English… and
this concerns musicians as well as fans and supporters. In the 1970s and
1980s among us, in the jazz world, there was a motto: ―jazz‘s mafia‖,
because if one of us had to go to Norway or Finland or Thailand, he
knew that there he could find at least four or five jazz lovers and he could
consequently enter that world… This is jazz‘s greatness, jazz does have
this capacity to unite people in friendship, there‘s no racism, no envy,
rather there could be emulation. This happened in every festival I saw,
but Perugia shows it even more. Why? Because the city of Perugia is
―adequate‖ for this, the whole festival takes place in a street that is no
longer than one kilometre. And the global jazz is all here. The city keeps
living, nothing is demobilized. And while you keep going to work, to
your office, as usually, you can meet Cecil Taylor, Stan Getz, Count
Basie or Art Blakey, and all the greatest jazz players, at a bar on Corso
Vannucci in the centre of the city, drinking a glass of wine or eating an
ice-cream! Where else can you find anything like this? Nowhere else!
[Mazzoletti 2009 – interview].
Notwithstanding the unquestionably socio-cultural fertility of the historic
environment of the city of Perugia, the organizers of the festival tendentially claim a
peculiar social role of the manifestation, from the point of view of both the artistic
offer and the educational activities. In particular, in this context, the Clinics come to
be seen again as an aesthetic incubatory room for a sort of cosmopolitan sociability,
which turns out to be potentially (and politically) very precious nowadays, as UJ
Clinics co-director and renowned jazz player Giovanni Tommaso has explained in
the interview:
What I can say from my point of observation is that above all in the past
at Umbria Jazz I‘ve seen musicians who were prevalently American but
also international. I‘ve seen international publics and international critics.
Nowadays it seems to me that there is a decrease in this sense… but I
don‘t believe it to be a decline of Umbria Jazz, I think it‘s a global,
universal decline… However, the festival can still play a role in
promoting meeting and forms of exchange among people… Here at the
Umbria Jazz Clinics this is evident… The Umbria Jazz Clinics are a sort
of work in progress, a laboratory in which it is still possible to talk about
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cosmopolitanism, in the old sense of international identity… Here at the
Clinics you can breathe it. About two thirds of the students are Italian,
but we know that those Italian students are happy to have one third of
foreigner students whom they could confront with, in the language…
This is one of our main and most valuable peculiarities [Tommaso 2009
– interview].
A moment among the students at Umbria Jazz Clinics 2009. (photo: Marco Solaroli)
Quite interestingly, the major dynamics that we have identified insofar in the
discoursive accounts of some of the main historic social actors of the festival –
dealing with the potential role of Umbria Jazz in the fertile intersection between the
peculiar cultural characteristics of the local context and the intrinsically social value
of jazz as an aesthetic form – work also at the level of the audience, in shaping the
mutual symbolic perceptions and the social relationships among the members of the
publics in the context of the city of Perugia during the festival.
E) Here at Umbria Jazz the artists are almost all American. Not even
international, just American… Rarely can one see German, French or
Vietnamese artists… or North-European avant-garde jazz… I never saw
it. My switching opinion on Umbria Jazz – I‘m not so attracted by
Umbria Jazz anymore – deals with this historical moment which is so
philo-American…
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A) Well, this year for example there are also many Italian artists… like
Quintorigo…
M) She‘s saying: American, Italian, and that‘s all.
E) Yes but that‘s just because we are in Italy, so it is assumable that the
audience will be offered a few Italian artists… and that‘s it. But as a
festival, Umbria Jazz is not really international, most artists are
American…
A) Yes this is true…
M) But should it be international? And if yes, why?
E) Well if you talk about jazz in general… here at least all European jazz
is missing. In a past edition I saw [French] Galliano, but it was just by
chance.
M) Do you all think Umbria Jazz to be a cosmopolitan festival? What
does cosmopolitanism mean to you?
B) Utmost openness to different cultures, other cultures… it‘s a way of
thinking… integration…
A) More than ―openness‖, it means ―being‖… openness means
―intentions towards‖… ―being cosmopolitan‖ means instead a situation
in which different people get together but without anybody forcing them
to do it…
E) Can I add one thing? I‘m coming from the area surrounding the city of
Bergamo, that‘s a very pro-Northern League zone… where people of
colour are always seen suspiciously. Instead in these days here people
look at them differently, they smile at them, because they are
musicians…
A) She‘s right. That‘s the general attitude…
C) But Perugia has always been cosmopolitan…
A) Not really, because if somebody here saw a Moroccan guy in the
street in October [not during the festival]…
C) Actually a Moroccan guy sitting or hanging around in the streets looks
scary even during Umbria Jazz…
M) Do you all think Umbria Jazz as a festival to facilitate social
integration?
A) Yes because everybody finds himself here for the same reason… and
since all people are here for a reason they share something, therefore
either you are black or Chinese you find yourself (and everybody else)
here for a reason… the integration is potential. [UJ focus group 2009]
This piece of transcript of the focus group quite strikingly comprises the main
different elements regarding the perception of the potentially social and educational
role as well as cosmopolitan dimension of the festival which emerged during the
interviews with both the organizers and the artists. On the one hand, in fact, the city
of Perugia seems to be considered by its inhabitants (some of them participated in the
focus group) as an historically ―cosmopolitan‖ environment which pre-exists the
festival (―Perugia has always been cosmopolitan…‖). On the other hand, however,
just beyond the apparently and positively widespread sociability on the surface, there
still are emerging forms of veiled racial suspiciousness (―a Moroccan guy sitting or
hanging around in the streets looks scary even during Umbria Jazz‖) which in turn
immediately recall the widely considered racist attitudes of the Italian political party
Lega Nord (Northern League) whose main electoral platforms are strongly rooted in
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the northern areas of the country (―I‘m coming from the area surrounding the city of
Bergamo, that‘s a very pro-Northern League zone… where people of colour are
always seen suspiciously‖). Most interestingly, in this context the festival is
perceived as a potentially fertile ground for new forms of multicultural awareness
and cosmopolitan sociability (―Everybody finds himself here for the same reason …
either you are black or Chinese … the integration is potential‖).
Feltrinelli Book store in the centre of Perugia during
Umbria Jazz 2009. Italian piano jazz player Stefano Bollani‘s
auto-biographical book is on the window. The slogan reads:
―Together against racism‖. (photo: Marco Solaroli)
5.5
The audience
The audience of Umbria Jazz – as of every other festival – can be investigated at
least in terms of its composition, its perception of the festival, and the relationships
among its members during the social events and the artistic performances of the
manifestation. As far as its composition is considered relevant for the purpose of our
research, it is first of all necessary to underline the poor availability of both
quantitative and qualitative historical data on the members of Umbria Jazz. From
official data collected by the Italian National Statistical Institute (ISTAT) and by the
Umbria Region, it results that the amount of tourists going to Perugia in the ten days
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of the festival generally represents about one third of the total amount of tourists
annually visiting the region of Umbria.138 According to the festival organizers, over
the last five years the amount of audience was annually on average significantly
more than 300.000, in a few cases around 400.000. More specifically, from the
results of a recent quantitative and qualitative research on the audience of Umbria
Jazz carried out during the 2007 edition (on a sample of 1614 participants) it
becomes possible to outline a qualitative profile of the visitors of the festival: the
Umbria Jazz audience is on average 39 years old (50% of the audience between 30
and 47); coming mainly from Italy (85%); and from well-educated upper-to-middle
classes (50% with a B.A. (laurea) degree).139
As it emerges from Tab. 3, our own survey140 conducted on the field during the 2009
edition prevalently confirmed these profiles. In particular, our questionnaire
presented specific questions dealing with a number of issues related to the EUROFESTIVAL research project, among which the motivations to participate, and the
perception of the (potential) cosmopolitan/multicultural/political connotation of the
events. It is interesting to note (see Tab. 4), that more than 40% of our sample of the
audience consider Umbria Jazz to constitute an expression of multiculturalism and
quite paradoxically only slightly more than 20% to constitute an expression of
cosmopolitism, while an extremely low (almost zero) percentage believe the festival
to play any political functions. Moreover, one third of the sample conceived Umbria
Jazz (also) as a means to reach cultural and educational aims, while one fifth (cf.
Tab. 4) as a fertile occasion to meeting people. Finally, according to our sample,
almost 9 out of 10 members of the audience believe the manifestation to be no-profit
(since only slightly more than 10% think it is (also) a way to make money). As a
whole, these data confirm the widespread discoursive perception and the general
knowledge of the specific cultural policies of the festival that we have reconstructed
insofar, but they also hypothetically suggest the existence of a relevant degree of
confusion (or unconsciousness, or supposed irrelevance), among the lay audience
and general visitors of the manifestation, concerning the issues of cosmopolitanism
and multiculturalism and the potential role of such a festival as Umbria Jazz in
accordingly shaping contemporary (European) public culture.
138
See Panfili, N. 2003
Il marketing territoriale e la valorizzazione di beni e attività culturali. I casi:
―Umbria Jazz‖ e ―Parco geominerario della Sardegna‖, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Mumat (Master
Universitario in Marketing territoriale), research report, p.37
139
Bracalente and Ferrucci 2009, op. cit.
140
Methodologically, the audience of the 2009 edition of Umbria Jazz has been analyzed through a quantitative
survey based on a questionnaire distributed to a sample of 255 participants mainly at the midnight concerts within
the Morlacchi Theater (therefore mainly representing what we have called the aesthetic institutional logic of the
festival) plus a two-hour long focus group (cf. note 5).
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0
Gender
Men
Women
Age
<18
18-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
≥70
Education
Degree
Middle school
High school
College
Post-graduate
Occupational
Status
Manager
Teacher
White-collar
Working class
Minor
entrepr.,
trader,
craftsman
Autonomous
professionals
Worker in the
arts field
Student
Pensioner
Geographic
place of origin
Province of
Perugia
Other
Umbria‘s
Provinces
Other Italian
Regions
Abroad
Only 1
2-5
More than
5
Total
N
3,7
11,2
8,1
17,8
47,8
43,9
40,4
27,1
100,0
100,0
136
107
0,0
9,8
13,0
0,0
4,2
6,7
0,0
0,0
19,6
18,5
3,5
10,4
6,7
0,0
28,6
41,2
48,1
45,6
58,3
33,3
50,0
71,4
29,4
20,4
50,9
27,1
53,3
50,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
7
51
54
57
48
15
6
0,0
9,6
6,1
7,3
6,3
9,6
18,4
2,4
37,5
45,2
45,6
56,1
56,3
35,6
29,8
34,1
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
16
73
114
41
0,0
4,8
5,7
14,3
8,0
4,8
9,4
28,6
56,0
47,6
54,7
28,6
36,0
42,9
30,2
28,6
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
25
21
53
7
0,0
0,0
60,0
40,0
100,0
5
8,9
11,1
40,0
40,0
100,0
45
8,3
9,4
0,0
16,7
15,6
0,0
45,8
37,5
55,6
29,2
37,5
44,4
100,0
100,0
100,0
24
32
9
10,9
25,0
40,6
23,4
100,0
64
0,0
0,0
75,0
25,0
100,0
4
5,0
12,5
6,3
25,0
47,2
50,0
41,5
12,5
100,0
100,0
159
16
Total
6,7
11,9
46,6
34,8
100,0
253
Tab. 3 Music performances or events that the interviewee has paid for (or will pay for) in total at
Umbria Jazz 2009.
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wa
yt
o
An
int
er
na
ti o
im
na
po
lly
rta
re
nt
ma
l ev
A
w
n
ke
ay
an
ex
Pe
tf
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ru
p
ss
ro
gi a
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m
i
al
o
ote
an
no
An
f
a
mu
p
o
m
cc
pe
A
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sic
as
a li
wa
icu
ion
ng
yt
l tu
o
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for
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re
ur
l is
ar
ac
ist
m
tis
hc
A
d
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ult
s
An
ro
ti n
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ur
om
at
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pe
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ion
oti
ca
ri m
an
on
sio
d
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al
n
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du
at
me
to
ion
ca
l ea
an
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tio
sf
rn
n
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xp
or
al
ne
re
aim
sp
w
ss
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thi
s
io n
i
n
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ic
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gs
o
a
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f
ab
rti
co
yf
sts
ou
sm
or
to
o
a
po
the
A
f
ew
fe
liti
rc
sti
sm
pe
ou
va
o
n
l
ple
tri
An
fo
es
ra
to
ex
'a
ll t
m
pr
rts
he
ak
es
em
sio
ci t
ize
no
on
An
ns
ey
ft
ex
he
of
pr
Pe
co
es
ns
ru
sio
g ia
um
no
er
fp
cu
ro
ltu
gr
re
es
siv
ei
de
as
A
wa
yo
Ot
fd
he
oi n
r
gp
oli
tic
s
A
An
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Tab. 4 What is Umbria Jazz for you?
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100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
sa
e,
in
the
on
oin
ia
ru
g
Pe
nd
ar
ou
(o
n
n
ed
oti
o
an
iz
m
rg
lp
ro
Th
e
ev
en
ts
o
sti
va
fe
m.
..
etc
.
)
nd
io,
TV
,r
ad
on
s,
as
re
lar
pa
r ti
cu
No
Th
e
go
a
It's
ar
ou
Iw
as
o
yt
nit
po
r tu
op
od
go
a
It's
od
a
I' m
he
re
ee
tp
m
ion
al
at
er
n
int
llo
w
fo
o
yt
nit
po
r tu
op
eo
tis
t..
ar
sp
ak
e
UJ
t
wh
ich
es
in
nu
ve
Th
e
ple
e
lac
ti s
ts
ar
r ta
nt
im
po
to
ten
l is
to
ted
Iw
an
fa
no
f ja
zz
an
d
Sp
e
of
cif
th
e
ic
c
m
on
us
ic
ce
r ts
of
fe
an
d
re
d
ar
by
tis
ts
UJ
0
Tab. 5 What induced you to come to Umbria Jazz this year (2009)?
As it has already emerged in the previous section, the festival is still widely
perceived as a potential incubator room for cosmopolitan social interactions. Even if
it hasn‘t ever been explicitly addresses by both the organizers and the media or
strategically employ in the marketing of the manifestation, this role has been
intrinsically searched for since the inception, as co-founder of the Umbria Jazz
Association Paolo Occhiuto has underlined, recalling how the organizers were
somehow conscious of the social potential of the manifestation even during the very
first years:
From a certain point of view, and maybe unconsciously, this was the
mainspring of the birth of Umbria Jazz. To open up a public square, to
open it up for everybody, and to say: ―go and listen to the music, no
matter who you are and where you come from‖ … Still today the
audience is widely heterogeneous [Occhiuto 2009 – interview].
Nowadays, however, the experience of a number of visitors of the festival comes to
be described as increasingly ―structured‖, ―ordered‖ and ―controlled‖ if compared
with what it used to be during at least the first years. During the focus group the
discussion has touched on these issues more than once. For example:
B) My memories as a kid give me a completely different picture from
what I see now… when I was young the first times I travelled and I saw
music manifestations on the street, I used to think: ―I‘ve already seen it at
Umbria Jazz‖… instead coming back at Umbria Jazz after a while, over
the last few years, my impression was that this thing had been lost… it‘s
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not a critique, maybe it‘s just an impression of mine which was amplified
by the fact that I was a kid…
A) No, it‘s a common perception, years ago the festival was completely
different…
M) But how can you be sure? You were too young, you didn‘t see it with
your eyes, did you?
A) I did! There was jazz on the street, around every corner, the
atmosphere you could breathe was completely different... This was until
just 4-5 years ago.
B) It‘s been a real break, a real change…
A) Since they started organizing the big concerts at Arena Santa
Giuliana, around 2003…
D) Until at least a decade ago, there were many people coming to Perugia
and sleeping on the streets in the city centre, with their sleeping bags…
people from all over the world, you could hear one thousands
languages… and students who then become friends, using each others‘
flats… the festival used to become a special occasion, because the city
was invaded by music and people…
M) Don‘t you think that this is something already rooted in this city? For
example, the University for Foreigners brings students from all over the
world to Perugia…
D) No, that‘s just by chance. They are different things…
A) If you take a look around in the centre you can find bars officiously
―only for‖ Spanish, or for local citizens, and so on… they are like in
watertight compartments… while with Umbria Jazz people share
common events… the internalization… you could smell it! [UJ focus
group 2009]
As this piece of the transcript suggests, in the perception of the audience over the last
few years the historical image and, particularly, the symbolic authenticity of the
festival have been somehow compromised. As one participant in the focus group
explicitly recalls, this process is argued to be closely linked to the inauguration of the
new ―formula‖ of Umbria Jazz in 2003 (including a specific section of the festival
explicitly dedicated to big (pop) music stars), which has in turn contributed to reduce
the overall perceived aesthetic ―purity‖ of the manifestation, interpretable both in
terms of the struggle to maintain the symbolic boundaries of jazz as a music genre as
well as a sort of highly democratic, utmost open attitude towards playing – in
particular regarding the possibility to start improvising jazz on the mediaeval streets
of the city centre (―There was jazz on the street, around every corner, the atmosphere
you could breathe was completely different‖).
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A typical night at a free concert in the main square of Perugia at Umbria Jazz 2009. (photo: Umbria
Jazz press office)
5.6
The role of the media
The relationship between Umbria Jazz and the media can be analyzed at least in three
main dimensions: the coverage by the mainstream national media; the relationship
with the specialized music magazines; and the use of the internet by the organizers.
In terms of general national media, Umbria Jazz has historically been almost
disregarded by the mainstream press and TV news programs. The rights to record
and broadcast the music performances taking place during the festival are usually
sold to the [national TV channel] RAI and [its satellite platform] RAI Sat, but the
coverage is overall poor and typically diffused during night hours.
The news press has instead played a contradictory role towards the festival over the
years. While the relationship with specialized music magazines (such as Musica
Jazz) has always proved mutually fertile, over the 1970s, mainly for the mass appeal
of its politicized climate, the most-diffused Italian newspapers used to dedicate
particular attention to the festival, to its artistic choices and to the reaction of the
audience. Over the last two decades the Italian jazz criticism sphere registered a
significant contraction, and nowadays there are fewer and fewer credible guardians
of the aesthetic taste in the Italian jazz field. This aspect emerged as problematic in
many interviews, with both festival organizers, artists and the same jazz critics.
This is a huge problem: in Italy we haven‘t ever had a fundamental thing,
a… let‘s say a group, a movement of serious jazz scholars. Those who
care and write about jazz are mainly journalists, or jazz fans who often
know no music at all, who couldn‘t tell you where the C note is on the
keyboard. We never had in Italy something really important,
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constructive, seriously dedicated to jazz. The official, traditional culture
has always considered jazz at best as a minor art… for various reasons,
such as the fascist heritage, the fact that in the 1960s jazz used to be
played in the ballrooms and then only with the Modern Jazz Quartet and
Dave Bruback was it able to enter the circuit of classic music… So, who
writes about jazz in Italy? If we check who wrote a review… but just to
begin with - they don‘t even write reviews anymore, and this has been
fundamental. Newspapers discourage writing reviews, and this is a
problem, because nowadays newspapers close at 8pm or 9pm, and it hits
the stands at 1am. Haw can you write a review if the concert ended at
midnight? And the day after it‘s not so interesting anymore. So, you can
publish it in the specialized music magazines. But people do not read
them so much anymore, because there aren‘t charismatic jazz writers
anymore. Once you had such figures as Arrigo Polillo or Giancarlo
Testoni who set the standards and shaped the tastes… who had the
courage and authoritativeness to say what was right and what was wrong.
Today nobody says: ―Be careful, last night this musicians did this and
that, he played badly, this isn‘t the right way‖, and so on. There‘s no one
anymore. And everything seems to sound perfect. People don‘t have
anymore the standards to understand and judge when something is
good… This is the fundamental problem of jazz in Italy! In other
countries things are different. There are still the critics, authoritative
figures who can judge in full cognition of the facts and say ―this works,
this doesn‘t work‖. This is the fundamental problem of jazz in Italy: it
has become music of consumption [Mazzoletti 2009 - interview].
This is my opinion, even if I‘ve talked about it with others, even with a
friend of mine who used to be the editor-in-chief of the [Italian
newspaper] Messaggero: a world has ended. Because… once there was
the presentation of the manifestation. Then, the day of the concert, there
was an article on the newspaper talking about what was going to happen
at the night, and then, after one or two days, there was the critical review
of the concert. Nowadays… jazz review is a word that… those working
in the newspapers don‘t even know what it means. So… a world has
ended, a world has ended [Tommaso 2009 - interview].
According to Enzo Capua, an Italian (but New York-based) jazz journalist who has
recently become Umbria Jazz‘s US Representative, and who can be convincingly
claimed to belong to that strict circle of authoritative Italian jazz critics whom
Mazzoletti was recalling in the transcript of the interview presented above, the
problem of the field of Italian jazz critics and journalists and their relationships with
Umbria Jazz deals also with the fact that many of them moved from specialized
music magazines to mainstream newspapers. Accordingly, and presumably
consciously, they now focus their attention more on the mainstream artists, the ―big‖
names, rather than the artistic revelations or aesthetic avant-gardes. At the same time,
as Mazzoletti explained above, over the last years the niche of journalists with a high
degree of specific cultural capitol in the field has been drastically reduced. Capua
provided a specific example to illustrate both sides of the situation:
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In the 1970s Giacomo Pellicciotti used to promote AACM and jazz from
Chicago in Italy more than anybody else… and this year he has insisted
to interview Wynton Marsalis, while he hasn‘t even asked to meet
George Lewis! A few days ago George Lewis was presenting his book at
[the bookstore] Feltrinelli, he also made Pellicciotti‘s name, and he
wasn‘t even there! … Hopefully, we will read a few articles talking about
George Lewis after the end of the festival, but before it, we hadn‘t… the
only thing I saw has been a long article on [the Italian newspaper]
ilSole24Ore, like half a page [Capua 2009 – interview].
Finally, in the relationship between Umbria Jazz and the media it can‘t be denied that
over the last few years, internet has increasingly become a crucial promotional means
for the organization of the festival as well as a valuable source of information. The
official website umbriajazz.com, in fact, offers annual press releases, an archive with
material from previous editions and hi-quality multimedia contents. In the days of the
festival it is constantly updated and it offers the possibility to follow a number of
events through specific webcams. during the 2009 edition, the number of hits
registered in the ten days of the festival exceeded 100.000. On this basis, it becomes
quite understandable that, on the other hand, internet might further increase the
widespread fears for the fate of traditional, independent, quality jazz journalism and
critics.
5.7
Conclusions: the (crucial) role of the artistic director and the future of Umbria
Jazz
This chapter has first of all reconstructed the reasons and contexts of the process
through which, between the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, a substantial
organizational-institutional restructuration of Umbria Jazz took place. As the cofounder of the Umbria Jazz Association Paolo Occhiuto emphasizes:
As organizers of the festival, we made pressures to change the previous
institutional formula. We raised the problem with the Region, and the
Region understood it. We think that this new institutional structure will
give more guarantees towards the future of Umbria Jazz. I mean… apart
from us. Because… I mean… our personal paths can change… the events
of life might eventually bring us elsewhere [Occhiuto 2009 – interview].
On the other side, the (ex-)General Secretary of the Umbria Jazz Foudation, who was
dismissed form his role within Umbria Jazz during the restructuration, agrees with
the problems on the basis of which the restructuration took place, but he doesn‘t
believe this will solve all of them. According to Tarpani, the festival should need a
wider process of institutionalization in order to continue in the future in front of the
increasingly necessary economic and political guarantees and, above all, ―apart
from‖ the actual generation of organizers. In his words,
Umbria Jazz is a manifestation which could have done more if it become
a cultural institution. Actually the process of institutionalization has
never come to an end, because Umbria Jazz sees itself as a festival, not as
a cultural institution … But the responsibilities are multiple … on the one
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hand it‘s Pagnotta‘s responsibility - he pleases himself just with the
festival. On the other hand it‘s a matter of public responsibilities. I
believe that… Umbria Jazz will have a bright life in the future. It is most
likely that the absence of the generation of administrators who
guaranteed the birth of the festival will turn out to be a problem [Tarpani
2009 – interview].
Nowadays, in fact, despite the process of increasing institutionalization and in front
of the growing economic and public relevance of the festival, the artistic
management and practical organization of Umbria Jazz still depends exclusively on
the work of the artistic director and his very restricted and highly creative network of
collaborators. More specifically, most interviewees – both organizers and artists –
repeatedly underlined the fact that over at least the last two decades (after that
Alberto Alberti formally left the organization of the festival) the responsibility of the
artistic ideas, negotiations, choices and final programme as a whole has always been
and still is exclusively in the hands of the artistic director, 77 year-old Carlo
Pagnotta. In the words of one of Pagnotta‘s oldest and closest collaborators:
In terms of artistic choices, the artistic director decides. I don‘t mean that
he ―prevalently‖ decides. The artistic director decides. This is the only
aspect of the festival that is clearly and exclusively related to only one
specific figure. But my personal opinion is that this is how things should
be. Because at the end… the image of the festival is always concerning
the ideas of the artistic director, the way in which he sees the festival.
Otherwise… I mean, I believe that in doing such a festival democracy
doesn‘t work [Occhiuto 2009 – interview].
But Pagnotta‘s crucial role does not reside exclusively in exerting an apparently total
control over the artistic content of the festival. As it emerged from the analysis of the
networking structure (see § 3 in this chapter), Carlo Pagnotta‘s extremely high
degree of social capital provides him a vast and precious relational power: with both
the local and the national political institutions (it is sufficient to recall his ability to
receive the funds from the public institutions at the very inception of the festival in
1973, as well as his successful request for more guarantees and economic support
from the Minister of Arts and Culture Francesco Rutelli thirty-five years later, in
2008); with the artists (he is the only one within the organization to maintain a strong
professional credibility as well as strictly personal friendships especially at the
international level); with other jazz festival‘s artistic directors; and with the media.
Notwithstanding the unquestionably institutional improvements in the form and the
dynamics of the organizational and managerial structure, and the evident commercial
and public success of the manifestation, the Umbria Jazz festival nowadays seems
still (too) highly dependent on the ideas, the choices and the entrepreneurial spirit of
one single man.
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6
The WOMAD Festival
Jasper Chalcraft
6.1
Introduction
What makes a festival unique? In the UK music festivals today enjoy renewed
success and cover a diversity of genres and formats that extend way beyond their
predecessors. The older festivals – like Glastonbury, like WOMAD – have evolved
and changed, becoming events that cater not only for countercultural youth but,
increasingly, as a staple in the cultural diet of middle class British families. The
digital circulation of music and new emphasis on live performance as a revenue
stream seem to have also catalysed a break-down in the boundaries between the
‗tribal‘ (genre-based) identities of British music fans. Despite sharing these changes,
and indeed pioneering the workshops and activities for children which are now
considered a prerequisite for ‗boutique‘ festivals, WOMAD remains different.
Principally, this is because WOMAD is characterized by an internationalism which
extends beyond its cultural content and the networks of those involved to its
historical and current multiple global manifestations. This one key difference with
regard to most of the other festivals studied by the Eurofestival consortium needs to
be emphasised in order to contextualise the research results that are set out below.
The following sections examine a number of aspects of the festival: its organization
and finances; its directors and the networks which enable the festival to operate
transnationally; the role of the media; the European, political and artistic
representational strategies that constitute its symbolic core; and finally, the cultural
encounters between artists and audiences that constitute the ideological and aesthetic
landscape which ensures that WOMAD exists beyond its immediate institutional
field as a cultural force, one that has been instrumental in shaping the world music
genre as well as the festival scene.
Whilst earlier deliverables emphasized the symbiotic links between WOMAD and
the development and consolidation of the world music genre, this chapter attempts to
bring together the empirical research and to make sense of it in its own terms and, as
often as possible, in the words of those directly involved. To this end quotations of
the key actors interviewed are used extensively. The research itself involved
fieldwork observation from five WOMAD festivals – WOMAD Charlton Park, July
2008; WOMAD Las Palmas, November 2008; WOMAD Charlton Park, July 2009;
WOMAD At the Tower, September 2009; WOMAD Cáceres, May 2010 – with 20
‗expert interviews‘ conducted over the duration of the project. The interviews
involved festival directors, media partners, sponsors, journalists, artists, and
workshop facilitators. A number of much smaller interviews were conducted with
random members of the audience, as well as stall-holders, site stewards, backstage
crew, charity representatives and others at the festivals themselves. Further research
was conducted within the British Library‘s Sound Archive which keeps copies of
(almost) all WOMAD festival programmes (in the UK), as well as its extensive
archive of over 1,600 hours of field recordings from the festival. Returning to a goal
tentatively identified in the project‘s literature review (Deliverable 1.1), Amanda
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Weidman‘s work141 on southern Indian music was drawn upon, and it was
hypothesized that we needed to break our empirical research down and investigate
the social, cultural and technological agents responsible for the cultural reproduction
of the festival. The research itself showed that – at least for WOMAD – these agents
are inextricably bound together: such clear separation proved a chimera.
A 2005 report by England‘s public and lottery funded national development agency
for the arts, Arts Council England,142 estimated that from July 2003 to 2004 there
were 3,552 world music gigs in England and Wales, a figure that excluded annual
events in concert halls, theatres and art festivals. The same report‘s list of English
festivals that programme world music runs to 60 events annually. In 2010, we can
only guess that the programming and performance of world music in the UK is
similar in intensity, partly because – as the authors of the report mention – world
music is particularly tricky to define and identify. However, what is certain is that
WOMAD, in 2010 as in 2005 and indeed back to its first edition in 1982, remains the
key event and showcase for world music performed in a festival context in the UK, if
not Europe and beyond.
6.2
Organization and finances
The basic financial structure, and travails, of the WOMAD festival were described in
Deliverable 2, Section 7.4. Most significantly, that analysis showed that financing the
festival has remained problematic, and keeping it afloat has relied on synergies
between the festival company, WOMAD Ltd., the charitable WOMAD Foundation
and the Real World record label, as well as its international activities and occasional
help from its founder, Peter Gabriel. As noted in that Deliverable, the actual financial
situation of WOMAD is hard to establish without data from the many global
WOMADs – for example, from WOMAD Spain, and the WOMADs in Australia and
New Zealand – particularly because many of these foreign editions enjoy substantial
state or civic subsidy and support, as well as more overt commercial sponsorship.
WOMAD Las Palmas, to give one example, is funded by the city council, supported
by the government of the Canary Islands, and sponsored by the major regional bank,
local television, 7Up and San Miguel.
The current variety in WOMADs globally can therefore offer a rough
characterization of the way in which cultural policy and funding for the arts work in
three different European countries as well as further afield. Here though we consider
the views of those key actors interviewed, rather than the balder figures discussed in
the abovementioned deliverable. Interestingly, for an organisation that has grown
exponentially over the last three decades, its actual permanent staff has shrunk,
something noted also by artists who have worked with WOMAD from the early
days. Many of the 50-100 staff said to have worked on the early festival
141
Weidman, A.J. (2006) Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern: the postcolonial politics of music in South
India, Durham: Duke University Press
142
Arts Council England (2005) World Music in England. In print and online. Downloaded: June
2008. Available at: www.artscouncil.org.uk/publications/
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organisations were probably volunteers, but the professionalization of the
organisation has ensured that only a few dedicated professionals are necessary (or
cost-effective), both for running the festival company and the foundation.
Since its move away from Reading‘s Rivermead site, WOMAD UK lost its major
institutional partner, Reading Borough Council. Financially autonomous, and subject
to the vagaries that Britain‘s fickle climate can exert on its outdoor festivals,
WOMAD Charlton Park‘s first year courted the kind of financial disaster that
plagued its early years. Some state funding aided WOMAD through those difficult
early years, in particular from Visiting Arts which had funded world music events
since 1979, and gave a grant to the very first WOMAD (Arts Council England 2005:
6). Since splitting the work of the festival company from the charitable aims of the
WOMAD Foundation (see section 7.4 in Deliverable 2 for more on the
organisational structure), direct funding and assistance from the Arts Council has
only gone to the Foundation, in particular to the Summer School that follows the
main UK festival.
This is currently a major issue for the Foundation, one that cuts to the heart of what
they do. As described in interview, both of its directors are passionate about their
activities, and that they should also occur ―beyond the gates‖ of the festival itself.
However, their shared financial relationship with the festival company muddies the
waters as far as institutional funding is concerned, as their collaborator from Arts
Council England, Moragh Brooksbank, explained:
―The Foundation is, sort of, finding its way as to whether it is or isn‘t a
separate event from the Festival. So you know I‘m keen to help them
through this period of working out quite who they are and what they are
and how separate they are and what they want to do.‖ [Moragh
Brooksbank, interview transcript]
WOMAD Charlton Park has no real sponsorship (though, as discussed in the section
on the Role of the Media, BBC Radio 3 may be considered as a sponsor), and its
business model relies upon tickets, stalls and merchandise; as one of the WOMAD
Foundation directors described it:
―The Festival as a whole really relies upon ticket sales and the bars and
the traders. That‘s where it gets its income from. […] Money from beer‖
[Mandy Adams, interview transcript].
Whilst current UK WOMADs (the WOMAD At The Tower of 2009 excepted: this
was very visibly sponsored by Continental Airlines) are effectively financially
autonomous, another branch of the WOMAD family, the Real World record label,
has found its financial security through three factors: the direct involvement of Peter
Gabriel, the good fortune it had to be distributed by Virgin, and the growth of
soundtracks as an ongoing revenue stream. The following by Gabriel gives an idea of
the money that was needed in the early years to produce world music:
―Today the costs of recording can be very low, and every major record
company has its boutique "world" label, but at the beginning it wasn't
like that. We could only fund Real World as a record company if it was
really tightly managed. Simon Draper of Virgin had offered us 10 grand
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to make each record, covering advances to artists, recording costs, album
art and the running of the label.‖143 [Gabriel 2006]
It is worth noting that this distribution of Real World records through Virgin
probably helped ensure the label‘s success as a major player within world music as
much as the quality of the artists and the label‘s widely recognised high production
values. Driven by artistic goals rather than a need to satisfy shareholders, Real World
– as discussed further in the Representations section below – echoes the ideals of the
festival company. To this end, the organisation and financing of their activities seem
to have long been secondary to the overall artistic project. Nevertheless, here the
label manager, Amanda Jones, describes the importance of soundtracks to the
revenue stream of contemporary record labels:
―It‘s been very important, very important and I have to say that Peter
Gabriel‘s been massively influential from that point of view. […] I was
in fact just talking to somebody, just before we spoke, about Natural
Born Killers where I put the music together for Oliver Stone to consider
for that film and was able to persuade him to include Tuvan throat
singers on Natural Born Killers, and they earned more from that film than
they would have done on any royalties of any record sold. It‘s great.[…]
It‘s fantastic, a nice pot of money from Hollywood for an artist who will
never see that kind of funds and that was definitely Peter‘s contacts that
enabled those things to happen. […] licensing music into adverts or films
or library music is the way that people are hoping to find new streams of
income.‖ [Amanda Jones, interview transcript]
That the film sector has become increasingly relevant for world musicians was also
recognised by recording artists associated with the festival. Johnny Khalsi of the
Dhol Foundation:
―Well, when you‘re doing a soundtrack for a budget film of 400 million
then, you know, a slice of that cake is going to come your way, in a big
way. So, doing soundtrack work is very lucrative indeed […]‖ [Johnny
Khalsi, interview transcript]
The key point regarding the organisation and its finances is that WOMAD – like
world musicians – is not dependent on one revenue stream, or even one business
model. Whilst the parent company is based in the UK and operates within the
constraints of its new autonomous financial model (like many other UK music
festivals), it has adopted different models elsewhere. Unlike most music festivals, the
fact that WOMAD is part of a group of companies that also have a record label, and
are involved in music publishing, ensures that its revenue and activities can be
pursued across multiple sectors. WOMAD is thus tied to much more than the festival
events alone, though these remain the core of its identity.
6.3
Directors and Networks
143
Gabriel, Peter (2006) Welcome to my Real World. The Independent. June 23, 2006
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6.3.1
Directors
This project‘s research saw four WOMAD directors interviewed: the two codirectors of the WOMAD Foundation, Annie Menter and Mandy Adams, the director
of the two Spanish WOMADS, Dania Dévora, and the director of the newest
WOMAD in Abu Dhabi, Isadora Papadrakakis. Unfortunately, it was not possible to
interview the UK‘s artistic director Chris Smith, who replaced Thomas Brooman in
2007. Directors of other WOMADs, such as Ian Scobie in Australia (through his
events management company Arts Projects Australia), and WOMAD New Zealand‘s
old artistic director Roger King were also unavailable. This is then a partial view of
how directors view the festival, and their specific iterations of it.
From its earliest editions, WOMAD‘s artistic director was Thomas Brooman, and as
well as being the visionary that shaped the festival, it appears he exerted a great deal
of control over the artistic content. A few interviewees, both insiders and outsiders of
the organisation itself, commented on how things had changed since his departure,
how they had become more open. In particular, the artistic programming has become
more of a shared experience, with Paula Henderson now in charge of this process in
collaboration with WOMAD UK‘s new artistic director, Chris Smith, and with the
involvement of the WOMAD Foundation, the Real World label and occasionally
Peter Gabriel.
In the UK, the new director appears to be working more closely with the other
members of the WOMAD festival company and the Foundation. Significantly, the
choice of Chris Smith was linked to him having been director of culture at Reading
Borough Council for the 5 years before he took up the direction of WOMAD. As
such he thus knew the festival very well from its previous location at Rivermead. In
fact, he had campaigned to keep WOMAD at Reading for a further 4 years, with the
city council reportedly offering to give up £91,000, their part of WOMAD‘s profits,
and to offer their own services for free.144 (Reading Evening Post 2006). Given the
financial difficulties entailed by the move to Charlton Park, there were clearly strong
reasons for which its previous director felt the need to leave the site which had
hosted the festival for 17 years. The choice of a culture industries professional as
new director is interesting, and perhaps drew on the positive experience of the
involvement of the directors of foreign WOMADs. In fact, this moment of change
has brought up other issues as to how independent or otherwise the directors of the
WOMAD Foundation should be from the other parts of the organisation, an issue
focused on their identity as a charity that operates beyond the festival gates.
Meanwhile, the use of foreign directors has ensured that the festival becomes
integrated with its different localities. Obviously this also facilitates linkages with the
funding and sponsorship possibilities of these different countries. Nevertheless, the
core activities of the festival – and in particular its educational activities – help to
maintain a distinct identity and brand image across these spaces, something that
144
Reading Evening Post (2006) Battle to keep Womad revealed. Reading Evening Post. October 20,
2006; Location: www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2004686_battle_to_keep_womad_revealed
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Annie Menter, co-director of the WOMAD Foundation emphasised (quoted also in
the Cultural Encounters section):
―So you do very much adapt to wherever you are. And I think that‘s
what‘s interesting about WOMAD. I think over the years, it‘s become
very capable of kind of morphing, if you like, into what is required,
whilst at the same time, absolutely retaining its identity and its
character.‖ [Annie Menter, interview transcript]
Dania Dévora spoke more generally about the festival‘s impact, which she has
witnessed in two rather different Spanish contexts, Las Palmas in the Canary Islands,
and Cáceres in Extremadura:
―The cultural and economical impact of the festival has been proved over
the years. WOMAD is a festival that enhances the curiosity, which
obviously leads to the discovery of new cultures, new musics, new
attitudes. I´m very proud of having witnessed how every society that
holds a WOMAD event over a number of years becomes culturally richer
and more open to unveil the unknown.‖ [Dania Dévora, Interview
transcript]
Festival directors were frank about their work, and some were keen not to overplay
the inclusive world-changing rhetoric that often accompanies world music, the idea
that it might be some kind of instant panacea for all global ills. Isadora Papadrakakis,
director of WOMAD Abu Dhabi:
―Connecting diverse cultures has been at the core of WOMAD since its
early days. Again, I am a bit weary of the term ‗world music‘,
‗otherness‘, ‗building bridges‘ as laden with value connotations. One
could argue that all music is world music, all festivals are a means of
connectivity by virtue of their mere existence and there are no gaps over
which to build cultural bridges. I also believe that people are more
intelligent than the powers that be give them credit for and that festivals
are not the only available cultural platforms for them to connect over. But
I do believe that Art is a unifying force, a very powerful force – in all its
shapes and forms – and if a festival is a good way for Art to exist and
appeal to wider groups of people, then so be it.‖ [Isadora Papadrakakis,
interview transcript]
Despite Papadrakakis‘s weariness towards the term ‗world music‘, a unifying
characteristic of the directors interviewed is that they all seem to be driven by a
passion for the arts, and a belief in their transformational potential. Repeated
reference was made to the world music industry being driven by enthusiasts (in
contrast to commercial concerns), and directors too fit this stereotype. As the next
subsection will show, this enthusiasm affects how the industry structures itself, and
the kind of concerns that it focuses on.
6.3.2
Networks
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WOMAD‘s networks can be split into three broad types: those directly related to the
music industry (and including the media), those to local government and government
agencies (as above), and those related to WOMAD‘s long-running NGO partners
(e.g. Amnesty International, Survival International). Significantly, there is some
cross-over between the music industry and WOMAD‘s engagement with social
activities and NGOs, and this is discussed below.
As a festival that runs in multiple localities, WOMAD itself is a network, and given
state and other funding, one that reaches into the broader cultural lives of these
localities. For example, WOMADelaide is now an annual fixture, but began in 1992
as part of Adelaide‘s biennial festival of arts, and still attracts city, regional and
national support. In New Zealand, the festival is managed by the Taranaki Arts
Festival Trust (TAFT), a body originally set up (before WOMAD NZ moved to the
Taranaki site), to present a biennial arts festival. Like WOMADelaide with Adelaide
City Council and the Government of South Australia, WOMAD Taranaki is
supported by New Plymouth City Council, South Taranaki District Council and
Creative NZ (Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa). Similarly, WOMAD
Spain maintains close ties with its city councils, regional governments and sponsors
who are both local (TV and banks) and international (7-Up, San Miguel), as well as a
relatively new Spanish governmental development agency, Casa Africa. Meanwhile,
Abu Dhabi is entirely funded by ADACH, the Arts and Cultural Heritage authority
for the emirate.
Within the UK it has strong links to the Arts Council South West, mostly through the
Foundation, with the government agency directly supporting the festival‘s Summer
School in Bath as well as a review of the Foundation itself. Further institutional
support can be seen in its links with BBC Radio 3 (see section on the Role of the
Media below), and in its long-term relationship with the British Library Sound
Archive, whose World and Traditional Music department have recorded at almost
every UK WOMAD.
The department‘s director, Janet Topp Fargion, described the importance and
uniqueness of these recordings, as – from the policy perspective of the British
Library – a vital testament to the development of multicultural music in the UK over
the last three decades. More importantly, this link to one of the world‘s centres of
knowledge ensures a level of institutional recognition that helps WOMAD to develop
and consolidate other relationships. This said, the curator, and others involved on the
WOMAD side, all claimed that they don‘t actually work together enough: they have
many cognate projects and mutual interests – the Foundation for example having
recently launched its Musical Elders Archive – and would love to be working more
closely, but things have yet to come together.
We now move from institutional networks to the commercial. As discussed in the
previous deliverable, WOMEX, the world music trade fair, has increasingly grown in
importance from 1994. A number of interviewees pointed out how this has become
the annual networking focus for industry professionals, and it now attracts around
3000 delegates making it the biggest event of its kind. Whilst all agreed on its
success for networking the industry, there were differing opinions over its musical
content. It is worth detailing this difference to get a sense of the ideas and concerns
that drive members of this network. Real World‘s label manager:
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―[F]rom my point of view, it‘s just a good business meeting point and it‘s
much less about the music that you see, to be perfectly honest, and that‘s
because I think that WOMEX has a problem in that it is not really
fulfilling the idea of introducing industry people to brand new music.
Mainly because the only way that an artist can perform at WOMEX is if
their record company pays for it or if they have some kind of private
funding. […] So if you are a small record company without huge funds,
if you‘re an artist that doesn‘t have a record company and is looking for
one, then it‘s virtually impossible to get yourself to WOMEX. […] you
can see some great music there but you think, well this isn‘t a new
booking, this is an artist that‘s been on tour for the last two years around
the European music festivals.‖ [Amanda Jones, interview transcript]
Jones‘s critique is more than just about commoditisation. This is in fact a more
central point for WOMAD, because its artistic project was founded on bringing
unknown music to new audiences: ‗undiscovered‘, and unsigned acts have long been
at the core of its repertoire. The increasing consolidation of a world music audience,
now connoisseurs of sorts, means this is less the case, however, that this ideal still
drives the manager of the Real World label demonstrates that the WOMAD group of
companies continue to place artistic priorities over commercial concerns.
However, the situation is not quite that straightforward, for WOMEX itself reflects
broader problems inherent to the whole music business. As is well known, we are in
a period of massive upheaval as the old model led by sales of recorded music gives
way to something else. At the moment, this is live music, and as the quote below by
the expo‘s ex-director demonstrates, this has left a hole in the old financial model
that enabled record labels to take the risk of developing new artists,
―[W]hat we noticed two years ago was that of the 3000 delegates a third,
a thousand, were bookers. So that made me realise the extent to which
live music was running the whole scene at this point. Because, it used to
be a bit more balanced. There were a lot more labels. And the labels had
big staffs. It‘s just not possible to sustain that, and that‘s a big problem.
Because this is a transitional moment. Because a lot of the live scene, and
I think this is true for all genres, is benefitting from the fact that the old
model hasn‘t been dead that long. And therefore, there has always been
this structure that more often that not it was the label that took this risk,
and made this initial investment trying to break a new artist. [...] The
issue now is going to be, and especially with World Music, who is going
to break a new artist, who is going to do that intervention.‖ [Gerald
Seligman, interview transcript]
So, whilst other interviewees identified MySpace and Sonic Bids as representing
alternative and more open ways for artists to get known, Seligman feels there is little
available at present to help them reach the world stage. He believes this is
unprecedented, and its impact on a generation of upcoming world musicians is still
unclear. Meanwhile, Moragh Brooksbank, music officer for Arts Council England in
the southwest, who works regularly with the WOMAD Foundation, had a view not
dissimilar from Amanda Jones:
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―WOMEX is essentially a trade fair and the WOMEX showcases are
very interesting, but they are not the sum total of world music, and I do
think sometimes that the things that showcase at WOMEX are the things
that get to tour very widely, because obviously you‘ve got
producers/promoters from all over the world who are hearing this work
and then taking it on. But it‘s very noticeable, I mean, the last time any
British folk was a WOMEX showcase would be in Seville three years
ago probably, when Julie Fowliss played, […] There haven‘t been any
British folk, or any British based artists, showcasing at WOMEX since
then. So it does tend to, sort of, showcase a particular type of music.‖
[Moragh Brooksbank, interview transcript.]
This lack of British folk demonstrates not only the vagaries of what tends to qualify
as world music, but also that WOMEX‘s location represents a real opportunity for
local/national promotion. Brooksbank had good experience of this when the 2005
WOMEX took place at the Gateshead Sage in Britain‘s northeast: recognising the
opportunity, Arts Council England spent about £200,000 on an Off-WOMEX
Showcase for English music.
Other interviewees disagreed with the critiques regarding lack of novelty above,
describing in interview how they encountered some really interesting acts at
WOMEX, perhaps even more so than at WOMAD, and that these acts had
subsequently gone on to tour and appear at WOMAD. The crucial point, perhaps, is
that regardless of the lack of novelty (or otherwise), or of the glut of bookers now
displacing the impoverished label executives, WOMEX has consolidated itself as the
crucial node in the international world music network.
However, other arbiters of taste exist too, one of which – until 2008 – was BBC
Radio 3‘s World Music Awards. Crucially, despite the BBC being funded by the
British tax payer, it was WOMEX delegates, international industry professionals, that
voted for the award‘s shortlist, before the BBC chose a jury. This award has been
abandoned, though the UK magazine Songlines has recently begun its own (2009),
called simply the Songlines Music Awards, the ‗world‘ tag having deliberately been
abandoned (Jo Frost interview transcript).
A key characteristic of the world music sector is that it maintains a ‗community‘
rather than a ‗business‘ feel to it (Seligman, interview transcript), and one finds this
reflected in WOMEX‘s advocacy. For example, prior to his directorship of
WOMEX, Seligman co-founded Freemuse, a human-rights organisation dedicated to
protecting musicians against censorship. Under his directorship, WOMEX devoted
more of its time and resources to development issues, both by airing issues in its
discussion panels, bringing in world musicians like Rokia Traore who have set up
their own NGOs, and as a member of the ACP Music Festivals Network, part of the
European Commission‘s EU-ACP Support Programme to ACP Cultural Industries
project. In other words, the fact that the world music industry‘s commercial expo
spends a significant amount of its time engaged with development issues is testament
to broadly shared values and that these are social as well as aesthetic. Just how
different this is from others sectors of the music industry is difficult to establish – for
example, Live Aid, Live 8, Rock against Racism, Folk against Fascism, etc. suggest
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that ‗music activism‘ is not genre specific – but there are clearly many socially and
politically conscious activist world music professionals.
WOMAD maintains its identification as a festival driven by non-corporate concerns
as one of the 24 members of the UK‘s Association of Independent Festivals (AIF).
This research was unable to obtain any primary data to confirm exactly how
influential this association is considered to be within the UK music festival industry
or by WOMAD staff. However, the association has recently published a useful
survey of 4,700 festival goers on their website,145 and this not only indicates that the
‗independent‘ festival scene is weathering the recession well, but also gives some
idea of the financial value of this sector of the UK‘s music festivals:
―[A]round 350,000 people will attend AIF member festivals this year (up
from 340,000 in 2009). In all they will inject more than £130M into the
UK economy with over £12M directly funnelled to local businesses.
This year over 69% of those attending festivals will spend 3 or more days
in the local area of the festival, up from 60% last year. Those attending
WOMAD will stay the longest with 48.8% prepared to spend 4 or more
days in the local area.
The total spend of a festival goer this year totals £346 including ticket,
with those attending Camp Bestival the biggest spenders with an average
of £532 average per person.
Once again the survey has demonstrated that festivals are much more
than just a big outside gig, with over 50% of respondents stating that it is
the ―General atmosphere and overall vibe, quality and character of the
event‖ which is the main draw. ―Music generally‖ was the second
deciding factor in picking a festival with 28.3%, whilst the choice of
headliners only polled 11.9%.
Once at the festival 43% of respondents will spend 60 – 79% of time
watching music. […]‖ [Association of Independent Festivals 2010]
Whilst WOMAD has these kinds of professional networks, and has built-up
consolidated networks of partners, local production companies and crews, sponsors,
etc., it also benefits from more personal networks, something that seems to
characterise world music more than other genres. For example, Donna Cose,
previously Arts Projects Manager for the UK‘s Visting Arts (see footnote in
Organisation and Finances section) compared world music to other sectors,
‗There is a strong informal UK network, much more developed than in
theatre or dance, for example […] There seems to be a group of people
who trust one another‘s opinions, and are prepared to take a risk on work
they haven‘t even seen.‖ [Arts Council 2005: 9]
145
Association of Independent Festivals (2010) Festivals remain number one entertainment choice for
Britons this Summer. AIF News. Online. Referred to: June 2010.
Location: www.aiforg.com/news_details.php?news_id=31
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This sharing of opinions also impacts on how actual events are programmed, with
WOMAD UK‘s programme manager describing how festivals often cooperate when
booking artists, thus effectively sharing some of the costs and bureaucracy (visas,
airfares, etc.). A further network of importance is with the relevant media channels in
each of the countries where WOMAD occurs. The strong links between WOMAD,
the BBC, The Independent newspaper and Songlines magazine are discussed in the
next section on the role of the media.
6.4
The role of the media
Despite being an international festival, WOMAD depends mostly on traditional
national and local media coverage. For example, in the Canary Islands, WOMAD
Las Palmas is filmed and broadcast by local TV, and in the UK the BBC maintains
its own stage which it programmes together with WOMAD and broadcasts on Radio
3. Extensive newspaper coverage augments broadcast media, and specialist world
music magazines remain committed media partners (fRoots), or are visible and
proactive within the festival (Songlines).
In the UK at least, WOMAD‘s media partner since 2008, The Independent, ensures
lots of articles, reviews, and special offers on the festival. The relationship between
the festival and paper has origins in the personal interests of the paper‘s then Deputy
Editor, Ian Birrell:
―he has personal interests in World Music, and he‘s related to the Africa
Express project. So I think that it really appealed to him. And then when
we sat down we all agreed that it was virtually perfect for us, as the
Guardian have Glastonbury and we have WOMAD. It‘s just a really
desirable festival for us to be supporting. It‘s a good age range. The
music‘s very relevant for our readership. So it is a very kind of… it‘s a
really fluid relationship. It works very well.‖ [Lenny Smith, interview
transcript]
The paper‘s marketing manager Lenny Smith went on to describe the fit between
their demographic and that of WOMAD, and the many reasons for which the
relationship works. The 22 to 45, left-leaning, ecologically minded demographic is
one they also share with the only other UK festival they are media partner for this
year, Wychwood. Asked what they looked for in a festival, she replied:
―[I]n terms of music, I don‘t think we‘re ever keen to work too much
with any festival that has too much commercial stamping all over it. […]
like with huge headline sponsors, just because… I think sometimes it has
an effect on programming and artists and space and quality […]‖ [Lenny
Smith, interview transcript]
In the UK media partnerships like this are subtle relationships: low-key brand
visibility, only small amounts of money involved, but effectively a trade ‗in kind‘
between extensive media coverage for the festival, and good copy that will be of
natural interest to the paper‘s readership. At the UK WOMAD this readership is also
likely to be aware of the two major world music magazines in the country: fRoots
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and Songlines. Whilst the former – with a subscriber base of 12,000, 40% of which is
foreign – is officially a media sponsor (and has been for many years), it effectively
does very little at the festival itself. They maintain no stand at Charlton Park, just a
few copies and subscriptions sold through the generic WOMAD merchandise stall,
whereas Songlines pays for an expensive pitch right next door to the BBC Radio 3
stage. This appears to be an increasingly symbiotic relationship: last year the first
Songlines Music Awards were presented at WOMAD on the main stage, thus
boosting the magazine‘s profile, and letting WOMAD play host to the occasion. The
editor of Songlines:
―[T]he [BBC] awards were good for us, because it created an interest in
the whole scene. And we definitely benefited off the back of it, and we‘d
always wanted to do our own awards, but I think we felt that there‘s
absolutely no point in trying to compete with the likes of the BBC, when
they‘ve got their whole marketing power behind it. So, we felt, okay, this
gives us an opportunity; […] [T]his is the first year, so it‘ll be a
developing and changing thing, and maybe next year we‘ll have more of
a conversation with [WOMAD] of how we can work more directly
together. [… So, they [WOMEX] were disappointed as well that the BBC
dropped the awards; and I know they wanted to get involved in our
awards, and that‘s another thing that maybe we‘ll talk about with them
this year.‖ [Jo Frost, interview transcript]
Awards are clearly very effective at creating interest and editorial copy for print
publications, but they also offer similar advantages to other parts of the world music
industry, as WOMEX‘s ex-director describes:
Well, it just helps publicise. It‘s just a great promotional tool. You used
to have press promotion people who were paid, who were part of your
department, on your payroll, to try to get stories out about artists. So I
think an award really does help highlight or spotlight somebody. Because
it gives a story that can be told and a hook to put it on in the media. And I
know that some of these artists that have received our awards have really
used that and gotten a lot more gigs on the back of it. Like Musikas, last
year‘s award […]. Its just one way of highlighting somebody who is
especially worthy, its quite useful. [Gerald Seligman, interview
transcript]
Songlines has a subscription base of about 9000 and, whilst it has some international
distribution, it hopes to boost this international readership through its website,
internet edition, and podcasts. WOMAD is obviously a vital part of its marketing
strategy, and the WOMAD audience is clearly their exact same demographic, but the
magazine also maintains stands at four other UK festivals: Larmer Tree, Wychwood,
Glastonbury, and Musicport. Interestingly, the magazine‘s editor Jo Frost recounted
how they have been courted recently by the director of the Ulsan World Music
Festival in South Korea who wants them to maintain a stand there too. As Jo Frost
describes above, they also have ambitions to integrate their new award with
WOMEX, demonstrating that the UK‘s specialist world music media wish to
maintain a high profile internationally.
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One of the most obvious media relationships that WOMAD UK shares is with the
BBC. BBC Radio 3 has had a presence at WOMAD for nearly 15 years, initially by
sponsoring a stage, and then taking on a stage of its own where it presents its own
selection of material, chosen in consultation with WOMAD‘s own programming
team. Their stage – snugly located in the arboretum – is in an ideal location within
Charlton Park for a more low-fi programme, and the adjacent beer tent and Songlines
stall give this area of the festival an identity of its own. Helene Frisby,
―[Y]ou know, we‘re very happy to be associated as a public broadcaster,
because we sort of in a way share almost the same objectives and goals,
which do reflect the diversity of cultures and music that you find first of
all here in the UK […]. But, also, to look at the wider world, and I mean,
to look at the sustainability of cultures; […] [what] you can see
throughout all of our world music programmes on Radio 3, is that we
take the UK to the world as well, and in a certain way bring the world
back to the UK: we really try and reflect what‘s going on in the world
and hopefully kind of, in some sort of way, increase an awareness and
understanding of cultures through our programming. And so in that
respect it‘s great to be associated with a festival like WOMAD, whose
share, as it turned out, is not just driven by record sales.‖ [Helene Frisby,
interview transcript]
The BBC and WOMAD are happy partners then, and their respective cultural capital
is mutually benefitted by the broadcaster‘s presence at WOMAD. They have a
number of other partnerships with venues and festivals, but none of these are the
same as with WOMAD, to whom they actually pay out a sponsorship fee (except,
perhaps the Radio 3 London Jazz Festival). Their activities at WOMAD are
interesting in demonstrating that BBC Radio 3 have rather different objectives than
many European broadcasters, who tend to produce genre-specific studio sessions and
CDs rather than effectively curating an annual exhibition of music, and one which
creates its own archive of music.
As a professional tool, new media and social networking sites are becoming
increasingly crucial to the ways in which music is discovered and promoted. Paula
Henderson, WOMAD‘s programme director:
MySpace is the most wonderful invention ever, because it gives you a
real opportunity to find it [new talent]. I spend an awful lot of time just
researching […] from last year and onwards you can find almost
everyone on MySpace. […] [And] a lot of agents now also have a
MySpace page, and you can then just click on the music and have an
idea. […] in terms of that initial research, yes, MySpace is really
fantastic. [Paula Henderson, interview transcript]
Each of the major established WOMADs around the world has its own website, each
of them with their own style and format. Some of them – like WOMAD UK‘s
website – host discussion forums where fans not only discuss practical and artistic
issues but also provide some feedback and ideas which organisers appear to follow.
A good example followed the death of the renowned British world music DJ Charlie
Gillett on the 17 March 2010. On the very same day he died, RIP postings appeared
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on the WOMAD UK forum, and a suggestion that one of the stages be renamed after
him was also posted. Three months later, on 17 June, WOMAD announced that it
would indeed be renaming one of its stages, the Saddlespan, after the DJ. Such
symbolic acts clearly demonstrate a deep symbiotic relationshoip between the BBC
and the festival, as well as the ability of web technologies to keep audience and
organisers in touch, to provide a shared sense of ownership of the festival.
6.5
Representations: politics and art
WOMAD has projected a consistent image of itself since its first edition in 1982.
This is witnessed in all of its iterations around the world, despite the significant
differences in the way they are funded and organised. This hinges on the shared
repertoire, but also on the embodied experience of the festival itself, and the
persistent ideals – both political and aesthetic – that underlie the festival.
Perhaps unsurprisingly in a festival dedicated to world music and with multiple
global editions, ‗Europe‘, as a concept and as a political entity, was absent from most
accounts. Where Europe did appear was as the cultural producer par excellence of
world music itself. The industry‘s major trade fair, WOMEX, occurs in Europe for
the simple reason that most world music labels, production, journalism, and
consumption occurs in Europe (with London and Paris as noted hubs for production
and artists, and significant activity also in Germany and Belgium). WOMEX itself
has been hosted by a number of cities across Europe, and has currently adopted a
format of three year partnerships with city councils (presently Copenhagen,
previously Seville) in order to deepen its relationships with these cities and the
musics which their regions and nations offer (Seligman, interview transcript).
Another point of interest on Europe in key actor‘s accounts can be found in the effect
of the diversity of cultural policies: specifically, funding. Countries like France
maintain an effective state subsidy of the industry through generous funding of
relatively small scale cultural centres. This enables promoters to stage world music
events which would be unprofitable elsewhere in Europe, particularly in the UK,
where festivals too are more autonomous (albeit sometimes with city, regional or
Arts Council support). We noted similar diversity in the first section in the way that
the British and Spanish WOMADs are financed (autonomous versus city/regional
support; ticketed versus free events).
One area where Europe does have an impact on the festival is the visa issue, with the
UK‘s ongoing abstention from the Schengen Agreement, posing particular
difficulties in this regard. As noted elsewhere, this issue has created significant
anxiety and financial loss for promoters and artists, and at all of the WOMADs
attended during this research, visa issues and border control prevented at least one
act or more from appearing. It is discussed further below.
6.5.1
Politics and democracy
―I think that when the rest of the world becomes less foreign then it‘s
easier to empathise. And that‘s political progress.‖ [Gerald Seligman,
interview transcript]
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WOMAD was founded on ideals that where couched in the language of anti-racism
that represented progressive politics in 1980s Britain, but persist in the contemporary
multiculturalist ideals referred to by most European states. Even at these early stages,
WOMAD (not unlike Glastonbury with its long-running support for, and donations
to, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) developed relationships with NGOs
which it continues to this day, Amnesty International being the prime example.
Seligman‘s thoughts (above) were echoed by many of those interviewed.
Nevertheless, those directly involved with WOMAD were keen to point out that the
festival tries to remain apolitical:
―We‘ve always been very apolitical, ourselves, and we can provide
platforms, but have tried to keep it very much at a level that is
manageable; because you know how when people are passionate about
something, it‘s always more important than anything else for them [...] I
mean, they were so avidly against whatever, that you may well have had
people standing in the audience who would have been really offended by
that. So it‘s a very tricky balance, yes.‖ [Annie Menter, interview
transcript]
Striking that balance has involved shifts in representational strategies. Most
significant has been the loss of the One World Stage that used to be a feature of
WOMAD at Rivermead (Reading), a soapbox-style space for NGOs and others to
present their ideas, which was funded by Reading Borough Council. A minority of
interviewees felt that while some background and context is given in WOMAD
performances and workshops (some of which can be talking shops rather than just
musical interaction), there is still a need for dealing with political issues more
explicitly. The curator of World and Traditional Music at the British Library‘s Sound
Archive, had this to say on the subject:
―[I]t‘s not a case that you need every musician to stand up there and give
you a half hour lecture on where they come from and what their culture is
like, because that would be a little dull too, but I think exploring ways of
bringing education in, shouldn‘t be overlooked. It needs to remain an
element of the festival […] Because, as I say, I think world music has
missed that trick. […] I think that‘s a big issue, the politics of countries
people come from […] I think we could be learning about political
situations through that medium in a way that we‘re not. […] It should be
built up, alongside other aspects of the festival.‖ [Janet Topp Fargion,
interview transcript]
Her critique is not that politics is altogether absent from WOMAD, but that the way
that world music has become more mainstream generally means that it is often
consumed in a predominantly hedonistic fashion, it is danced to rather than
understood in all its social complexity.
Peter Gabriel himself does deal with political issues explicitly, and in his infrequent
WOMAD performances – as in his other major stage shows around the world – he
pulls no punches. Thus WOMAD Charlton Park in 2009 saw him detail the statesponsored murder of Chechen journalist Natalya Esterimova, who was also a
member of Gabriel‘s own NGO, Witness, and project a poignant image of her as part
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of his stage show, whilst rooting social injustice historically by finishing the
performance with his 1980 tribute to South African anti-apartheid activist Steve
Biko.
Gabriel‘s activities on the global political stage extend beyond Witness and
demonstrate – perhaps – that in Britain at least it is not just world music that holds a
candle to issues of social justice, but a particular generation of those involved in the
music industry. Gabriel and Richard Branson (CEO of Virgin) came up with an idea
for resolving global issues, drawing on the concept of conflict resolution from the
councils of elders that characterise many traditional societies. Following discussions
with Nelson Mandela, The Elders was founded in 2007 and includes figures like
Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and Gro Brundtland.
So, despite an avowed apolitical stance from its current directors, WOMAD‘s
continued association with Gabriel ensures that in public consciousness its founding
goals of using music, art and dance for political ends – proving ―the stupidity of
racism‖ – have clearly endured.
One element where geopolitics impedes massively on WOMAD is the literal border
crossing that has to occur before artists transcend boundaries in their festival
performances. Visa problems have become a major issue for promoters and festival
organisers, ensuring both uncertainty with their programming and financial loss.
Lucy Duran, a BBC Radio 3 broadcaster, and presenter on its WOMAD stage, but
also a world music producer and Lecturer in African Music at SOAS:
―Well what can I say, it‘s appalling. You know, Malian artists, in order
to get visas to the UK, have to go first to Senegal and then in person to
Gambia, and then are stuck without a passport for anything between eight
days to two weeks, and only the ones who might have a second passport
are able to return; and it costs them, to go home without, while they‘re
waiting for the British Embassy to decide one way or another whether
they get the visa. It costs, I mean, every time Bassekou [Kouyate] and
his group comes to the UK, it costs them eight return air fares from Mali
to Senegal and Gambia. They have to go there in person, put their thumb
prints there etc, queue up like cattle, and I think it‘s an outrage. […] So
the British Government is making it more and more difficult for bona
fide people, artists, etc, to come over and perform. That will make things
very difficult for us.‖ [Lucy Duran, interview transcript]
Fortress Europe, and particularly the non-Schengen UK, have become genuinely
problematic spaces to tour ‗world‘ artists, with visa issues impacting directly on the
WOMAD editions studied as part of this project. So much so that between acts
comperes at the UK‘s WOMAD Charlton Park 2009 made impassioned pleas against
states whose immigration policies are unable to recognise that deliberately
obstructive visa services contradict their stated multicultural ideals. The campaigning
organisation Freemuse (www.freemuse.org), put the case in its universal context in a
statement on their website announcing a white paper they drafted and presented to
the European Commission in 2009:
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If the European countries are serious about honouring their ratification of
the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity they need to make visa
and work permit procedures and the general access to the European
market for artists more flexible, transparent and homogenous.
Increased cultural capital and international following has not eased the global
movement of world musicians. These political realities thus remain an integral part
of the festival, something shared by organisers, audience and artists alike. For artists
within the EU the contrast is telling, as the European Border Breaker Awards attest.
These are awarded as part of the EU‘s biggest live music industry conference and
showcase, EuroSonic Noorderslag; the awards were established by the European
Commission and the European Broadcasting Union to specifically celebrate
European artists who cross borders. Regrettably, world music festival organisers
suffer logistical difficulties because the symbolic weight of their artists crossing
borders is perceived rather differently; the opposite of a free flow of art and
creativity which enriches Europe.
6.5.2
The arts
WOMAD‘s artistic project emerged in many aspects of the interviews, and appears
to permeate everything they do. Understanding this helps characterise WOMAD as a
festival, but also as a transnational cultural imaginary, albeit one strongly rooted in
the multiculturalist politics that have shaped the UK‘s arts world over the last three
decades. One finds this reflected in many aspects of the festival, from the way it has
persisted despite serious financial difficulties, in its desire not to have overt
sponsorship, and particularly in its programming. This latter point, and the fact that
they have long eschewed headlining bands in their promotion, was touched on by
festival directors and artists:
―You know, we have a budget for every festival and within that budget
decisions will be made. Do we spend however much on Youssou
N‘Dour, can we afford him, do they want him, is it important that we
have him? And, for example, in Abu Dhabi, it was very important to
have him. […] But equally in another area I think, I don‘t know if
anybody else has mentioned this, but there‘s been a very strong decision
to not have headliners, not to build up headliners. Yes, of course there
are going to be artists who are far more famous than other artists and who
will attract a wider audience or a bigger audience, but in many ways
they‘re no more important [...] It‘s much more about balancing out the
jigsaw…‖ [Annie Menter, interview transcript]
Eschewing headliners is in itself a form of resistance against the form that more
commercially-oriented festivals take. It also has the convenient corollary of reducing
costs: lesser-known artists cost less. But we need to understand if the same artistic
project can be found beating within each WOMAD, whether in the grounds of a
stately home in rural Wiltshire, or in a modern city on the edges of the Arabian Sea.
The Greek director of WOMAD Abu Dhabi offers her perspective on the three
WOMADs she has experienced:
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―WOMAD‘s artistic identity has two dimensions: the festival experience
and the artist line up. Under festival experience, we have the site, the
traders (merchandise and food), the design of the tents, the type of
lighting and decoration, the flags, the workshop programs, the
accessibility and distances, the overall well-being and customer services
provided to the public.
WOMAD UK have been doing this many years and the event in Charlton
Park is crystallized in what works best and what people expect to find.
There is an aura of comfort about it, somewhat middle class and not
ethnically diverse, even the unpredictable weather is predictable! This is
not a value judgment, just my observation that WOMAD UK caters to
those not after a surprise – a sort of exotica within familiar surroundings.
WOMAD Cáceres is very different, as it takes over an urban setting
completely. Stages are scattered all over the city, woven into the daily
life in a way a festival in a remote field can‘t be. Also, Cáceres very
much caters to the local community – it is an event for the municipality
and it has the small town feel to it, which makes it very intimate, warm
and youth-oriented. WOMAD Abu Dhabi is also within an urban setting
but localized, on the city‘s main stretch of beach, under the shadow of
skyscrapers. Again, a very different context, more edgy than the UK,
more multiethnic, more socially integrated, more for all ages than
Cáceres.
But, to sum up my thoughts on the artistic project, it is bloody hard work
to create, define and implement a holistic vision. You can‘t focus on the
music and forget the design of the space, the food people will eat and the
chairs they will sit on. It‘s all part of ONE experience and it needs to be
aesthetically unified and super functional.‖ [Isadora Papadrakakis,
interview transcript]
This diversity in the way different WOMADs work is addressed by the balancing act
Annie Menter referred to in terms of programming above. The success of the festival
is thus never simply organic, a happy corollary of an excellent programme. Rather,
as the disastrous first WOMAD Charlton Park in 2007 demonstrated, it depends, as
Isadora Papadrakakis states, on creating, defining and implementing a holistic vision
for the festival. However, ‗aesthetically unified and super functional‘ events are
highly dependent on their relationship with place. This explains why early
WOMADs in the UK were so footloose (see table 1, section 7.4 in deliverable 20).
Conversations with inhabitants of Cáceres about the early years of the festival (in
particular with a school teacher who now helps out as a translator) revealed that the
first WOMADs in the city were regarded with suspicion, and it took perhaps as long
as ten years for the town to really take on the festival as its own, integrating it into its
calendar of fiestas and important local events. Interestingly, whilst on paper the story
looks similar for WOMAD Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, key actors interviewed
expressed a particular affection for Cáceres, one that suggests that the relationships
between festival and place depend on a multitude of factors.
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A sense of how this multitude of factors work can be found in key actors‘s accounts
of how WOMAD operates ‗beyond the festival gates‘. As one of the WOMAD
Foundation‘s directors describes in detail:
―[T]here‘s been a tradition of us setting up residencies in the UK, with
artists who are coming to the festival each year, and that may well take
place in schools, and special schools, or with the community group, a
specific community group that wants to be involved, and then that is
usually demonstrated in some way, at the Festival. I always talk about it
taking WOMAD beyond the Festival gates. And that‘s what it does,
really, but it also keeps those Festival gates open for people who through
that interaction will come into the Festival, but if that hadn‘t have
happened, would perhaps never come to the Festival; so you‘re always
looking for opportunities to engage with the public, in a way that kind of
offers up a really enjoyable experience, whatever that might be.
IV: [T]his is maybe a slightly tricky question to answer […] but does that
relationship work equally in all of WOMAD‘s variants around the world?
AM: Yes, that has happened on a regular basis in Australia. It‘s
happened in New Zealand: we‘ve worked in Maori communities in New
Zealand, specifically, because the value was felt there that going into the
Maori Schools would actually open them up to the possibilities of
WOMAD. And the Maori community is ver well represented in New
Zealand Festival. […] Yes, over the years it‘s worked in every single
country that we‘ve gone into. In Singapore, we had an incredibly good
relationship with the North East Development Community. […] There
was a lot of local politics... But, it made people feel included, it was a
very inclusive thing to do.‖ [Annie Menter, interview transcript]
A similar importance being given to the WOMAD Foundation‘s educational
programmes has occurred in just two years in Abu Dhabi, with the initial year (2008)
seeing a week of workshops in private schools, and the second year – at the request
of the local organisers and authorities – two weeks of workshops in the national
educational system. In a country like Abu Dhabi this has been particularly groundbreaking as there is no arts education in schools.
The one place where WOMAD‘s educational activities appear to have failed is
Sicily. A number of reasons were given for this, but possibly depend on a lack of
commitment from local partners, and the shift of the festival from Palermo to the
more classical environs of Taormina. Meanwhile, interest in the educational side of
things is constantly increasing in the two Spanish WOMADs, with Las Palmas
campaigning to have its own residential Summer School (following the lead of the
UK WOMAD), and Cáceres extending the number of days they work with schools,
before the final procession on the last day of the festival.
The author‘s own experience of this final event in May 2010, on an untypically cold
and rainy day, provided an insight into just how important the overall event – and its
educational activities – has become for local residents. Significantly, the children‘s
parade itself made use of local iconography in the parade figures, with a giant stork
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(cigüeña) being paraded through the historic streets of the town, followed by banners
painted by local schoolchildren. Importantly, the parade‘s musical accompaniment
by traditional Luo group Kenge Kenge Orutu Systems, ensured that the festival‘s
multicultural ethos was also on display. In other words, the work of the educational
side of WOMAD goes beyond rhetoric, creating local-international collaborations in
an idiom meaningful to locals, and also resonant with WOMAD‘s internationalist
spirit.
6.6
Cultural Encounters: audiences and artists
Who are WOMAD audiences? Are they significantly different in each of the
festival‘s editions? Does this matter at all to artists?
[E]very artist loves playing WOMAD. I mean, I never met an artist who
doesn‘t enjoy playing WOMAD. WOMAD audiences are very good
audiences, they‘re very appreciative audiences, but they are
knowledgeable as well, and you can‘t get away with rubbish […] I don‘t
know an artist who doesn‘t really enjoy playing WOMAD. I‘ve never
heard a negative comment. And, they‘re well organised, they‘re on time,
you‘re there, the sound check is quick and, because I‘m backstage with
the artists all the time, I talk to everybody from Salif Keita to Youssou
N‘Dour, I mean everybody, Bassekou [Kouyate] certainly: they all love
playing WOMAD because it‘s a knowledgeable audience there who‘ve
listened a lot and who know their repertoire. So, they‘re very
appreciative. So, they cheer and all that, but they won‘t put up with any
old crap. [Lucy Duran, interview transcript]
Duran‘s views were echoed by many others, from artists themselves to promoters,
institutional partners, media partners, and directors of foreign WOMADs. The central
point is that the WOMAD audience has become a discerning connoisseur of these
diverse musics, but also, according to the musician Johnny Khalsi, leader of The
Dhol Foundation, a generous one:
―White middle class? Certainly. If I had to put it in that category, I
wouldn‘t put it all in there. […] And maybe there's a certain element of,
yes, we're British, yes, we're Radio Three listeners, but we enjoy World
Music, you know. Maybe there is an element of that. But I think a lot of
people that want to go to these festivals can't necessarily afford it, right,
but they still enjoy the music, […] But at the end of the day, what you‘ve
got to understand is, fine, they're paying that fee, but even if an artist is
not very good, they're so appreciative. And that's the beautiful thing
about it, you know. […] They go there: whatever you give them, they
enjoy it, they lap it up. Really. And even if it goes tits up, which I've
seen it do, they just love them for doing whatever it is that they do.‖
[Johnny Khalsi, interview transcript]
This kind of behaviour stands in marked contrast to other festival crowds Khalsi has
played to, and it is this generosity that defines an audience that has long entertained
families as much as it has world music enthusiasts. From the children‘s parade that
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began the very first WOMAD in 1982, children and the well-organised workshops
which keep them interested, continue to help create an atmosphere of conviviality.
WOMAD is no longer alone in this, the UK‘s ‗boutique‘ festival scene and smaller
events like Larmer Tree and Wychwood also tap into this family demographic.
Moragh Brooksbank from Arts Council England described how WOMAD is ―a very
family oriented festival‖, and how the whole organisation of the festival is geared
towards providing an enjoyable, and easy, experience for this sector of the audience.
The BBC‘s Helene Frisby was more explicit about what being family-friendly now
means for UK festivals, with festivals now experienced as an important part of the
cultural heritage of British society:
―[T]here‘s one thing about WOMAD, it‘s a very family-friendly
environment […] I think that one of its strengths is that you do see
families there. It‘s a very clean festival – there‘s none of that getting
drunk, taking drugs you see at the other kind of rock festivals like
Glastonbury, etc. And I think that‘s the way things are going, and that,
yes, it‘s important to have those rock festivals, but – and they‘ve been
there for a very long time – but there seem to be more and more festivals
that are more geared at families. As I said before, we proved that it sort
of forms part of the cultural DNA of the society, and that taking your
family to see live music is something that‘s become very important.‖
[Helene Frisby, interview transcript]
This is perhaps an important shift: music (and other) festivals have now been
experienced by generations of British music lovers, and seem to have consolidated
themselves as part of the cultural landscape. In transgressing the popular-elite
boundary they may though have lost some of their counter-cultural mystique, or
perhaps this reflects a greater incorporation of counter-cultural ideals into
mainstream British society. Other interviewees pointed-up the marked differences in
some of the foreign WOMADs. The Chinese flautist Guo Yue, for instance:
―So, I played a couple for their free ones. I feel not as good as Charlton
Park, you know [...] But they have different ones. For example, New
Zealand, in New Plymouth, is in a beautiful forest park, and the setting
on stage is amazing. It‘s really... And audience more than Charlton
Park, I mean more warmer. The environment is beautiful […] [E]ach
one is different. […] For example, this [difference] is really very strange
because some countries are so kind of wild and really warm, passionate
about our work […] and some countries it‘s like, so far, quite far away
from [this]. You need […] to build more bridges for them to understand
it, the idea. Because we went to so many countries. […] Estonia,
suddenly they‘d have a world music festival: WOMAD. What‘s
WOMAD? You know, people didn‘t understand it at all. And also Sicily
in Taormina, in this amphitheatre, WOMAD three nights. It was very,
very strange sometimes. It‘s like they don‘t understand the concept that
much sometimes. […] It‘s different audience, different countries,
different perspectives.‖ [Guo Yue, interview transcript]
He continued to describe the feeling of Charlton Park as being particularly special,
partly because of the beautiful surroundings, the layout, and partly because all the
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WOMAD staff live thereabouts. As a performer the Taranaki WOMAD and
WOMADelaide stood out as special events, because of the sheer size
(WOMADelaide reached an audience of 85,000 in March 2010), but also because
―music and the artists and the organisation come together, so you feel it‘s like one
thing‖. The USA performances in the 1990s were also highlights, with a feel that
Guo Yue described as like Glastonbury. Of particular interest was his critique of the
WOMADs that have occurred in Asia, suggesting that Asian publics were not yet
ready for world music in a festival format:
―Also the weird one we had was in Korea, South Korea. It was really
weird. I mean, it was like the weirdest thing. […] Sometimes the
government and the locals want to promote world [music]... They have a
good cause, a good aim but it‘s just very difficult sometimes. […] The
whole thing‘s strange. These things happen to us also in Japan. […] It‘s
like there you feel people are waiting for something like Michael
Jackson. […] But in England if you say Youssou N‘Dour is coming, at
least a lot of people know. […] But in Korea they have no idea what is
African music, what is South American music. They only hear a lot of
pop mostly in China, Korea, Japan, all these Eastern countries, Asia.‖
[Guo Yue, interview transcript]
This is not just because a world music public didn‘t really exist in South Korea or
Japan, but also because local festival culture is rather different from its Anglo-Saxon
(and Spanish) varieties. Interestingly, the Singapore event didn‘t receive the same
criticism, possibly because it was more established, because Singapore is a hybrid
society, and perhaps because the WOMAD Foundation worked hard to further its
objectives through its educational activities. Nevertheless, Annie Menter described
the early Singapore WOMADs as a culture shock:
―I‘m speaking from working on the workshop programmes in Singapore
and also observing the performances. I think initially Singapore was
absolutely terrified of what WOMAD stood for and what it was bringing
and I think the first WOMAD in Singapore we took the Dhol
Foundation… no, it wasn‘t, it was Fun-Da-Mental, and they were
absolutely appalled and shocked and the excited, in that way. It was
almost like having sex for the first time, you kind of never knew it could
be like this. Very, very frightening and I think it‘s a lot about trust
actually, and it‘s about gradually, over a period of time, the Singapore
audiences came to trust that WOMAD would bring things that, yes, were
exciting and perhaps weren‘t going to get there otherwise, but also
they‘re offered to them in a kind of safe environment. And to begin with
I remember… I‘d have to check this out, but I have memory of the first
one having to have a huge barrier around the stage because, no, they
couldn‘t have the audiences touching any of the artists, because some of
the performers come up and put their hands out and whatever or might
throw something, and that was absolutely taboo; and that changed quite a
lot in the period of time that we were there.‖ [Annie Menter, interview
transcript]
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Annie Menter‘s account also describes how they not only had to overcome these
taboo performance aesthetics with the audiences of mostly professionals in their 20s
and 30s, but also with the school children who the Foundation worked with:
―[C]ertainly with the education side of things it was very hard work to
get any interaction. It was totally passive. We had the workshops in a
very big and old colonial house on this hill, huge room, lovely, airconditioned and everyone would come and it would be packed.
Everyone would just sit there and we always had translators for the
workshop sessions and people would ask, the artists would ask and I
would facilitate. […] Nobody would get up and dance or sing or
anything like that and then by the last one we did, people just loved it,
and it was brilliant actually to see that change, and it was a huge change
in attitude […] Suddenly, I think WOMAD gave them confidence to
participate in a way that they had never been allowed to before really.
Because it‘s not within the culture... learning is a received thing. […].‖
[Annie Menter, interview transcript]
Meanwhile, the new WOMAD Abu Dhabi seems to have thrown up different issues
with audience again. Here, the diverse members of the emirate‘s population came
together to experience WOMAD, though often just to see bands that came from their
places of origin. The musician, Johnny Khalsi, on playing and compering at the
inaugural WOMAD Abu Dhabi:
―It was amazing. […] Just free for everyone. […] But the interesting
thing was the people that wanted to come out and see Khaled, it was all
the Algerians, and there was like loads of flags. And for the Dhol
Foundation [Johnny‘s group], it was all the construction workers and taxi
drivers that came out to see us. Obviously, you know, we've never
played there. They‘ve never heard of us. […] we got a thunderous roar
as soon as we were announced to go out to actually start our
performance. It was mad. People for miles. And then there was all the
non-locals. All the ex-pats went out to see Robert Plant, and Justin
Adams, and what they do. It was really, a real mix, but it was interesting
because everyone came out on different days to see whatever they
wanted to see. And they didn‘t turn up on any other days. It was like,
okay. But it was… You know, it worked; I think it worked.‖ [Johnny
Khalsi, interview transcript]
Returning to the idea that there are some significant differences between audiences,
as discussed above by Annie Menter, this was also mentioned by another
interviewee, Yorrick Benoist, director of the French agency Run Productions.
Benoist is a long-time collaborator with WOMAD, from its first iconic cross-cultural
staging of one of his acts, The Drummers of Burundi, with the UK‘s Echo and the
Bunnymen. Having noted the particularity of UK festival audiences (in world music
in general, not just with WOMAD), he continued:
―I understand that when we tour USA extensively, the promoters ask us
many, many things about… many information. They want things very,
very precise; they want to know everything about the geography,
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economy, culture. This is more an Anglo-Saxon way to approach
cultural information, you know. We don‘t speak only about the artistic
act, the music, the emotion that goes through the music. In the same time
they want to know the history of the country, it‘s economics and things
like this. Yes, it‘s a more… As a French guy, I think it‘s the more
Anglo-Saxon way to approach that. Japanese people are a little bit like
this, too. […] This is more barbarian in my country, maybe and in the
Latin countries, you know. We trust more in the emotion of the music
even if we don‘t know exactly from where he‘s coming, this musician,
you know. The organiser, they want less information about the things
around the music.‖ [Yorrick Benoist, interview transcript]
World music audiences are clearly yet to become properly global according to these
accounts. As consumers, Benoist‘s account details a fairly radical difference between
a contextual appreciation and one where aesthetic appreciation predominates. It may
therefore be unsurprising that over the longue durée WOMAD festivals seem to have
been most successful in Anglo-Saxon cultures like the UK, Australia, New Zealand
and the USA, though they have also been very succesful in Spain. The latter‘s
success probably hinges on slightly different factors, not least the funding which
ensures that Las Palmas and Cáceres are free rather than ticketed events, and also
Spain‘s long tradition of fiestas and public festivities which guarantees that locals
will make the most of a free event. WOMAD would probably enjoy similar success
in other European countries like France, Germany, Belgium and Holland were it not
for their already vibrant world music scenes and competing festivals. Unravelling
exactly why and how world music audiences are not fully global requires further
consideration and research beyond the scope of this chapter, however it does lend
support to the idea that world music may be a western white middle class music
scene. To this end, we can note that the birth of the genre could perhaps only have
occurred in cultures like the UK, France and USA with an amorphous admixture of
exoticist imaginary, hybrid and immigrant post-war cultures, anti-racist and
multiculturalist social movements, successful recorded music industries, and
entrepreneurial festival organisers. There is one counter to this, Abu Dhabi, and the
new potentialities and perspective that this offers are briefly discussed in the
conclusion.
All of the above strategies, the different ways that WOMAD operates, are factors in
its success. At the root of this are some of the festival‘s fundamental ideological
positions, but also the key role that place and locality plays. Through broad
experimentation with sites, audiences, and the festival format itself – for example,
occasional forays into the performance spaces and formats of more ‗elite‘ art like the
WOMADs at London‘s Globe Theatre, at the Tower of London, and at Taormina in
Sicily) – WOMAD shows that to just consider it a festival is an oversimplification: it
is an international cultural actor/event. However, where it has been successful, this
has been because it has found local partners that share its ideals, local financial
support, and local audiences. These audiences have not always been immediate, and
in many cases – for example, in Cáceres – it has taken years, and occasional
wrangles with the local political establishment, to become a cultural fixture
absolutely tied to that place in the minds of its local audiences. This adaptation and
flexibility is a two-way process, as whilst WOMAD has had to adapt itself to local
conditions and concerns, some audiences have needed time to adjust to the diverse
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musics on offer. Its strength here has clearly been its eclectic offerings as well as its
rejection of the elite/popular distinctions that characterise some cultural festivals, and
undoubtedly free access to the Spanish and Abu Dhabi events has guaranteed large
audiences. As the co-director of the WOMAD Foundation put it:
―you have to inevitably follow the cultural norms, and you wouldn‘t put
on a Festival at midday in Singapore, because it‘s too hot, nobody would
come. And the same in Abu Dhabi. […] So you do very much adapt to
wherever you are. And I think that‘s what‘s interesting about WOMAD.
I think over the years, it‘s become very capable of kind of morphing, if
you like, into what is required, whilst at the same time, absolutely
retaining its identity and its character.‖ [Annie Menter, interview
transcript.]
Giving a definitive character to WOMAD is still problematic, as it is probable that
further developments keep the festival moving in new directions and to new
locations and audiences (for example, in 2009, the directors were negotiating a
possible Indian WOMAD, probably to be held in Goa). As an international cultural
actor/event it retains its strategic self-declared apoliticism, so to call it a transnational
musical activist would be to overplay the political. Perhaps it is best to remain
focused on its modus operandi, as the director of the two Spanish WOMADs, Dania
Dévora, argues‖
―WOMAD has its own aesthetic –an aesthetic that is open enough to
accommodate itself in every different place that holds a festival- and,
thankfully, we have the experience and the professionals to guarantee
that it´s always reached.‖ [Interview transcript]
6.7
Conclusion
What is WOMAD? Previous characterisations in earlier Work Packages have
described it as an itinerant festival, and a brand of sorts. Most prosaicly, it is a
curated musical exhibition. Dance, food, workshops and audience participation with
the art, and with the places it is enacted, are also central. However, it is perhaps best
understood through the characterising metaphor of one of the directors of the
WOMAD Foundation: as a play. For Annie Menter,
―As I think I said earlier, there‘s obviously a formula to the festival, but
that formula is very, very flexible and it can morph into all sorts of things
[…]. I mean, it‘s almost like a play, if you like, with different characters
and you take it one place with a group of actors... […]You then transpose
it to another place altogether with a different group of actors and maybe
take it to another country and it‘s going to take on all sorts of nuances
and meanings and... The story‘s the same, but the interpretation may
well be different.‖ [Annie Menter, interview transcript]
If WOMAD is a play, its different directors around the world seem to play a role
similar to that of theatre directors, and the workshops and pre-festival educational
work of the WOMAD Foundation present issues similar to those that directors of
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participatory theatre or theatre for development face. Thinking of the event as a play
also has limitations, not least because the sheer number of performances means
multiple narratives run through the event. Its different spaces of both performance
and relaxation (multiple stages, workshop spaces, esoteric healing spaces, food stalls,
beer tents, funfair, dance tent, and in the UK the camping experience) ensure that an
individual‘s experience of the festival is potentially as heterogeneous as the musical
offerings. The other director of the Foundation offered a more straightforward
characterisation:
―We are a virtual arts centre, without an actual home, so we find our
homes in each of the locations that we work within. And each location
provides us with different challenges.‖ (Mandy Adams, interview
transcript)
That WOMAD should be homeless, or rather, have multiple homes, plays on the
stereotypes of the ‗global village‘, on music as an ‗easy‘ form of cosmopolitanism.
At its root, this ties in to the idea of world music presented by Veit Erlmann:
―World music is a new aesthetic form of the global imagination, an
emergent way of capturing the present historical moment and the total
reconfiguration of space and cultural identity characterizing societies
around the globe.‖146 [Erlmann 1996: 468]
However, nearly 15 years later, it is difficult to describe world music as a new
aesthetic form of the global imagination. Instead, it now seems to be one of a number
of interconnected aesthetic forms of one particular global imagination, a
cosmopolitan imaginary born in the west and taken to the world through its
expansive cultural industries. For some of the key actors interviewed, what makes
WOMAD unique (even special), is something that ties it to Anglo-Saxon ways of
engaging with culture, as the quotation of Yorrick Benoist in the section on Cultural
Encounters (above) makes clear. Whether this constitutes a kind of benign cultural
imperialism could be discussed further, but another of its defining characteristics –
the festival‘s family-oriented nature and subsequent emphasis on education,
workshops, etc. – ensure that this imaginary is being developed and shared with new
generations around the world.
WOMAD‘s past demonstrates notable shifts in the professionalization of this kind of
festival, in the UK and globally, as well as of the world music genre. Equally
interesting is how it is seen to embody the possible futures for the way states view
culture and identity. The WOMAD project thus seems to be concerned with mapping
future identity, in performing an inclusive alterity (we are all Other), through a
particular mix of nostalgia for ‗traditional‘ music and the celebration of new musical
hybridities. To illustrate this, the final word goes to the director of the newest
WOMAD, Abu Dhabi:
146
Erlmann, V. (1996) ―The aesthetics of the global imagination: reflections on world music in the 1990s‖,
Public Culture, 8: 467-487, p.468
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Abu Dhabi is in a unique place: thirty something years ago it didn‘t exist
as an emirate, yet right now it is asserting an identity very much rooted in
ambitions for the future. A country without a past, existing for the benefit
of the future-so where is the present? Right now, Art steps in to shape the
context in a way that nowhere else is possible. There is no past reference
to work from; and this cultural ‗void‘ calls for manifestations which will
not only appeal to an existing social/cultural situation but also help shape
this situation, actively influence its future shape. WOMAD – being a
prime, self-styled example of multicultural representation/manifestation –
not only fits in with Abu Dhabi‘s extensively multi ethnic social fabric,
but also offers an intelligent mirror for this society to have a look at
itself. [Isadora Papadrakakis, interview transcript]
Appendix – List of Interviewees
Mandy ADAMS, Co-director, WOMAD Foundation (UK)
Yorrick BENOIST, Owner director, Run Productions [World Music agents]
Simon BRIGHT, Director and Filmmaker, Zimmedia Productions (UK / Zimbabwe)
Moragh BROOKSBANK, Music Officer, Arts Council England (South West) (UK)
Caroline & Annie [?, ?] Children‘s workshop managers, WOMAD Foundation
Dania DEVORA, Director, WOMAD Spain (incld. Las Palmas & Caceres) (Spain)
Raghu DIXIT, Artist, Raghu Dixit Project (India)
Lucy DURAN, Lecturer in African Music, SOAS; Presenter BBC Radio 3; Producer
[Toumani Diabate, Bassekou Kouyate, etc.] (UK)
Mose Sesongo ‗FAN FAN‘, Artist, band-leader, Mose Fan Fan (Dem. Rep. of Congo
/ UK)
Helene FRISBY, Events coordinator for BBC Radio 3 (UK)
Jo FROST, Editor, Songlines magazine (UK)
Paula HENDERSON, Programme Manager, WOMAD Ltd. (UK)
Amanda JONES, Label Manager, Real World Records, WOMAD Ltd. (UK)
Johnny KHALSI, Artist & band-leader, The Dhol Foundation (UK / India)
Annie MENTER, Co-Director, WOMAD Foundation (UK)
Isadora PAPADRAKAKIS, Director, WOMAD Abu Dhabi (Untd. Arab Emirates)
Gerald SELIGMAN, General Director, WOMEX (USA / Germany)
Rose SKELTON, World Music Journalist, Songlines magazine and freelance (UK /
Senegal)
Lenny SMITH, Marketing manager, The Independent (UK)
Janet TOPP FARGION, Curator, World & Traditional Music, British Library Sound
Archive (UK)
Guo YUE, Artist, Guo Yue; Guo Brothers (China / UK)
Muntu VALDO, Artist, Muntu Valdo (Cameroon / UK)
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7
The Sónar Festival
Paolo Magaudda and Alba Colombo
7.1
Introduction
As was explained in the historical report,147 the Sónar Festival reached its current size
and appearance around 2003 and over the past few years the event has remained
relatively stable in terms of venues, artistic proposals, symbolic strategies and
audience attendance. In these respects, the 2009 edition does not present significant
changes in programme, locations or types of artistic events, except for a new events
devoted specifically and for the first time to children and families, the ‗Sónar Kid‘
session.
In 2009, Sónar was confirmed as the most important and most popular electronic
music festival in the world, between 18 and 21 June attracting more than 74,480
people over three days and nights and more than 5,320 people (tickets +
accreditations) on the last day, ‗Sónar Kids‘. As in previous years, the festival took
place in two main sections and locations. The ‗Sónar by Day‘ event (from 12:00 to
22:00 hours), mainly consisted of experimental and not directly dance-based acts
together, an arts and installations exhibition section called ‗Sónarmatica‘ and a
professional fair. This was presented in the space shared between the Centre of
Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) and the Museu d‘Art Contemporani de
Barcelona (MACBA) and registered an average attendance of about 5,000 people
every day.
The second main section was ‗Sónar by Night‘, held at the new Barcelona fair centre
just outside the city (in the nearby municipality of Hospitalet) and consisting of two
nights (starting at 09.00 pm and finishing the next morning around 7.00 am). This
part of the programme consisted mainly, but not exclusively, of the famous artists
(e.g. Grace Jones; Orbital), internationally established DJs (e.g. Jeff Mills; Ritchy
Hawtin) and established popular acts in the electronic music scene (e.g. Moderat;
Fever Ray).
The 2009 festival represented a huge success in terms of audience attendance and
press coverage. Indeed, it has to be considered that tickets for the ‗day‘ sections were
soon sold out (the Saturday tickets were sold out before the beginning of the festival)
and the experience of researchers at the festival was that, especially in the hours of
peak attendance (5 pm-9 pm.), spaces where completely full and sometimes
overcrowded.
The new section introduced this year, ‗Sónar Kids‘, represented the main innovation
in a consolidated festival schedule and structure. ‗Sónar Kid‘ was a day devoted
especially to children and their parents and it took up Sunday, a day generally not
used by the festival in previous editions. This new section, which will also be
147
Magaudda, P. (2009b) ‗The History of the Sonar Festival‘, in J. Segal and L. Giorgi (eds.), European Arts
Festivals from a Historical Perspective, Research Report, Eurofestival Project
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repeated in the coming festival, reflects the reality that the first generation of Sónar
audiences – which also coincide with the age of Sónar‘s directors – have moved from
adolescence to being parents themselves, thus symbolically reflecting the change in
generations involved in Sónar and in the electronic music world in general.
Plate. 1 A picture of the location of the ‗Sonar By Day‘, section, in which the white building of the
Museu d‘Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) is visible in the background
An element of the festival that runs parallel to the main event in June is the further
development of other musical events held in different cities over the world. These
events are called ‗A taste of Sónar‘ and have regularly characterized the festival
activities over the last eight years. In 2009, these events were held in New York,
Washington (USA) and London (UK). As will be seen later in this chapter, the
international projection of the festival represents a crucial strategy at symbolical,
artistic and economic levels.
The 2009 Sónar Festival confirmed and developed the two main strategies and
practices underpinning the festival structure and work. One macro-strategy is
connected to the development of Sónar as a ‗brand‘ for exporting Barcelona‘s image
on the global level, and the other micro-strategy is linked to the development of
Sónar as a key symbolical event in electronic music and youth culture. In order to
understand the festival logic, practices and representations, these two strategies
represent the interpretative keys in an analysis of the festival. For this reason, they
will be mentioned frequently in this chapter.
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Plate 2 One of the stages of the ‗Sonar by Night‘ section, currently located in Barcelona‘s large fair
centre.
The empirical research on the Sónar Festival was conducted largely during the 2009
and 16th edition. Empirical data and documentation collected during research and
used in the present analysis include: 12 long interviews (from 50 to 90 mins.) with
organization staff, stakeholders and key informants; 20 short interviews (5 to15
mins.) with artists, other professionals and the audience made during the festival;
about 1,000 photographs and 80 short videos (1 to 5 mins.); heterogeneous material
and documentation (gadgets, flyers, CDs, etc.); and ethnographic notes taken during
the festival.
Long interviews were mainly conducted face-to-face between April 2009 and March
2010. Short interviews and the photograph and video documentation were performed
at the event locations during the festival in June 2009. Both researchers involved in
the case study undertook interviews and data collection.
7.2
Organization and finances
This year the festival again repeated the organizational structure developed in
previous years. The organization depends on the work of three directors (see below)
and different departments on a permanent of temporary basis, depending on their
responsibilities. The administration of the Sónar Festival employs about 20 people
throughout the year, but this amount increases during the months leading up to the
event. It is difficult to estimate the staff employed in the course of the festival, but
they go into the hundreds, especially considering that night events each attract more
than 30,000 visitors.
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The Sónar administration is based on the work of a private commercial company
called Advanced Music, which was created in 1994 to organize the festival and
which also acts as a musical booking agency, event producer and music consultant.
Georgia Taglietti, the head of press and public relations of the Sónar Festival, has
sketched a description of the people who work all year and the main tasks facing the
administration:
‗We have Administration, where there are three people; then we have
Sónar Pro, three people too, then Sónarmatica, which is the multimedia
and exhibition section with one main curator. Then there is Production,
where there are two people and another three for booking the artists. At
Logistics, we have one or two other people for only six months and one
more person for Design. We also have Media with two people and the
three directors.‘ (INT_L_1_GEO)
One of the characteristics of Sónar, on which a significant part of the structure and
organization depends, is its financial autonomy from public institutions and corporate
sponsors as a result of a mixed-funding basis. Indeed, as in previous years,148 the
festival budget came to about € 3,000,000, of which 15% came from public
institutions, 25% from sponsors and 60% from ticket sales. This financial autonomy
is a key issue in the festival development and is a very important element for
understanding the staff‘s autonomy in artistic and logistic decisions. This is an aspect
that has been explicitly commented on both by the organizers and by local
institutions participating in the festival. Georgia Taglietti explicitly mentioned the
fact that the festival‘s financial autonomy is a crucial element for the administration:
‗The fact that we have our personal funding influences our independence.
It is for this reason, yes, this is a basic reason for the independence of the
festival. We don't depend on international groups, Live Nation or any
specific institution. We are largely dependent on ourselves and on our
ever-changing relationships and annual negotiations with institutions and
sponsors.‘ (INT_L_1_GEO)
This financial autonomy is also at the basis of the independence of local authorities,
which, in this case, are the Barcelona City Administration (currently headed by
Social Democrats) and the Catalan Regional Government (headed by Social
Democrats together with independents and leftist parties). Concerning the
relationship with local authorities, it should be noted that the local institutions
consider Sónar a very important festival in their regional festival system (see below),
which consisted of 41 different music festivals in 2007. Sónar is considered one of
Barcelona‘s key musical and international events because of its capacity to carry out
an international project in terms of foreign audience attendance and international
press coverage and representation. This point was mentioned by the cultural
councillor of the City Council of Barcelona:
‗I really want to insist on the fact that, for us, the Sónar Project is very
important because it is an international project that is 100% Barcelonan
148
Oliveras, J. (2008) ‗Sónar - Festival Internacional de Música Avanzada y Arte Multimedia de Barcelona‘, in
A. Colombo and D. Rosselló (eds.) Gestión Cultural: Estudios de Caso. Barcelona: Ariel
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and Catalan. [It is a project that] is very closely connected to local culture
and that is based on a model looking at the international context […] it
has not imitated foreign models, it has not tried to do things developed in
other places and has developed a specific style. Moreover, it has been
able to develop forms of co-operation and to open itself up towards the
international audience.‘ (INT_L_3_CAR)
The relevance of the festival for the city is recognized by public institutions and can
be seen in the support they give to the festival. The current Catalan Regional
Government introduced Sónar as a key festival in the strategic development of the
regional cultural policy with the goal of promoting Catalan music and Catalan artists
internationally. In 2007, the festival was entered on a shortlist of strategic music
festivals in Catalonia, as was explained by the Councillor for Music at the Catalan
Institute for Cultural Industries of the Catalan Government, who also gave details
about the temporal aspect of symbolic and material investment in the festival:
‗From 2007 on, when we started this legislature period and I assumed
responsibility as the director of the music department, I proposed a music
policy for 4 years. We decided on 5 festivals in Catalonia that by nature
need to be treated differently to the rest, and one of them is Sónar.
Therefore, we call them festivals of strategic interest for music policy in
Catalonia, and, basically, the advantage that they have is that they don‘t
need to apply for public administration subsidies every year. We have set
up 3-year contracts, which are an interesting economic factor for them.
[…] The criteria are basically that the festivals must be the most
important ones by genre: one from classical music, one from folk music,
authors, jazz and advanced music.‘ (INT_L_9_JMD)
Therefore, the main characterizing features of the festival can be summarized as
financial autonomy, a clear and flexible staff structure, depending on the stage of the
organization of the festival, the relevant role played by a private company and the
important recognition of the role of the festival for the city. It is starting from these
elements, which will be further developed in this chapter, that many of the features
of the festival can be analyzed in greater detail.
7.3
The role of directors
The history and development of the festival and its current status have been clearly
marked by the presence and activity of its three directors, who founded the festival in
1994 and are still involved in the core process of festival design and management. As
was explained in WP2, the role of the directors has been crucial in the birth and
development of the festival and this is mainly due to the fact that they present
different profiles in terms of professional competences and artistic sensibilities. As
one of them, Enric Palau, explained, the three directors are in charge of three
different key assignments in today‘s festival organization:
‗The major decisions are shared between the three, but on the more
logistical and practical level, Robles is the person devoted to the media
and relationships with sponsors. I work more on the co-ordination of
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artistic content, especially music. Sergio Caballero works on the artistic
direction of the festival‘s images and also on the development of
exhibitions and production.‘ (INT_L_12_PAL)
Together with other curators, Enric Palau is in charge of the selection of artists and
music and he personally drafts the selection of artists to be invited. This selection, as
another member of the staff related, involves many and different sources and
activities, such as personal contacts, the press, the internet, demo-tapes etc.:
‗The music selection is done on the basis of proposals sent from all over
the world by post, but today also via MySpace, mp3 and digital stuff.
Friends working in the media, for record companies and leaders are also
sources for us. Then we also go on journeys during the year to see bands
and performances of bands we have heard of on MySpace, Facebook or
wherever. Thus, the selection process is very complex and, as Enric
Palau says, it is like a ‗mosaic‘ that makes sense when it is seen
assembled.‘ (INT_L_1_GEO).
Another director, Sergi Caballero, is in charge of the visual and image identity of the
festival. As will be discussed later, the image of the festival is not a residual
dimension, but represents a separate sub-project within the festival, presenting a
different image, identity and branding every year. This image is usually recognized
as Sergi Caballero‘s own work. He is considered as an artist in his own right,
inventing creative images on the basis of his ‗artistic inspiration‘, as a member of
staff explained:
‗I think that [Sergi Caballero‘s] imagination is very artistic. He has the
approach of a contemporary artist, which consists of a tendency to escape
the contemporary iconographic styles common in dance and electronic
music. The imagery of the festival is born from the inspiration of a
person who has been an artist and still is an artist and who also creates
music and images.‘ (INT_L_1_GEO).
Thus, it is hardly surprising that before the inception of the festival, Palau and
Caballero were artists and musicians, whilst the third director, Ricard Robles, was a
music journalist. This latter professional profile explains Robles‘s current role in the
festival, which is mainly one of maintaining relationships with sponsorship and
institutions. The synergy produced by the direct involvement of the three directors in
three different and crucial areas of the festival production (artistic selection, imagery
and representation; external relations) is clearly relevant for understanding the
success of Sónar.
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Plate 3 The series of images created for the 2009 Sónar by the director Sergi Caballero, who is
responsible for the visual identity of the festival.
The vision and the stimulus that the directors‘ involvement generates for the festival
can be better understood by considering the motivation driving them. As Palau
explains, work for the festival ‗stimulates them professionally and personally‘:
‗What I think is true is that we, the directors, are still excited on
professional and personal levels. Sónar allows us to continue developing
ideas, like the ‗Sónar Kid‘ or other international events. Moreover,
contents change from one year to the next and for us every year is like
starting afresh.‘ (INT_L_12_PAL)
One of the permanent directors‘ strategies is a constant quest for new trends and
ideas for the festival on the organizational, artistic and representational levels. It is
interesting to note that local authorities understand the cultural and artistic research
done by the festival, as is explained in its positive assessment by the cultural
politician, Ferran Marcarell:
‗I believe that the organizers of Sónar, if they have many virtues, one of
those is that they have never been accommodated and they have alway
modulated according to the new realities that are today unveiling
(INT_L_5_MAS)
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Thus, it can be clearly seen that the role and involvement of the directors is very
important in the production of the festival. This significance can be summarized in
three crucial elements. First of all, there is the element of continuity: the three
directors who decided to create the festival are the ones who have been working
together for more than seventeen years. The second element concerns their
commitment to the work of innovation and creation within the festival. The third is
recognition by institutions according to their ability to renew and further develop the
festival.
7.4
Networking structures
The Sónar Festival can be considered the junction between different networks and
relationships both at the local and international levels and simultaneously involving
artists, the media, professionals and the audience. From this point of view, Sónar can
be regarded as the hub of a number of international artistic and musical networks in
which this festival plays a constitutive and predominant role. As a German music
producer has worded it:
‗I think Sónar is a big network between different festivals of electronic
music such as Mutech or also Dispatch and Two Days Out in Esatern
Europe and others. I think the network is very important for the scene, for
the electronic scene. It makes it all very close, so it‘s good for us.‘
(INT_S_1.7_RAS)
Sónar is also connected to specific networks of professionals for organizing some
sections of the festival. In its most recent edition, this was the case with the
collaboration with Red Bull Academy, a British electronic music platform that holds
musical events and educational programmes and does business in the field of
electronic music, mainly in the UK. These forms of co-operation allow the festival to
stay attuned to emerging artists and styles.
In general, it can be noted that Sónar represents a meeting place for a core network of
professionals connected to electronic music and culture in different ways. The first
network clearly covers musicians, professionals and others who attend the festival
and establish formal or informal relations with one another. These relationships take
the form of personal contacts the organizers have established over the years with
people and professionals interested in the same kind of music and aesthetics.
One other example of Sónar‘s artistic network is the Sónarmatica, the exhibition
section within the festival focusing every year on specific artistic topics related to
sound, music and multimedia. Every year this session attracts a network of art
curators from different places, especially from different European countries. The
main exhibition curator, Oscar Abril, briefly sketches the work involved in the Sónar
exhibition section:
‗(…) as curators we have had different strategies and actually – regarding
the exhibition department – we decided to focus every edition on one
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specific theme and to take a look around the world and Europe especially
[to see] which kinds of works are most interesting on this topic. That
means we take a look at different electronic culture scenes, and that‘s
possible only with the different collaborators [and] curators we have
around Europe. It is an interesting network.‘ (INT_L_6_ABR)
Other levels of networking concern the local and national levels. Whereas the
relationship with local institutions was mentioned in the previous paragraph, it must
be noted here that Sónar is at the centre of a local network of professionals on the
urban and regional levels. There is an entire electronic music industry in Barcelona,
covering the creation, the promotion and the consumption sectors. For all the local
music-related activities, the days during which Sónar takes place represents the
‘peak‘ period. These are commonly referred to as ‗Sónar Week‘ in flyers and
programmes of clubs and bars. In this respect, it should be noticed, for example, that
the Barcelona edition of Time Out magazine makes a special feature for Sónar Week,
which is distributed free in three languages wherever all the electronic music
aficianados are to be found (from record stores to boutiques and restaurants). Sónar
Week is generally recognized by entertainment and dance professionals as the period
when ‗we all cash-in‘: – as the PR officer of the club La Terraza put it:
Plate 4 Some of the flyers of some of the better known Barcelona clubs, advertising their programmes
during Sónar Week which is commonly perceived as the time when all music-related enterprises have
more to do thanks to the attractiveness of the festival.
‗[Sónar] is the festival that involves more people in every sense because
during the festival week it is not only the festival that is going on, but
also the whole city, hotels, restaurants, bars and especially all the discos
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and clubs… I mean… it is a week during which we all cash in.‘
(INT_S_2.8_TER)
Thus, the festival is simultaneously involved with formal and informal networks, at
local, national or international levels, and these networks can be motivated by
cultural or economic interests. Whilst many of these networks are not directly
generated by the festival, its role remains important as a catalyst for many of these
events and the festival administration is important in managing and articulating the
participation and involvement of all these actors and networks.
7.5
Symbolic representation strategies: arts, politics and cosmopolitanism
As the literature on music festivals has copiously shown, in the case of the Sónar
Festival, too, the symbolic representation strategies are crucial elements in the design
and the success of the festival.149 To this context, two different levels of symbolic
representation should be considered. The first one concerns the general cultural
policy strategy connected to the local and public institutions in which Sónar is
embedded, as well as the political strategy for internationally marketing the City of
Barcelona as innovative and trendy.150 The second level is connected to the artistic
and aesthetic dimensions that the festival constructs and projects toward international
audiences, music scenes and international youth culture in general.
From the point of view of the cultural policy of local institutions, the decision to
support the festival is linked to its representing a useful tool for representing the city
throughout the world. This is explained by a local electronic musician, Victor Nubla,
who stresses the fact that the festival is also the result of a political strategy
connected to promoting an international image for the City of Barcelona:
‗From the outset, Sónar has had a mentor and I think that he has had
great ideas … Mascarell has always seen culture in terms of the city and
in sometimes very definitive terms , he has had a clear idea that Sónar
has to be something representing the city around the world, as the
‗Barça‘.‘ (INT_L_4_NUB)
As has been stated before, the Sónar Festival has been recognized as a strategic event
for enhancing the image of Barcelona and Catalonia as innovative regions in Spain.
In 2009, the administration of Sónar was also awarded the ‗City of Barcelona
Award‘ in the category of ‗International projection‘ for promoting the city abroad,
with specific reference to the events organized in other countries, explicitly
149
See Bennett, A. (ed.) (2004) Remembering Woodstock, London: Ashgate; Dowd, T. et al. (2004) ‗Music
festivals as Scenes: Examples from Serious Music, Womyn's Music and SkatePunk‘, in A. Bennett and R.A.
Peterson (eds.), Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, pp.
149-167; Magaudda, P. (2009a) ‗Processes of Institutionalization and ‗Symbolic Struggles‘ in the ‗Independent
Music‘ Field in Italy‘, in Modern Italy 14 (3), pp. 295-310; Santoro, M. (2006) ‗The Tenco Effect. Suicide, San
Remo and the Social Construction of canzone d‟autore‘. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 11 (4): 342-366
150
See Balibrea M.P. (2001) 'Urbanism, culture and the post-industrial city: challenging the 'Barcelona model‘.
Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 2(2): 187-210; Smith A. (2005) ‗Conceptualizing City Image Change: The
'Re-Imaging' of Barcelona‘, Tourism Geographies, 7(4): 398-423
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underlining the facts that ‗Sónar is a world reference for electronic music‘ and that it
has attracted audience, professionals and mass media from all over the world to the
city of Barcelona over the past 17 years151 (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2009).
The second strategic level of representation is connected to projecting the brand of
the festival towards international audiences, music scenes and musical subcultures in
general and to articulating a specific discourse and representation of the festival as
the main innovative and, at the same time, popular electronic music and digital
culture event in the world. This level concerns the ways in which the festival has
worked in order to build up and develop a specific image and brand using different
strategies including artist and music selection, the development of an original image
and branding of the festival and the elaboration of a markedly international strategy
of marketing and communication.
On the basis of these two levels of symbolic representation – the city‘s branding and
the artistic representation of the festival –the complex articulation of the
representation of the festival can be better understood in the following three different
areas: the arts, politics and democracy, Europe and cosmopolitanism.
7.5.1
The arts
One of the special features of Sónar consists of the development, over the years, of
an original discourse on the artistic, cultural and aesthetic categories involved in
electronic music and digital culture. An analysis of this aspect of the festival is
helpful in understanding its huge and long-standing success. This cultural approach
can be summarized in the general tendency to deconstruct existing artistic and
musical categories, genres and boundaries and reconstruct them, explicitly
associating the emerging perspective with the image and brand of the Sónar Festival.
In order to explain this strategy, the different levels of deconstruction and the
merging of different cultural and aesthetic categories will be discussed.
The first strategy relates to a core question in the development of popular culture in
the last century:152 the process of high-brow and low-brow musical styles and artists
merging. In the history and present of the festival the process of these two cultural
poles merging is evident in the mixture of prevalently dance-based styles and
experimental music and artists. As an Italian electronic music professional explained,
the special quality of Sónar has been that of integrating two different spheres of
electronic culture which had remained separated for decades:
‗Since its inception, Sónar has been a unique festival in Europe, the first
one to be able to merge different creative energies in digital culture
which had hardly ever been performed in a unique context at the same
moment. Media art had and today still has a more high-brow profile,
151
Ajuntament de Barcelona (2009) Premis Ciutat de Barcelona 2009
(http://www.bcn.cat/cultura/premisciutatbcn/2009/secun3.shtml).
152
See Fiske, J. (1987) Understanding Popular Culture, London: Routledge; Levine, L. (1988) Highbrow
Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press;
Peterson R. and Kern, R. (1996) ‗Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore‘. American Sociological
Review 61 (5) pp. 900-907
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whilst electronic music has both: on the one hand, the lofty legacy of
experimental music and, on the other, the low-brow attitude of dance
culture.‘ (INT_L_10 _GIU).
The strategy of merging high-brow and low-brow musical and cultural contents has
been developed through different practices and organizational choices. The most
important clearly consists of the use of the spaces in which the festival is held, which
are the high-brow Museum of Contemporary Art and the Centre for Contemporary
Culture of Barcelona during the day, whilst there are the huge pavilions of Barcelona
Fair at night.
A second level of the merging and deconstruction of categories performed by Sónar
concerns the blending of different musical genres and the constant reconfiguration of
the category of ‗electronic music‘. In recent years, this tendency towards merging
musical genres has produced the festival‘s openness to many different styles and
musical traditions. As an experimental Spanish musician put it, at Sónar today it is
possible to find all kinds of musical styles, which are contextualized into the specific
discourse of Sónar, thus acquiring cohesion:
‗At Sónar right now you can find all types of music. You can find pop,
experimental rock, funky, techno and contemporary, from the elitist up to
the popular, without any sense of continuity. That‘s not only very
eclectic, but also has very irregular programming. Sónar... is as [if] made
for two or three different audiences.‘ (INT_L_4_NUB)
A third level on which we can understand the strategy of merging existing categories
concerns the merging of musical art with visual arts and other forms of culture. This
trend is highlighted by the words of Oscar Abril, the main curator of Sónar‘s
exhibition section Sonarmática:
‗This is a project that we don‘t want to take apart: the dichotomy between
high and low culture. (…) Electronic culture, music and arts understood
from an interdisciplinary perspective. We have shown the evolution of
electronic art, from digital to analoguous, from the software socialization
to painters, graffiti, design, always understood as components of
electronic culture.‘ (INT_L_6_ABR).
These are only three examples of the broader strategy developed by the festival in
order to deconstruct categories and artistic boundaries clearly represent the main
elements in the construction of Sónar‘s artistic and cultural identity. This
reconfiguring of artistic and aesthetic boundaries gives Sónar a unique position
among contemporary electronic and digital culture festivals.
7.6
Politics and democracy
As has been mentioned, the festival is organized by a commercial firm, one of whose
tasks is making profits from the production of the festival. In this light, the festival‘s
relationship with politics and democracy can be interpreted from two perspectives.
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The first concerns the position of the festival in strictly political terms. Sónar does
not take an explicit political position and does not unequivocally address its activity
in political terms. As Georgia Taglietti – the person responsible for external
communication – put it: ‗Sónar is apolitical‘. However, it is possible indirectly to
deal with some political issues involved in the festival organization and to analyze
the discourses and the perspectives shared by the organizational staff.
When discussing the festival‘s role in terms of a contribution to society, the festival
staff in general agree that one of the political aims of the festival is connected to
raising people‘s cultural curiosity. In Georgia Taglietti‘s words again, the political
dimension of the festival relates to the kind of cultural content presented to the
audience:
‗Sónar is apolitical, […] but I think in the sense that everything is
‗inscribed‘ into the content that is not invented by us, but we arrange and
offer it to the audience in order to enable their curiosity to grow in
cultural terms . But we as a festival don‘t have a political vision of the
world.‘ (INT_L_1_GEO).
The second perspective concerns the fact that the festival has a clear position on what
can be considered the democratization of digital culture. It consists not only of giving
the audience the opportunity to access this artistic and musical aesthetic, but also of
educating the audience about digital culture.153 Indeed, the concept of democracy
posited by the festival is connected to the ability to offer a broad audience the
opportunity to see and appreciate music and artists that are generally only
appreciated inside specific niches or elites. Enric Palau explained in plain words this
democratic role of the festival:
‗We have been able to develop a cross-sectional event which covers
different aspects of artistic creation, and we have done so in a very
democratic way in the sense that we sometimes cover very specialized
and very radical aspects, but we offer them to the audience in a very open
and democratic context. I mean democratic in the sense that we offer
very specific contents, which are usually offered to a very specialized
audience, and we can present them to a wide audience in a very
democratic way.‘ (INT_L_12_PAL)
Therefore, the two perspectives on politics and democracy proposed by the festival
emerge as developed mainly in terms of cultural activity and diversity and openness
of access to content.
7.6.1
Europe, internationality and cosmopolitanism
As a source of identity and geographical reference, Europe is hardly tapped in the
strategies of the festival organizers. This is due to the fact that the geographical and
geopolitical references of the festival oscillate between a local context – the district,
the city and the region – and the international and global projection of the festival. In
this respect, the festival strategies are directly related to the local context and
153
See Jones. P. (2007) ‗Cultural Sociology and an Aesthetic Public Sphere‘, Cultural Sociology, 1(1): 73-95
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international dimension of the digital culture scene, bringing them together, as
Georgia Taglietti of the press office expressed in an official statement:
‗Sónar is a Catalan festival with a Spanish and European dimension and
is clearly an example of its genre at the global level, especially of what
has developed in electronic music and electronic culture.‘
(INT_L_1_GEO)
The question of the scant consideration of Europe as a reference in Sónar discourse
has been explicitly addressed by a national Spanish music journalist who has
observed Sónar‘s development for many years. As will become evident in the
quotation, he explained that Sónar's attitude is to work with artistic, aesthetic and
cultural trends on a global scale and not just at a European level:
‗Therefore, they [the festival] are present in other cities like a brand. We
are talking globally, if you would like to do something that takes you
away from your neighbourhood, the relationship is not with your
continent, not with Europe… it is with the world. You talk to the
international market because aesthetics have become standardized,
because the forms of production, of creation and of composition are the
same in Japan or in Bilbao.‘ (INT_ L_7_HID)
From this point of view, it will be clear that the festival was founded with a specific
international perspective and a global and international projection. As the director
stated, Sónar was launched in 1994 with a strong international character because
innovations in electronic arts and music have made great progress and merge at the
international level.
Considering the idea of ‗cosmopolitanism‘154 explicitly, it is interesting to note that
for the upcoming 2010 Sónar edition, the administration adopted this cultural
concept in order to promote an event parallel to the regular festival that will take
place in La Coruna (Galicia). In order to distinguish it from the regular Barcelona
festival, it has been promoted as ‗Sónar Galicia: an innovative, urban and
cosmopolitan format‘.
7.7
The role of the media
For a festival with a special focus on electronic culture on the international level, the
role of the media and ICT (information and communications technologies) is very
important. This role can be seen from two different perspectives, the first one
consists of the relationship between the festival and the national and international
media and the second one of the relationship between the festival, ICT and new Web
2.0 tools.
154
See Delanty, G. and He, B. (2008) ‗Comparative Perspectives on Cosmopolitanism: Assessing European and
Asian Perspectives‘. International Sociology, 23 (3): 323-344; Skrbis, Z. and Woodward, I. (2007) ‗The
ambivalence of ordinary cosmopolitanism: Investigating the limits of cosmopolitan openness‘, The Sociological
Review, 55 (4): 730-747; Szerszynski, B. and Urry, J. (2002) ‗Cultures of Cosmopolitanism‘. Sociological
Review, 50: 461–81
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First, a strong role is played by the national and international media covering the
event and involving some major and well-known institutions such as the BBC, RNE
(Radio Nacional de España) and TV3 (Televisió de Catalunya), as well as small and
very specialized magazines and blogs, and - in the 2009 Sónar edition - more then
800 journalists from all over the world. At the same time, there is co-operation with
subcultural and digital media, especially those related to electronic music and youth
culture all over the world, like the British music magazine The Wire and free and
independent Internet radio such as ScannerFM (which collaborates with the festival
organizers in broadcasting SónarRadio). As regards the relationship with the national
and international media, they are specifically constitutive of the development of the
festival. As an Italian professional in electronic music explained:
‗They [the organization] had the ability to interact with the right media
partners from a cultural point of view. The British media were very
important at the beginning . I remember that at the beginning of the
festival I was also impressed by the huge amount of press coverage by
the national media like El Pais.‘ (INT_L_10_GIU)
Another important aspect of Sónar‘s relationship with the media is the selfrepresentation that the festival has decided to pursue since its initial years, when the
festival decided that the festival‘s image was to be a special item on the programme,
something with the same importance as the rest of the festival. That has developed
into creating a special image, something like a brand, different from other festivals.
One of the directors, Sergi Caballero, is responsible for the creation of the image of
the festival. As Enrique Palau explains:
‗Then we wanted to look for an image that distanced itself from the
classical or typical image of a festival, [which] ended up turning into its
own section, which has kept changing formats and is now heading
towards a more cinematographic one.‘ (INT_L_12_PAL)
The presence of the national and international media at the festival causes a specific
impact on the music section. At present, Sónar is one of the most interesting festivals
of electronic culture, so there are a lot of artists who would like to be present there.
In this context, the long-standing relations the administration has had with the
national and international media give the festival a good position to present new
artists and works.
In terms of symbolic representation, the media has had a highly important role, from
the outset ‗selling‘ the festival like a wonderful, sunny, happy party event with
fabulous music, educating and influencing the electronic music scene and acting as
symbolic representation. As a former member of staff and Spanish experimental
electronic musician put it: ‗the first press about Sónar which does not talk about
music, a press that talks about holidays and parties, is a little like Ibiza‘.
(INT_L_4_NUB)
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Plate. 5 At ‗Sonar by Day‘ it is usual to see people experiencing the festival as a summer holiday
resort.
Secondly, it should be noted that Sónar focuses on progressive music and multimedia
art, i.e. the art it presents is generally related to ICT and the new Internet possibilities
of Web 2.0. Most professionals and experts consider that the artists present are using
ICT, in this sense creating an international network, scene and new aesthetics. But
this is not always realized, as a well-known Spanish music journalist commented:
‗…Aesthetics have become standardized because the forms of
production, of creation and of composition are the same in Japan and
Bilbao. What makes artists equal is recognition, a musician from
Minnesota can recognize the pop melodies by an artist from Japan with
an Asian sound because he makes pop like the Minnesota guy. Actually,
I don‘t know if the contemporary highways are changing music
aesthetics. I don‘t see that the digital changes are influencing aesthetics.
Not really… the composers are not really changing.‘ (INT_L_7_HID)
On the other hand, it would be expected for the organizers to use ICT and Internet
2.0 services to communicate, promote and exchange information with the audience.
Indeed, whilst the festival has activated its own presence on most well-known social
network services such as Facebook, Twitter and My Space, the festival does not
actually use ICT and Internet 2.0 in a creative way for creating communities and
interactive exchange. As the head exhibition curator of the festival said:
‗Sónar is a festival that has shown the possibilities and changes of the
internet and ICT, but has not used the lucrative possibilities that these
technologies might give them. For a relatively short time, Sonar has just
used the internet for information. Now we are in the social communities,
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but with a complex structure like Sónar, it is difficult to understand and
to manage the implementation of the new architecture of the web.‘
(INT_L_6_ABR)
Thus, the media presence of the festival is very important on the national and
international levels for promoting artists, the festival, the city and electronic culture
in general. On the other hand, the media directly influences the festival in terms of
the aesthetics of electronic culture and at the same time also affects the way the
festival promotes itself.
7.8
The audience
As can be seen in the historical review of the festival (WP2), Sónar was founded in a
period when the City of Barcelona needed some cultural reanimation and electronic
music culture still needed to be recognized. At its beginning, the festival had to find
its own audience, so during the initial years the identification of the audience was
relatively clear, as the exhibition curator Oscar Abril pointed out:
‗One group of people came from the electro-acoustic scene and from the
first phase of evolution of the new media art, and the other one came
from club culture and the dance scene. There was not and is not a special
programme for each one of them. There is a retro-admiration and
compatibilization of different programmes.‘ (INT_L_6_ABR)
In this context, the festival created its own audience and developed together with the
identification, definition and construction of the multimedia arts on the electronic
culture scene. As Abril again explains, the audience grows and evolves together with
the festival:
‗(…) what the festival has done throughout these years is create its own
audience, which grows and learns about electronic culture through and
with the festival.‘ (INT_L_6_ABR)
Nowadays, the distinction between the audience interested in electronic culture and
the one interested in club culture has partially blurred, and the audience is actually
composed of people with different interests in music, dancing and electronic culture
in general.
Concerning the festival organizers‘ view of the audience, they consider audience
satisfaction crucial, because ticket revenues represent one of the main sources of
profit for the company organizing the event. As Georgia Taglietti explicitly
expressed, audience assessment of the festival is very important:
‗(…) the audience is our most severe critic, also because we have
established a very high standard and there is always someone who says:
‗you are not the same Sónar as before‘. And we are always the same, but
there is a close-up examination of festival choices.‘ (INT_L_1_GEO)
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In keeping with this perspective, it is hardly surprising that for Sónar‘s organizers a
young audience is the most important reference group for the evolution of the festival
and its future success. As Enrique Palau explained, young people are especially
interested in attending the night events, which are more clearly devoted to dance
music:
‗Sónar also generates a very important interest in the new public. Every
year we see people that expect to come to ‗Sónar by Night‘ over the next
16 or 18 years. (INT_L_12_PAL)
As regards audience motivation to attend the festival, it can be noted that there is not
only aesthetic and musical interest, but also a tourist one, and this element is relevant
for the role of the festival and the City of Barcelona.155 Indeed, as has already been
pointed out, more than 50% of the audience come from foreign countries, especially
from the United Kingdom and Germany. Sónar takes place in a nice, warm and
sunny Barcelona June, and that seems to be very attractive to northern European
visitors, as young festivalgoers stated in a short interview:
‗I think Sónar is more than anything else, the music, the people that come
here, it‘s a very cool, very European, very funky crowd (…), there‘s a bit
more crossing out. And also, it‘s in Barcelona, which is an amazing
city.(…) and there‘s lots of English, lots of Irish, and also general
Europeans, lots of Spanish, South Americans as well, which makes it a
really sort of fun, diverse crowd.‘ (INT_S_2.5_CLO)
Another interesting aspect is that often the audience does not know exactly the artist
whom they are going to see dancing or hear. This aspect underlines the fact that the
audience tends to be attracted by the brand of the festival rather then by specific
artists. This aspect has also been indicated by a Sónar curator, Oscar Abril:
‗Most of the audience buy their tickets without exactly knowing the
bands; they know the names, but not their music, that‘s the same with the
exhibition. That means that they give us their confidence.‘
(INT_L_6_ABR)
The audience is very international in composition, but this does not mean that all
countries are equally represented. Indeed, as has been stressed by the head of public
programmes of the MACBA (the museum hosting the festival), ‗elite country‘
audiences attend the festival in particular:
‗(…) there aren‘t people from all over the world attending the festival,
we could produce some rhetoric about understanding the festival as
international, yes, international, but from countries that already have
quite a lot of relations, international elite countries and people who can
travel and pay and use up [their] money in leisure and culture.‘
(INT_L_8_GAR)
155
See Van der Borg, J. and Russo, P. (2008) Regeneration and Tourism Development. Evidence from Three
European Cities. Working Papers, Venice, Department of Economics, 21/2008
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As regards the relationship the festival has with the local audience, it must be noted
that, whilst the festival clearly attracts the interest of local cultural consumers
interested in electronic music and digital culture and arts, local audience involvement
remains on a secondary level for different reasons. The main reason could be that the
international focus of the festival in terms of attendance and audience satisfaction
together with the number of people attending the performances make the attendance
of a local audience more problematic and troublesome, as was stressed by an Italian
electronic music professional:
‗There is the local audience that is maybe more interested in the
discourse of digital art than music and maybe this kind of audience views
Sónar as a big circus where there are thousands of things, but they do not
find it enjoyable to spend an afternoon in this chaos of foreigners.‘
(INT_L_10_GIU)
The audience is a very important element in Sonar‘s strategy, choices and
development, especially because it represents the most important way of producing
profit and thus maintaining organizational and cultural autonomy from local
institutions and sponsorship.
7.9
Conclusion: Sónar between local promotion and the global digital scene
In order to develop a more general analysis of the relationship between festivals and
public culture, at least three relevant issues emerge from the case of the Sónar
Festival.
The first consists of the significance of the economic and organizational
configurations in festival life. Indeed, in the case of Sónar, economic independence
can be identified as a crucial element in the shaping of the festival, its culture and its
cosmopolitan image. The fact that the festival is organized by a commercial
enterprise is an important element in understanding not only the ways in which the
festival is promoted and communicated, but also the ways in which artistic choices
are made.
Economic independence gives the organizers significant scope for programming and
artistically developing the event. Within this framework, the festival has developed
the possibility to focus on a specific musical and cultural scene, which other
institutions have been late to recognize as relevant. The aim of Sónar‘s organizers is
explicitly to earn a profit, and thus the openness and democracy of the festival is
framed by this firm‘s commercial perspective. As we have seen, this aspect is
reflected in the ways in which the festival organization discursively constructs and
‗frames‘ the festival programme, the audience and their own work and activities.
The second important issue is connected to the first and concerns Sonar‘s
relationship with public institutions and the local institutional context. As could be
seen in the analysis, the festival‘s financial autonomy is strictly connected to its
organizational autonomy and is also directly related to the artistic autonomy that
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gives the organizers the opportunity to focus on its international and global
expansion.
In recent years especially, the public administration and other cultural institutions
have collaborated with the festival for reasons related to the promotion of the city
and the region. Among them, there is the goal of projecting an international image of
these institutions, who conceive of the festival as a promotional window to the world.
Moreover, institutions and the administration consider the festival as an advertising
tool useful for promoting the city globally, continuing a felicitous policy starting at
the 1992 Olympic Games.
Finally, the third issue concerns the articulation of cosmopolitan culture specifically
with electronic music and digital culture even if the festival does not explicitly use
the concept of ‗cosmopolitanism‘. As has been seen, Sónar acts internationally with a
cosmopolitical identity in a global position. What is important here is the aesthetics
of digital culture, on which this cosmopolitism is built. In other words, some Spanish
artists will have something in common with persons from Great Britain or from
Poland as regards interest in electronic music and digital culture. The festival gives
them the opportunity to show and to get to know art or music they are interested in,
giving professionals the chance to promote themselves and the audience the
possibility to enjoy music shows.
This global perspective of the Sónar Festival produces a specific way of articulating
the international projection and cosmopolitan image. Indeed, a form of
cosmopolitanism can be found here, one which is specifically articulated within a
special cultural scene: the digital and electronic music scene.
Appendix: Interview List
1. Georgia Taglietti (Sonar Staff – Press coordinator)
2. Manuel Lopez (CCCB Staff – Sonar Co-organization)
3. Carames (ICUB – Public sponsorship)
4. Victor Nubla (Former Sonar Staff and electronic artist)
5. Ferran Mascarell (Regional Politician)
6. Oscar Abril (Sonar collaborator for art exhibitions)
7. Luís Hidalgo (Spanish Music Journalist)
8. Marta García (MACBA - Sonar Co-organization)
9. Josep Maria Dustrèn (ICIC – Public sponsorship)
10. Giulia Baldi (Electronic Music and Sonar expert)
11 Leandro Pisano (Journalis for Blow Up Magazine: Sonar Media Partner)
12 Enric Palau (Festival founder and director)
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Part III. Film Festivals
Jerome Segal
With the development of home cinema and the opportunity for many internet users,
more or less legally, to download all kinds of films, even before their official
theatrical release, cinemas have lost many visitors. One of the measures envisaged to
counter this trend has been to host festivals. This is probably one of the reasons that
explain why film festivals are still developing at a frenetic pace. If festivals are to be
a counter-measure to home cinema, they must offer the audience what they cannot
have at home. Taking part in a festival therefore means being a member of a
community of people sharing similar interests, experiencing with others a live and
festive event, being able to discuss films with others and feeling directly concerned
by the media report on the film watched the evening before. These aspects of film
festivals also explain the success of old festivals with longer traditions. In this
perspective, film festivals can be considered places in the public sphere where
identity is at are stake and where democratic debate is enhanced.
The four film festivals under consideration here are all concerned with these two
topics, even if an important distinction must first be made between, on the one hand,
the modest Vienna Jewish Film Festival (VJFF), with its budget of around 100,000
Euros and the 1,500 tickets sold in 2009, and the three main European film festivals
located in Cannes, Venice and Berlin, on the other. Compared with the VJFF, the
Cannes festival has a budget 200 times higher and 200 times more tickets are sold in
Berlin. Nevertheless, despite this important distinction, four topics emerge from the
following monographs: the symbiotic relations between festivals and cities, the
importance of the forms of networking, the relationship between films and film
festivals, and the characteristics of the audience.
Symbiotic relations between festivals and cities
The four film festivals under study all bear the name of a city in their title (albeit in
the case of the Venice Film Festival, the original name in Italian is simply Mostra
Internazionale d‘Arte Cinematografica). In the case of the Vienna Jewish Film
Festival, it will be seen that one of the reasons for the public support given to the
festival is clearly Austria‘s history with the Jews: from the onset of Austro-Fascism
in 1934 to the end of the Second World War (although the lack of enthusiasm on the
part of Austrian officials – to use a euphemism – to see the Jewish population in
exile returning to Austria after the war could also be taken into consideration).
Today, city representatives feel a certain collective responsibility and seek to
resurrect and reinvigorate Jewish life in the city. Supporting the Jewish Film Festival
seems to be a convenient and quite economic step in this direction. Moreover, the
decision to support foreign cultures in Vienna is clearly part of the political agenda
of the Socialist city administration. Therefore, the City of Vienna covers about twothirds of the festival budget and every report on the VJFF in the media is considered
positive publicity for the city.
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In Berlin, the case is a similar one, even if Berlin also bears strong connotations as a
capital city. The Berlin Film Festival (also called ‗Berlinale‘) was founded by the US
occupation forces in 1951. Its whole history is linked to the history of the city, with
its three main constitutive events, i.e. the construction of the Wall in 1961, its
destruction in 1989 and the creation in 2000 of the Potsdamer Platz, where the
Berlinale now has its headquarters. The Berlinale has become an important event for
the residents, who constitute the majority of the buyers of the 300,000 tickets sold
last year.
In Venice, the Mostra only takes place on the Lido, one of Venice‘s islands half an
hour away from the centre of the city and therefore the place essentially visited by
festival-goers. The festival is therefore badly represented throughout the city but, as
in the case of Berlin, it is still considered a national prestigious event. Since the
Mostra, as it is commonly termed, is heavily dependent on public support, it has also
become the instrument of national cultural policy and is the issue in many political
disputes. Directors of the Mostra have often suffered from this dilemma.
By contrast, Cannes, if the festival also serves national interests, seems to work
better in the sense that the management team is not affected by political changes at
the head of the ministry of culture or by the establishment of new festivals (Venice
was irritated in 2006 by the foundation of the Rome Film Feast). Cannes is literally
overwhelmed by its festival: the city has only 70,000 inhabitants, but this number
goes up to 160,000 during the festival every year. Film is omnipresent in the city. As
in Hollywood, stars leave their fingerprints in the pavement. Cannes needs its festival
for tourist reasons and parts of the glamorous aspect of this festival heavily depend
on its location on the Côte d‘Azur.
In the four cases studies, the success of the respective festival consists of developing
a win-win situation between the city and the festival it hosts.
Networking and vertical integration
Film directors as busybodies
If cities are important for festivals, the latter are also often reliant on their director or
on the small team heading them. In the case of the Vienna Jewish Film Festival, it is
still directed by its founder, Frédéric-Gérard Kaczek. His wife joined him in the
project and for those who have an insider view of the festival, the festival is clearly
their ‗baby‘, so to speak. A cameraman by profession, Mr. Kaczek has used many of
his contacts to provide films for ‗his‘ festival, and as she works at the Vienna
University of Applied Arts, Mrs. Kaczek has obtained support for the festival from
this university .
In the case of the Cannes Film Festival, Gilles Jacob, who has been at the head of the
festival in different functions since 1975 (as delegate general or president) has
always managed to use his connections to the highest state authorities for the cinema
milieu. He has managed to get French citizenship or a Légion d‘honneur, the highest
decoration in France, for a film director he has wanted to please. Thierry Frémaux,
the current delegate general is still at the head of the Lumière Institute, a cinema
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museum in Lyon set up in the workshops where the Lumière Brothers made decisive
contributions to the invention of the cinema. In Lyon, he has established a new
festival dedicated to the history of cinema, and his local contacts are reflected in the
selection of the Cannes Film Festival.
The festival circuits
In the case of Berlin and Venice, the directors are also influential persons, but more
closely linked to the international film festival circuit than to their roles on the
national level. Marco Müller, who currently heads the Mostra, has directed other
festivals before (Rotterdam 1989-1991, Locarno 1991-2000), like his counterpart in
Berlin, Dieter Kosslick (Hamburg), or even more so , Kosslick‘s predecessor, Moritz
de Hadeln (Locarno 1972-1977, Berlin 1980-2001 and Venice 2002-2003). Whether
they explicitly belong to the festival circuit or not, the directors attend other festivals
and many informal exchanges take place.
In the case of the three main European film festivals, an official network is set up by
the International Federation of Film Producers‘ Associations, which decided which
festivals should be accredited as ‗Competitive Feature film Festivals‘ (they are 13
worldwide). Nevertheless, every major festival has its own network, depending on
the representatives they have in the main countries or in the main cinema studios.
The relatively small Vienna Jewish Film Festival also has its own network, even if
many European Jewish film festivals heavily depend on their director-founder. In
2006, they convened to establish an official common network, the ‗Association of
European Jewish Film Festivals‘, but it has not worked out and exchange between
these festival still remains informal.
The power of sections
The VJFF always has a number of topics on the programme, but it does not really
consist of sections, as in the case of the main film festivals. The Cannes festival has
four important sections, the Mostra five and the Berlinale seven. In fact, many
similarities can be observed between these sections. There is usually a section
consisting of the films in competition for the main awards, and in responseto the
1968 turmoil, an independent sidebar was established with more curatorial freedom ,
which was progressively integrated in the festival, even if it still benefits from
financial independence. Other sections were created in the 1970s or early 1980s to
counterbalance these more artistic sections, so that an equilibrium has been found
between the sections. Today, they constitute the lungs of the festival, as competition
between them provides the necessary flexibility. In his autobiography, Gilles Jacob
explains how he managed to use this rivalry to select films that the president of the
festival rejected, and even in 2009, Francis Ford Coppola benefited from this rivalry.
Competition also exists between the film festivals and recently, i.e. over the past
fifteen years, the Cannes and Berlin festivals have developed ways to promote new
talents and to prepare them for the film festival circuits. The Cinéfondation in
Cannes holds a Sélection of short films shown during the festival, a Résidence in
Paris for young film makers, and an Atelier where producers can be met during the
festival. In Berlin, the Berlinale Talent Campus acts in a similar way, and it is no
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surprise that many directors supported by these organizations have their film selected
in the respective festivals.
This kind of vertical integration is a new trend after the diversification which largely
affects the small festivals. These festivals try to capture a bigger audience by
arranging photograph exhibitions, concerts, or other live performances like theatre,
within the framework of the festival. The Vienna Jewish Film Festival has used this
diversification, but also strengthened its educational role by consolidating its
partnerships with school classes, invited to special screenings in the morning,
whereas the main part of the festival takes place in the evening.
Film and film festivals
Festivalization of film
As will be explained in the following chapters, some cinema critics have expressed
the concern that films might be conceived from scratch to please festival selectors.
When we discussed the issue with interviewees, we tried to see what the
characteristics of such a film might be, stressing the links to globalization or the
development of a cosmopolitan awareness.
Film and politics
Among the four festivals, the VJFF is probably the only one which openly runs a
political agenda. By their selection, the organizers want to exemplify the diversity of
Jewish identity and always try to find films that promote a peace in the Middle East
that would respect the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own country.
Some films are regularly considered scandalous by the official Jewish
representations, but the festival team has decided abide by this agenda, even if it may
sometimes appear provocative (like after the screening of Paradise now by Hany
Abu-Assad).
Regarding the three main film festivals, Berlin has the reputation for being more
political, followed by Venice (may be more ‗artistic‘) and Cannes, more
characterized by a trend towards commercialization. One of the results of the
following case studies was to find out that the situation is much more complex.
Politics play an important role in all festivals, certainly in the sidebar sections, but
also in the official selections. Sometimes, political scandals play a positive role for
the media, and Thierry Frémaux explained, for example, that he is interested in films
which can act as a ‗negative integrator‘ in Cannes, ‗uniting opposition against itself‘,
as he explained. In Berlin, the same could be said of Jew Süss, Rise and Fall, by
Oskar Roehler, a film chosen on purpose so that the selection might involve a
‗scandal film‘. In Venice, the decision to welcome the controversial Venezuelan
president Hugo Chavez to support the film South of the Border, by Oliver Stone, also
led to differing political comments.
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Sponsoring and curatorial freedom
The influence of sponsors on the festivals constitutes another interesting point which
emerges from this study of the three main film festivals. The state has often
disengaged, and sponsoring has become more and more important. The cosmetics
company L‘Oréal decided to invest massively in film festivals (first of all in Cannes
and Berlin) and at the same they hired famous actresses as models. Pressure might be
exerted to have the films they act in selected and even during the festival, since the
company is pays for special supplements on the festival in magazines, it can be
assumed that film critics will not dare to write negative reviews of these films.
The audience
As assumed in this introduction, people go to film festivals to be members of a
community. In his assessment of the 2010 festival, Frémaux wrote ‗there was a nice
communion in the cinemas‘. Sometimes a religious fervour seems to permeate the
festival. In the case of the Cannes festival, which is largely intended for film
professionals, many people hang around just to be there and in the hope of glimpsing
one or the other star. In the communities of film festivals, accredited persons often
wear their IDs on necklaces like decorations, decorations that are awarded according
to very strict rules and following a rigid hierarchy (more in Cannes than in Venice or
even Berlin, which hosts the most popular festival).
Every audience has, of course, its own characteristics: in the case of the VJFF, there
is a majority of non-Jewish people interested in Jewish culture or simply curious
about other cultures. Cannes essentially has a professional audience with the 30,000
persons accredited, surrounded, outside the Palais des festivals and on the Croisette,
by thousands of fans, often more interested in celebrities than films. Venice has a
younger audience, with the majority coming from Italy (a few films are even shown
only in Italian). In Berlin, the average or typical cinema-goer is very well
represented, apart from professionals and tourists who cannot miss an event spread
out throughout the city.
The different exchanges that take place during these four festivals, as well as the way
participation in festivals affects the discourses on identity, will be specifically
addressed in the four following chapters.
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8
The Cannes Film Festival
Jerome Segal
‗Never imagine that Cannes is the greatest festival in the world, but do
everything to keep it that way‘156 (Gilles Jacob, on choosing Thierry
Frémaux as his successor in 2007)
The Cannes Film Festival (CFF) has indisputably established itself as the most
important festival worldwide. Thierry Frémaux, the delegate general who heads the
festival together with its president, Gilles Jacob, is proud to repeat that the CFF is the
second most important event in the world after the Olympic Games in terms of media
presence.157 Since 1939, the festival offers a snap-shot of world cinema and it is
perhaps the most important in this respect. That it continues to be so after all these
years has undoubtedly also to do with its ability to fulfil four equivalent but not
necessarily complementary objectives. In an interview to a French TV network,
Frémaux saw saw four pillars to the Cannes festival: the authors, the glamour, the
film industry, and the media.158 In an interview carried out for the present study,
Frémaux said he was frustrated when people refer to Cannes as the ‗big-money‘
festival as opposed to the ‗artistic‘ Mostra. The present chapter analyzes this
statement in the light of the fieldwork conducted in Cannes, a media analysis and
eleven interviews with relevant stakeholders.
156
Cited in Ferenczi, A. and P. Murat (2009), ‗Thierry Frémaux : La sélection est plus drôle qu‘à l‘ordinaire‘
Télérama, April 29, p.14
157
Latil, Loredana. 2005. Le Festival De Cannes sur la scène internationale. Nouveau Monde Editions, p.90
158
See Frémaux 2008. Thierry Frémaux - une vidéo Actu et Politique (channel Public Senat). FACES A FACES.
June 2, 26‘30
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8.1
Organization and finances
The CFF aims to be at the top of film festival rankings. This is achieved through a
huge organization devoted to finding a balance between tradition and innovation.
Location, sections, audience and finances are the main elements explaining the
success of the event.
8.1.1
Location
Back in 1938, Cannes was chosen as the venue for the festival for touristic and
economic reasons following intense lobbying in Paris by the manager of the Grand
Hotel in Cannes. More than seventy years later,
the choice of location continues to pay off.
Cannes basically targets a professional audience.
Still, many people attend even though they know
they have little or no chance to get to see a
film—this is only possible through journalists
letting go of their tickets for lack of time. Still
many stick around, just for being there and in the
hope of glimpsing one or the other star.159 This is
obvious at the Croisette, close to the Palais des
festivals, where one finds several step ladders
attached to the street barriers. The ladders‘
owners lock them over night and they arrive
early in order to ensure a good view of the
entrance to the main hall.
The Cannes Film Festival is the second-oldest in
the world after Venice and it has thus completely transformed the little seaside resort.
Cannes has only 70,000 inhabitants, but this number goes up to 160,000 during the
festival every year. Film is omnipresent in the city. Like in Hollywood, stars leave
their handprints in the pavement.
Glamour is associated with the city of Cannes, yet not all festival-goers agree with
this image. In an interview he gave to this project, the film historian and critic
Antoine de Baecque referred to Cannes as an ‗ugly city with only elderly people who
vote 40% for the National Front [ultra-rightist party]‘. Laura Balasuriya, a young
director of a short film which was shown in competition, regretted that Cannes was
only ‗clean‘ around the Palais des festivals. She related her own experiences, stating,
‗as soon as you pass the railway tunnel, it becomes very poor‘. For the actor Reda
Kateb, who was also present to defend his film, A Prophet, during the 2009 festival,
Cannes is ‗hidden‘ behind its festival.
159
Regretting that most of the people in Cannes had not heeded a film with an important historical background,
the journalist Renaud Santa Maria wrote: ‗the night life in Cannes is less in keeping with historical topics than
with the big international brands of carbonated soft drinks or jewels that arrange the parties (...). In this
otherworldly universe, real cinema seems to be the one of oblivion, as if this large bazaar of absurdity were just a
foolish game in order to disguise a more profound malaise, our recession-induced depression.‘ Santa Maria,
Renaud. 2010. La croisette s'amuse. Bakchich, May 22, p.6.
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The festival is held over a relatively short period of time (usually 12 days) in a
confined area that congregates an important cosmopolitan audience with enormous
press attendance. Many individuals or groups try to take advantage of this situation:
some for showing off; several for drawing attention to their causes (such as
unemployment among actors or minority rights) or, in the case of sects, for attracting
new members.
8.1.2
Sections and selections
In the same way that the media concentrate on the Palais when they report on
Cannes, they rarely mention the other sections of the festival. Besides the official
selection, where about twenty films compete for the seven prestigious awards
(Golden Palm, Grand Prix, Best Actor…), there are three other sections: ‗A Certain
Glance‘, organized by Gilles Jacob, Thierry Frémaux and their team, and two
independent sections, the Critics‘ Week and the Directors‘ Fortnight. The team
centring on Thierry Frémaux watches between 1,700 and 1,800 films for the official
selection. Frémaux himself watches around 700 films, of which one-third are shortlisted and 50 are selected, with about 20 in competition and the same number in the
section ‗A Certain Glance‘, the others being shown out of competition, or as opening
or closing films.
The selection is, of course, of tremendous importance, as it is commented on in all
countries. If, officially, the selection is done by the selection committee, Gilles Jacob
wrote, for instance, about the director Jean-Luc Godard, ‗between 1980 and 2004, I
selected nine of his films in Cannes‘, as if he were the only person to decide. The
contrary is the case when the selection is harshly criticized: Jacob remembers that he
‗sought shelter behind [his] committee‘.160
The festival is sometimes criticized for selecting films by the same directors, as
Jacob conceded in the case of Godard. The Coen brothers, Woody Allen or the
Dardenne brothers are also among the regular guests. Jacob defended his position by
writing in auto-referential logic ‗if we always take the same [directors], it is proof
that they shoot the best films‘ and stating ‗A rather poor Fellini will always be worth
more than a drudge who has surpassed himself‘.161
Frémaux and Jacob play an important role in the festival, even if this role is not
always completely official. As regards the jury, for instance, it can be assumed that
they have means to interfere in its decisions, since both of them attend the last
deliberation meeting (ibid. p. 186). The jury is always composed of nine people,
chosen among cinema professionals or writers whose work has been adapted for the
screen. Frémaux and Jacob maintain close relations with film directors, and Frémaux
was proud to tell me that the Coen brothers immediately tell him when they shoot a
film, if it will be an artistic work or just a box-office booster meant to finance the
next film.
160
Jacob, Gilles (2009), La Vie Passera Comme un Rêve, Robert Laffont, pp.125 and 147
161
ibid. p. 303
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During the 2009 festival, an interesting anecdote arose concerning Francis Ford
Coppola, who had just finished editing his first digital film, Tetro. Frémaux offered
him a place in the official selection, but not in the competition, probably because
Coppola had already received two Golden Palms (like four other directors).
Cunningly, Coppola decided to go to the rival section, the Directors‘ Fortnight,
where it became the opening film. As Christophe Leparc proudly claimed during the
interview he gave us, the ‗Quinzaine‘ (the original name of the Directors‘ Fortnight)
is more clearly oriented towards authors‘ cinema and gained importance in the 1970s
by introducing directors like Rainer Fassbinder, Martin Scorsese or Werner Herzog
to Cannes.162 This section is less glamorous than the official one, but it is also one of
the few sections where films can be seen by non-accredited people.
The Critics‘ Week (‗Semaine de la critique‘) is the fourth section of the festival. It
was established in 1962 when the festival directors felt it was necessary to have a
section for first films which might serve as an anteroom to the Cannes festival.
Nowadays, it is organized by the French critics‘ syndicate, which collects about 250
persons (they see 1,900 films and select about 10 of them). The objective is to
present seven films which can be first or second productions, and also seven short
films. Here again, our interviewee, Jean-Christophe Berjon, who heads the ‗Semaine‘
proudly listed the filmmakers discovered by the Critics‘ Week: Ken Loach, Bernardo
Bertolucci, François Ozon or Wong Kar-Wai. The vitality of this section is attested
by the quantity of films submitted, which grows every year (800 films and 1,200
short films for the 2009 edition). In this section, people can watch films for free and
without having to have any accreditation; it offers a unique cosmopolitan stage for
the reception of films, and this is particularly important for young directors. JeanChristophe Berjon stated at the opening of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival that
filmmakers often experience their first public screening on this occasion, an event
they will remember all their lives.
A healthy cross-fertilization exists between the four sections and the Golden Camera,
introduced by Gilles Jacob in 1978. It rewards the best first film screened at the
festival and primarily challenges the ‗Semaine‘, which is specialized in such début
films. The final part of the festival organization concerns the ‗Cinéfondation‘,
created by Gilles Jacob in 1998 to ‗support the next generation of international
filmmakers‘.163 Georges Goldenstern, who acts as the general manager of this
section, presented the three pillars of this section in the interview he gave us: the
selection, which consists of four programmes of short films; the ‗Residence‘,
established in 2000, which twice a year welcomes six filmmakers from throughout
the world to Paris, where they spend four months in a common flat, so that they can
write the scripts of their first or second film ; and, since 2004, the ‗Atelier‘
(workshop) which enables fifteen selected film projects (script already completed
and at least 20% of the budget found) to be developed in Cannes with professionals
during the festival. The ‗Cinéfondation Atelier‘ is a good way of entering the festival
circuit, and for example, recently, Léa Fehner, who was at the ‗Atelier‘ in 2008,
162
See Thévenin, Olivier. 2006. Quinzaine des réalisateurs : une construction d‘identité(s) collective(s) ? In
Sociologie des arts et de la culture, un état de la recherche, ed. Sylvia Girel, 271-284. Paris: L'Harmattan
163
Official webpage of the ‗Cinéfondation‘, http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/cinefoundation.html.
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presented her film Silent Voices (‗Qu‘un seul tienne et les autres suivront‘) in Venice
(in the section ‗Venice days‘. See the chapter on the Mostra).
8.1.3
Budget and sponsors
About 20 people work for the festival on a full-time basis. From January to May, the
number goes up to 80 and 1,200 people are employed during the festival. The costs
are, of course, negligible in comparison with the organization of the festival itself.
The following table gives a short overview of the budgets and sponsors of the
different sections (the data is taken from the interviews and counter-checked against
other sources).
Budget (EUR)
Official selection
A Certain Glance
Directors‘ Fortnight
20 million
1 million
Critics‘ Week
330,000
Cinéfondation
900,000
Sponsors
50% private support (Chopard, L‘Oréal, hp,
Renault, Akamai, Electrolux)
Mixture of public and private funding
40% private support (TitraFilm, Kodak,
Audiens, Canal+…)
Warner, NEC, L‘Oréal
Concerning the Directors‘ Fortnight, Leparc explained that the budget was covered
by the CNC (Centre national de la cinématographie, a public administrative
organization), two French regions (Ile-de-France and Provence-Alpes-Côte-d‘Azur),
the SACD and ADAMI (organizations representing the rights of directors and actors
respectively) and a few other professional groups. They also have private sponsors
(‗Agnès B.‘, a fashion company, ‗TitraFilm‘, a company producing subtitles and the
car manufacturer BMW). Leparc explained that in recent years they had had to face a
‗withdrawal by the State‘. They had frequently thought of applying for European
financial support, but they could not imagine having restrictions regarding
nationalities, as a quota of European films is mandatory for many European
subsidies. He also mentioned that income from the box-office was quite significant,
but did not specify any figures.
As for the Critics‘ Week, Berjon explained that the main support came from the CNC
(50%). They also received contributions from the Media Programme of the European
Commission, the Region Provence-Alpes-Côte-d‘Azur, the City of Cannes, and
private support (in descending order of importance), TitraFilm, Kodak, the TV
stations Canal+ and TV5 (French programmes abroad).
8.1.4
Audience
A large part of the organization concerns the management of the audience, which is
essentially composed of film professionals. Accreditation is mandatory for all the
films presented in the two official sections or as special events (essentially ‗in
competition‘, ‗A Certain Glance‘). Whereas there are only a few kinds of
accreditation and the possibility for the general audience to buy tickets to almost all
the screenings in Venice and Berlin, Cannes has a very complex system of
differentiating between those who have festival passes, the representatives of the
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press, film market participants and cinephiles. Many subcategories have been defined
within these categories.
As can be seen on these two A4-pages, which are intended for the festival team at all
the different control points, there are no fewer than 30 subcategories for the 30,000
persons accredited (about 12,000 for the festival, 10,000 for the film market, 4,000
journalists and 4,000 cinephiles). One of the film exhibitors interviewed for this
project, Boris Spire, who has extensive experience of film festivals,declared, ‗I have
never seen such a hierarchical festival, with so many different privileges according to
the level of accreditation. (…) ‘. Accreditations have also different colours. Above,
the standard black for the festival pass can be seen and red for the film market, but
press people, for instance, have many different colours. A journalist explained:
‗The people ‗in white‘ – the VIPs, often media moguls or TV presenters – can access
everywhere, even parties, at any time, without queuing in front of the cinema. Those
‗in pink with dots‘ are treated almost as well, but have to let those ‗in white‘ go in
first. The people in ‗pink‘ must wait for those in ‗pink with dots‘ to enter, those ‗in
blue‘ must give precedence to those ‗in pink‘, and those ‗in yellow‘ must allow those
‗in blue‘ to go in first. All this is done with the hope that the people of the previous
category will not take up all the vacant seats. For photographers and cameramen, the
pass is orange.‘164
This is the reason why everyone in Cannes looks at the accreditation of the people
they meet or just encounter in the streets. Some conversations sound like this: ‗Oh,
you‘re pink, this year I am only blue with dots, I don‘t know why, I tried to change,
but they just offered me yellow.‘ The worst colour is brown, for the cinephiles
considered ‗untouchables‘, even if they are the people who will constitute the
audience of many films when they are released to the theatres . Every year, this leads
164
See Dubuc, Bérénice. 2010. Festival de Cannes: La Croisette en voit de toutes les couleurs. 20 minutes, May
14
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to complaints in different media. Movie-goers can obtain accreditation on the basis
of a motivation letter, but will never access the Palais des festivals. Next morning,
they usually go to see the films in the official selection in the ‗Salle du Soixantième‘,
a cinema built on a terrace of the Palais for the 60th festival in 2007.
8.2
The role of directors
Gilles Jacob (born in 1930) became the first film specialist to serve the festival in
1975. Before him, the people heading the festival were usually senior civil servants
who had served in the administration. In his autobiography, Jacob explained how
important it was to show that he knew about films, being able ‗to speak directly to
filmmakers‘. But cinephilie is not the only characteristic and contribution of the CFF
directors.
8.2.1
Festival directors serving their country… and using their prestige
As shown by the history of the festival, the CFF is an international event but also
very French (see Deliverable 2). In May every year, Cannes becomes the place which
brings together the main representatives of the French film with public
administration representatives.
The directors of the CFF clearly try to promote French cinema with their selection.
Every year, three to four French directors have their film selected for the
competition, among 19 or 20 films (in 2009, the relatively young directors Xavier
Giannoli, Gaspar Noé and Jacques Audiard were joined by the veteran Alain
Resnais, who was 86 years old). Other films by foreign directors are clearly chosen
for their ‗French touch‘. Thierry Frémaux praised, for instance, the film Vengeance
by the Taiwanese director Johnnie To, insisting it was ‗Melvillian‘ (referring to the
films by Jean-Pierre Melville in the 1960s). This latter film starred Johnny Hallyday,
a rock-pop singer who has icon status in France. In the same vein, among the twenty
films in competition, Looking for Eric, by the British director Ken Loach, starred the
French football player Eric Cantona playing himself.
In his interview, Jean-Christophe Berjon insisted on the fact that there was an
important French bias at the festival, mainly due to the role of the CNC as a huge
state institution. In his view, it was as a reaction to the bias introduced by the
directors of the Cannes festival that the organizers of the Berlin Film Festival
decided to have a section on contemporary German cinema, so that they could also
champion their national cinema.
In his autobiography, Gilles Jacob shows that he has always been close to the various
ministers for culture. He is proud to write that he can decide who will be awarded the
‗Légion d‘honneur‘, the highest decoration in France. Jacob wrote that after he had
obtained one for Robert de Niro, ‗[he] asked for the same, for Marty‘, an occasion to
show he was on familiar terms with Martin Scorsese and referred to him by his
nickname (Jacob 2009, 259). Showing even more power, Jacob wrote that he made it
possible for the Polish film maker Andrzej Żuławski to be awarded French
citizenship (ibid. p. 312)
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8.2.2
Frémaux as a busybody
Hired in 2001, Thierry Frémaux (born in 1960), has played the main role in
organizing the festival since 2004, as he is responsible for the film selection. As
‗President‘ of the festival, Gilles Jacob is still very present in the background, but
Frémaux has become the boss. Nothing in his family history could have predestined
him for a career in film. He grew up in the suburbs of Lyon, where his parents chose
to live in a socially mixed neighbourhood. His father was an engineer for the French
electricity supply company and took him to the cinema quite often. Frémaux studied
history and decided to write his master‘s thesis on the origins of the cinephile journal
Positif. He started a Ph.D., but never completed it. The topic was a social history of
cinema. He wanted to understand the meaning of cinema to a Western citizen in the
20th Century and how the cinema had changed and modified his life.165
Frémaux was interested in both radio and cinema, spoke on one of the first ‗free
radio‘ stations in the environs of Lyon and also attended the Cannes festival when he
was 18. He went there by camper with a few friends and they slept in it on parking
lots or at filling stations. Frémaux did not see any films at that time (he had no
accreditation), but he sensed the magic of the festival. A few years later, in 1983, he
was working on an honorary basis at the Lumière Institute, a cinema museum in
Lyon, set up in the workshops where the Lumière Brothers (Auguste and Louis) had
made decisive contributions to the invention of cinema. A long-standing friendship
emerged with Bertrand Tavernier (born in 1941), the well-known French film
director who started directing in the 1970s and who was heading the institute.
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of cinema, in 1995, Frémaux invited film
directors from throughout the world and took the opportunity to establish many
contacts, travelling to many countries with Tavernier. A few years later, he was
offered the management of the French Cinématheque in Paris, but preferred to stay in
Lyon. His work at the Lumière Institute gave him media experience and Jacob asked
him if he would consider joining the Cannes festival. After some hesitation because
the job was so precarious that the former incumbent had only stayed for four months,
Frémaux agreed on the condition that he could keep his job at the Lumière Institute.
It meant two jobs, two offices, two apartments (in Paris and Lyon), but Frémaux,
who is well-known for his gifts of organization, strategy and composure (black belt
in judo, 4th dan), managed to succeed in both positions. Frémaux explained what he
quickly learned as the head of the CFF:
‗I discovered that every item of information involves a batch of consequences and
raises vulnerabilities. And the paradox of this much hyped event is that secrecy is a
must as well as a guarantee. I find myself at the centre of a double injunction. The
‗cinema d‘auteur‘ and the glamorous cinema, the commercial cinema and the cinema
oriented towards research: I try never to play one against the other.‘166
165
See Raspiengeas, Jean-Claude. 2007. Thierry Frémaux, l'amphitryon du Festival de Cannes. La Croix, May 16.
166
‗Je découvre que chaque information draine son lot de conséquences, attise les susceptibilités. Et le paradoxe
de cet événement hypermédiatisé : le secret y est une obligation autant qu‘une garantie. Je me trouve au milieu
d‘une double injonction. Le cinéma d‘auteur et le cinéma glamour, le cinéma commercial et le cinéma de
recherche : je m‘efforce de ne jamais jouer l‘un contre l‘autre.‘ (Raspiengeas 2007).
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There are not many people who dare to criticize Frémaux, since this could mean
being banished from the Cannes festival. The director Jean-Pierre Mocky (born in
1931) told many newspapers in 2010 that the selection of the last film by Tavernier
(La princesse de Montpensier) was only due to his friendship with Frémaux.
In Lyon, Tavernier and Frémaux created a ‗Lumière festival‘, dedicated to the history
of cinema. They invited celebrities of the movie world to present films they liked.
The first edition took place in 2009 and it gave the impression that Frémaux was
using the power acquired at the Cannes festival to impose his views on the city where
he used to live.
8.3
Networking structures
In the portrait published by the journalist Didier Peron, Frémaux is presented as
hating being compared to Marco Müller, his counterpart in Venice (see chapter on
the Mostra).167 Officially, all major film festivals are embedded in a global network
managed by the International Federation of Film Producers‘ Associations. Cannes,
Berlin and Venice are among the 13 film festivals recognized as ‗Competitive
Feature film Festivals‘, but even if in different interviews, Frémaux may say ‗My
friend Marco Müller‘, the term ‗friend‘ does not have the usual meaning. It was
when I was explaining to Frémaux that the framework of this research project was a
comparative study that he asked me right away ‗which other festivals?‘ and when he
heard ‗basically Venice and Berlin‘, he said the interview would no longer be
possible, that the Venice festival was dying and that I had better go to the Toronto
Film Festival, which starts while the Mostra is going on. As an example, he said that
Müller chose the day of the official presentation of the Cannes selection to announce
the opening film he had scheduled for his festival. Reading Jacob‘s autobiography,
one quickly understands that there is a strong rivalry between Cannes, Venice and
Berlin.
Of course, the major festivals share the same network of famous film directors,
producers, studio executives and actors. As is described in the chapter on the Mostra,
Tarantino is now highly visible in Cannes as well as in Venice, and many directors
like the Coen brothers travel around the festival circuit. But the originality of the
Cannes festival probably resides in the ‗Producers‘ Network‘ that was introduced in
2004 as a subsection of the film market. Indeed, this network gathers nearly 500
producers who have had at least one film release to the theatres over the last twelve
months. It is structured into 20-minute presentations of different projects in order to
promote co-productions. Since 2007, an evening of ‗speed dating‘ has also been held
to facilitate communication between young directors, actors and producers.168
Cinéfondation is also a part of the festival which enables worldwide networking (see
the description of the organization above). The networking structures of the festival
are not assembled under one administration, but rather result from informal inter167
‗Et on raconte qu‘il déteste qu'on le mette en balance avec son équivalent de la Mostra de Venise, Marco
Müller, chouchou de la critique à la page‘ (Peron 2007). Peron, Didier. 2007. Palme pilote. Libération, May 15
168
Fabre, Clarisse (2007), ‗Aspirants, cineastes, à vos marques …‘ Le Monde, August 5
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connections between different sets of contacts and individuals whose careers have
benefited from the festival.
8.4
Determining and assigning ‘value’ in the world of cinema
Over the years, the festival has displayed different relationships to films. It has
always claimed to represent the ‗cinemas of the world‘, acting as a showcase for the
productions by various countries, and might have ended, in part, in promoting a
‗world cinema‘, consisting of blockbusters designed to conquer the world market. As
mentioned above, Frémaux himself is conscious that he has to find a balance
between the ‗cinema d‘auteur‘ and commercial cinema. He has partly established his
reputation at the head of the festival as the man who managed to bring back to
Cannes the Hollywood studios that had tended to prefer Venice or Berlin in the
1990s.
Most of the interviewees noted the dichotomy the festival has to cope with. Boris
Spire, who runs a cinema close to Paris which is heavily dependent on public
support, criticized the fact that many opening films are merely commercial. He
mentioned the adaptation of Dan Brown‘s bestseller, the Da Vinci Code, by Ron
Howard in 2006, which was echoed by the most recent Robin Hood by Ridley Scott
in 2010.169 Kurt Schramek, who is both a film screener and the manager of a small
Austrian distribution company, has gone to the festival every year since 1976 (with
only one exception). He has the impression that ‗the festival has become more
commercial, showing films like Shrek or Indiana Jones [Indiana Jones and the
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was the opening film in 2008]…‘. In 2009, the opening
film was the last opus by Pixar Studios, Up, by Pete Docter, and it was probably a
good choice as a compromise between big-budget, flashy productions and highprofile festival films. The film was the first 3D production to be shown as an opening
film. It benefited from huge promotion (as shown on the adjacent photograph) and
received good critiques throughout the press.
Schramek said that ‗Cannes wants to be representative and also open to new trends.‘
It has indeed led to new cinemas becoming recognized, like the ‗Romanian new
wave‘, symbolized by the film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (by Cristian Mungiu),
which won the Golden Palm in 2007.170 This trend was discussed with Alina
Butuman, who is a producer specializing in buying book rights in order to make
films. She comes from Romania, but works in Germany, after having studied and
worked in the US. When we were conducting the interviews during the 2009 festival,
she watched the Romanian film Tales of the Golden Age. The magazine ‗Variety‘
considered the film an example of ‗new Romanian cinema‘, ‗signalling a healthy
international life ahead.‘171 Alina Butuman liked the film very much, but stated she
169
In the same vein, others interviewees mentioned The Matrix Reloaded in 2003 (by the Wachowski brothers) or
Ocean‘s thirteen in 2007 (by Steven Soderbergh).
170
See Hartley, Sarah, and Tom Wilson. 2010. The rise and rise of Romanian film. June 6.
171
See Weissberg, Jay. 2009. Tales From the Golden Age Movie Review - Read Variety's Analysis Of The Film
Tales From the Golden Age. Variety, May 20
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was not sure ‗how well it work[ed]‘ for those to whom it did not look familiar. She
asked Norwegian friends at the festival, who shared her feelings. In her view, the
festival is important for supporting new trends but that the latter do not always
impact on the film industry. She added that a film selected in Cannes, or even
awarded a prize or shown as an opening film, does not necessarily find a much larger
audience. There are many examples of films which were not helped by the CFF, and
the high media exposure in Cannes sometimes leads representatives of big studios to
avoid screenings in competition.
In the interview he gave for the project, the film critic Jacques Mandelbaum tried to
define the quality of a film at the Cannes festival. As he said, it is defined by ‗a
mixture of sensibility, intelligence, theory, world vision, commitment, emotion, and
artistic accomplishment‘. Controversial films are often good examples for what
counts or not in a film festival, whereby controversy itself is itself an important
publicity element. Two films caused controversy during the 2010 festival. The first
one was Carlos, by Olivier Assayas, a three-part film on the life of the well-known
Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez and lasting a total of 333 minutes
(almost 6 hours). The film was produced and shot for the TV station Canal+, with
typical TV-funding. Frémaux acknowledged the fact that it was not a film for
‗cinema‘, but declared that the way it was directed was the same as in a classical
film. For this reason, the film was shown ‗out of competition‘. Variety showed great
enthusiasm and wrote ‗Prestigious festival berths will drum up excitement for a
picture produced for television but absolutely made for the big screen, set to be
released Stateside by IFC in both its full version and a 2 1/2-hour cut this fall.‘172
The other controversy concerning the genre of arts at the festival related to the most
recent film by the French director Jean-Luc Godard, Film Socialism, shown in the
section ‗A certain Glance‘. The very same day that the film was shown in Cannes,
the distribution company, ‗Wild Bunch‘, decided to offer a ‗video on demand‘
distribution for € 7 over the internet. The release of a film online, before its official
screening, led to some criticism being levelled against him at the Cannes Film
Festival, which officially requires complete world exclusivity.
8.4.1
Politics and democracy
When in 2010 the weekly Bakchich published a critical article on the parties in
Cannes, it was in fact, intended to support a film in competition, Hors-la-loi (Outside
the Law) by Rachid Bouchareb The film deals with the development of the Algerian
‗National Liberation Front‘, mostly in France, and echoes the bloody events at Sétif
on 8 May 1945 the, ‗Sétif and Guelma Massacre‘, when the French army killed about
ten thousand of Algerian civilians taking the opportunity of the end of the Second
World War to demonstrate their joy, but also their desire for independence. A French
right-wing deputy, Lionel Luca, expressed harsh criticism of the film (he found it
‗anti-French‘) before its world premiere. A national controversy broke out in the
country, the mayor of Cannes even organized a demonstration on the Croisette with
the descendants of the ‗Pieds-Noirs‘ (former Algerians of European origin) and the
National Front (ultra-rightist party).
172
See Chang, Justin. 2010. Carlos Movie Review. Variety, May 19
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In actual fact, it appeared that the Sétif and Guelma massacres were hardly evoked in
the film and that it did not particularly serve the cause of the Algerian nationalists.
The film became a scandal just because it broke a taboo. In an interview he gave for
the 2009 festival, Frémaux said he liked it when the film selection entailed a
‗negative integrator‘, a management term he is fond of, used here for a film which
‗unites opposition against itself‘.173 In January 2009, long before Bouchareb started
filming, I had the opportunity to discuss with Frémaux a film he had selected in
competition for the 61th CFF a few months earlier, Waltz with Bashir, by the Israeli
director Ari Folman, which deals with the traumata of the 1982 Lebanon war on an
Israeli soldier. When Frémaux saw the film, it was a version that was still too much a
classical documentary. Still, he immediately decided to have it at Cannes and was
later disappointed that the Jury presided over by Sean Penn did not award the film
any prizes, although the American actor had announced he wanted his jury to
promote political movies. Frémaux thinks that the Israelis will go on producing films
like this one, which deals with suffering caused by war, in about 30 years (the
interview took place just after the Gaza War). He compared the current situation with
the Algerian War (1954-1962), which led Bertrand Tavernier to make La guerre sans
nom in 1992 (‗The War without a Name‘, due to the fact this war of independence
has never officially been called a ‗war‘).
If Waltz with Bashir was a major success with the critics in Cannes (and the general
audience later on), it appears that it epitomizes a general trend of Israeli cinema in
Cannes, a cinema which is often very critical towards the Israeli government. In the
2009 selection, Jaffa, by Keren Yedaya (out of competition), showed how Arab
Israelis were treated as second-class citizens. At the same time, the film Ajami,
directed by the Arab Israeli Scandar Copti and the Israeli Jew Yaron Shami, made a
huge impression. Shot as a thriller, this début film deals with the difficulties of each
community in living together. It earned a special mention for the Golden Camera and
was later nominated for an Oscar.174
The political situation in Iran was also very evident during the 2009 and 2010
festivals. The young director, who gave an interview for the project, Laura
Balasuriya, said how she enjoyed the feeling of freedom emerging from No One
Knows About Persian Cats, an underground film on rock musicians, shot illegally in
Iran by Bahman Ghobadi (shown in the section ‗A Certain Glance‘). During the
screening, the audience (relatively young, in their late thirties, with a slight
predominance of males) laughed every time the effects of globalization could be
seen, as when a seller in a rather shabby store of Teheran bazaar names his
budgerigar ‗Bellucci‘ to honour the Franco-Italian actress or when an actor says
about two other birds, that he once let them see a Bollywood movie and saw one of
the them crying. In 2010, the Iranian regime was also largely criticized for the lack of
freedom in the country: one of the jurors, the Iranian Jafar Panahi, a well-known
opponent of President Ahmadinejad, had been put in jail in March, a few weeks
before the festival. Twice awarded prizes in Cannes (Golden Camera in 1995 and
173
‗Il y a toutefois chaque année ce que j'appelle, pour reprendre un terme de management que j'aime bien, un
‘intégrateur négatif‘, un film qui fédère contre lui.‘ (Ferenczi and Murat 2009).
174
On the rise of the Israeli film through festivals, see Segal 2009. For details on Ajami, see the 16 pages of the
monthly L‘Arche, no. 623, April 2010.
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Jury Prize of the section ‗A certain Glance‘ in 2000), he was only released on
$200,000 bail on 25 May 2010. A chair was symbolically kept empty throughout the
awarding ceremony, two days before he was released.
More generally, when interviewees are asked about the political dimension of the
festival, they see it first as a ‗sound box‘ (‗caisse de résonance‘, as Boris Spire
worded it). The films are the dedia which can trigger political debates. Kurt
Schramek, the Austrian film exhibitor, said, for instance, that the topic of climate
change was only tackled when a film on the issue was shown a couple of years ago.
(He meant An Inconvenient Truth, presented by former Vice-President Al Gore in
2006.) It is the same thing with the economic and financial crisis; the films are the
vectors of the debate, but the festival itself seems not to be affected in its
organization. There is apparently a consensus, according to which the CFF does not
seem to be ‗political‘. The producer Alina Butuman stated that it was rather the
Locarno Festival that supported democracy, showing forbidden Russian or Iranian
films. Others, like the French critic and film historian Antoine de Baecque, estimate
that Berlin presents a more political festival, but in recent years the CFF has tended
to show that this distinction is no longer valid.
The difference might have become stronger between the sections, rather than
between the festivals. Jean-Christophe Berjon, who is heading the Critics‘ Week,
insisted on the fact that socio-political documentaries are always welcome. Besides
the seven selected films, they deliberately try to find at least one film as ‗food for
deliberation‘ (‗vecteur de débats‘). Berjon remembers very well the passionate
debates in 2002, when the film Bella Ciao was screened. This film is a documentary
which had been refused by all televisions, on the revolts during the G7 meeting in
Genoa (where a young demonstrator was killed by the police). In the same vein, the
Critics‘ Week presented The Pinochet Case (2001) or more recently Les enfants de
Don Quichotte (in 2008, on an association which gave tents to homeless people in
Paris).
The defence of LGBT rights is also well represented in Cannes among the sections
(Spring Fever, by the Chinese film maker Lou Ye was well shown in competition in
2009). Whereas Berlin was the first festival to introduce a ‗Teddy Bear‘ in 1987, for
the best film with LGBT topics, the organization Cannes decided that, for the first
time in 2010, a ‗Queer Palm‘ would be awarded on the same basis, among all films
presented at the Cannes Film Festival, in any selections.
Otherwise, due to its high media exposure, the festival is also a favourite for political
and social demonstrations of all sorts. During the 2009 festival, two demonstrations
took place, one was to protest against the French government‘s reforms in the
education system, which led to there being more pupils per teacher in schools, and
the other to defend two gay police-officers of the municipal police. In fact, politics is
always present in Cannes, sometimes in the cinemas, but always outside (in 2010,
Greenpeace activists even demonstrated in front of the Palais for the protection of
tuna!).
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8.4.2
Europe as a source of funds, legitimacy, identity
Both the MEDIA programme of the European Commission and the European Film
Commissions Network have booths in the ‗International Village‘ of the Cannes
Festival—but their booths are just two of several ones. According to all interviewees,
Europe is not really present as an institution. Asked if we could consider that the
CFF was somehow ‗European‘, they all answered it was rather ‗international‘.
Nevertheless, some films are perceived as ‗European‘. Many interviewees saw the
film The White Ribbon by Michael Haneke (Golden Palm 2009) as more than a
‗German story‘, as was suggested by the complete title of the film, Das weiße Band,
Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (‗The White Ribbon, A Children‘s Story‘). Besides
its wonderful black and white photography, the film illustrates the conditions that
give birth to Fascism. The proto-Fascist society portrayed has many common traits
with contemporary societies in terms of the instruments of oppression, violence and
coercion. Kurt Schramek saw in Haneke‘s film a good example of a European
cultural production as the film was produced jointly by four European countries
(Germany, Austria, France and Italy). For Mandelbaum, on the contrary, Europe
does not really exist in the cinematographic art. In his view, films remain ‗national‘
productions in the artistic sense even if they are financially co-productions. He said:
‗The European reality, dealing with the present time, it is not yet something that
really exists. There it is, as the cinema always reflects a state of the world, I think
this is the reason why we do not really feel it [Europe] in the cinema. The cinema is
enrooted in national realities.‘175
8.5
Role of the media
The Cannes festival would be impossible without the media. Together with
representatives of the film industry, journalists make up the largest share of CFF
audience. Each year, the CFF welcomes about 3,500 journalists, with two thirds
coming from foreign countries.
Five dailies are specially printed during the festival and distributed for free to all
festival-goers: Le Film français, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Screen
international. Variety is probably the most well-known magazine and the one most
feared by producers. Screen International is avidly read for its federative role: they
‗ask critics from around the world to rate each feature in competition, using a scale
that runs from four stars (‗excellent‘), through three, two and one (‗good‘, ‗average‘
and ‗poor‘) to zero (‗bad‘). An average mark is arrived at for each film and the
results published in Screen's daily print edition on the Croisette‘ (as explained on
their webpage). This ranking is often the basis for comments related to the
suppositions regarding the awards ceremony.
175
‗La réalité européenne, au niveau du présent, ce n‘est pas encore quelque chose qui existe véritablement.
Voilà, comme le cinéma reflète toujours un état du Monde, je pense que c‘est pour ça qu‘on ne le sent pas trop au
cinéma non plus. Le cinéma est ancré dans les réalités nationales.‘
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All the main newspapers and TV-broadcasts report on the festival on a daily basis.
Since most Cannes festival-goers have a very dense agenda, the media individual and
group interviews are often where dialogue takes place. Schramek for instance said
that ‗the debates mostly take place through newspapers and other media‘. Antoine de
Baecque also said that the Cannes festival was an important place for the
international coming together of film critics.
In the past, French journalists writing about Cannes often exercised self-censorship
in order to ensure their accreditation for the next year. This was criticized heavily by
Truffaut in the early 1950s. The situation is no longer as extreme, whereby present
directors sometimes entertain the possibility. In his assessment of the 2010 edition,
Frémaux complained about the reports by Figaro (a right-wing daily) as follows:
‗The Figaro hammered the Cannes festival from the first to the last day – it has
become almost a tradition for them. One could wonder why we should go on giving
them accreditations. (…) It is a bit of a problem in Cannes: people are going to
parties, sleep during the screenings and write rubbish.‘ 176
Perhaps a more important compromising factor for many media today is corporate
sponsorship. The world‘s largest cosmetics and beauty company, L‘Oréal, which has
been an official sponsor of the CFF for 13 years, paid supplements in many media
like the weeklies Paris Match and Journal du dimanche or the monthly Marie
Claire. In exchange, these magazines publish positive articles on the films where
Penelope Cruz (both a famous actress and the main mannequin of the company) is
playing. The same applies with Jane Fonda or an Indian member of the jury in 2007.
This lead to an article entitled ‗Cannes, sponsors festival‘ which denounces this mix
between journalism and advertising.177
8.6
The audience
For the film critic Jacques Mandelbaum, the publics in Cannes are composed of
critics, professional, and ‗notables‘, invited by the film industry or state institutions.
The CFF is not an open festival like Berlin or Mostra, with the majority of the tickets
reserved for professionals. Lay persons can get to watch films only if they manage to
obtain a ticket through a journalist. This happens quite often, as many journalists
register themselves for watching more movies than they can attend; and if they fail to
show up they lose accreditation points as a penalty. Therefore, if they cannot attend,
it is in their interest to give the tickets away, usually for free. Since the demand is
much higher than the supply, originality is in demand. On this photograph, two
young me wearing black suits were looking for tickets to see the Tarantino film,
Inglorious Basterds. They had designed a placard stating ‗We are Basterds‘, hoping
to gain sympathy.
176
‗Le Figaro a tapé sur Cannes du premier au dernier jour - c'en est presque une tradition pour eux. C'est à se
demander s'il faut continuer à les accréditer. (…) C'est un peu ça le problème à Cannes : les gens font la fête,
s'endorment aux projections et écrivent des bêtises.‘ See Frémaux, Thierry, and Iris Mazzacurati. 2010. C'était
une année difficile. L'Express, May 26
177
Girard, Laurence. 2007. Cannes, Festival du sponsor, May 20
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Film professionals also make up the majority of the
audience in the parallel sections (80% for the
Directors‘ Fortnight according to Christophe
Leparc). The main difference between the official
and parallel sections is that the latter allow for a
more informal type of debate and for ‗questions
and answers‘ following the screenings.
Taking part to a screening during the Cannes
festival has a religious dimension, as Edgar Morin
and Hervé Bazin already wrote, more than fifty
years ago.178 In his assessment of the 2010 festival,
Frémaux wrote ‗there was a nice communion in the
cinemas‘.179 It is indeed striking to note how people with different cultural
backgrounds, coming from very different countries, tend to react in the same way—
and how contemporary film manages to mobilize and move an international audience
despite its apparent ‗national‘ thematic entrenchment. Films also often portray quite
vividly the effect of globalization—like when in the screening of Huacho (Alejandro
Fernández Almendra, Chile), the son of the peasant family portrayed by the film is
shown to own a game console (PSP by Sony).
Even if indirectly through the media, the Cannes Film Festival is definitely a place
for democratic debate. The strong presence of private sponsors appears to
occasionally impinge on curatorial freedom, yet the relative rivalry among the four
sections is a guarantee for diversity. For the moment, Thierry Frémaux and Gilles
Jacob seem capable in striking a reasonable balance between the cinemas of the
world and world cinema.
178
See Bazin, André. 1955. Du festival considéré comme un ordre. Les Cahiers du Cinéma juin: 57 and Morin,
Edgar. 1955. Notes pour une sociologie du festival de Cannes. Les temps modernes, no. 114: 273-284
179
‗Il y avait une belle communion dans les salles.‘ (Frémaux and Mazzacurati 2010).
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9
The Venice Film Festival (Mostra)
Jerome Segal
‗As Cannes becomes an ever-broader showcase, but with few ‗finds‘,
and Berlin is busy boosting its market side, Venice seems to be raising
its status among major fests simply by sniffing out hot pics and
serving them up slower, at the start of the fall season.‘180
The Venice Film Festival or the Mostra as it is otherwise known is an important
milestone on the film festival circuit next to Cannes and Berlin but also Locarno and
Toronto. In Italy, the main competitor of the Mostra is the Rome Film Feast,
established only in 2006 with principal support from the Berlusconi government.
Like the Venice Biennale under which it is subsumed, the Mostra is a festival which
has often been tainted by Italian politics. However, its present director, Marco
Müller, who has headed the festival since 2004 and is internationally-acclaimed, has
managed to consolidate a relatively independent position. The festival‘s international
outreach is amplified the numerous journalists and film experts who report on the
festival every year.
9.1
Organization and finances
The Venice Film Festival (Mostra internazionale d'arte cinematografica di Venezia)
is part of the Venice Biennale (La Biennale di Venezia), which has a long tradition
going back to 1895. The festival was launched in 1932 and was immediately
instrumentalized by the Fascists at national level, a fact which led the French, British
and Americans to establish the Cannes Film Festival in 1939. Both the Mostra and
the Cannes festival were resumed in 1946, receiving accreditation from the
International Federation of Film Producers‘ Associations (FIAPF) in 1951, five years
before the Berlin festival.181 The Mostra was deeply marked by the unrest of 1968
and became non-competitive from then until 1979. Competitive elements were
introduced again in 1980 but overall the festival‘s format did not profoundly change.
The festival always lasts around 10 days between mid-August and the beginning of
September.
9.1.1
Festival sections
The international competitive section of the festival is called ‗Venezia 67‘ and its
main award ‗Golden Lion‘. The ‗Queer Lion Award for the Best Movie with LGBT
Themes & Queer Culture‘ has been awarded since 2007. In 2009 a total of 23 films
competed for these prizes. Two other competitive sidebars are dedicated to new
currents in world cinema: ‗Orizzonti‘ shows films from all over the world (23 films
in 2009), and ‗Controcampo italiano‘ features Italian movies (7 films in 2009). A
180
Vivarelli, N. 2006. Preem theme makes Lido dream. Variety, September 28
181
See Valck, Marijke de. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam
University Press, p.41
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fifth section called ‗Corto Cortissimo‘ is dedicated to short films (20 films in 2009)
and a sixth section called International Critics‘ week (which has been in existence
since 1984) is devoted to directors‘ debut films with special artistic ambition (10
films).182 The ‗out of competition‘ section presents films by established directors,
often of commercial outreach, which are not thought ‗fit‘ for an artistic contest (17
films during the last Mostra).
Apart from these official sections, an independent segment called ‗Venice days‘ (in
Italian ‗Giornate degli autori‘) was introduced and organized in 2004 (21 films).
This was staged by the National Association of Cinematographic Authors (ANAC)
and the Independent Authors and Producers (API) in an attempt to promote new
‗cinema d‘auteur‘ following the Cannes models of the ‗Quinzaine des Réalisateurs‘
and the Berlin Forum of ‗Young Film.‘183
9.1.2
Role of film professionals
The Venice film festival is intended for film professionals, but the general public is
allowed to attend most of the screenings. This is different from both Cannes and
Berlin. In Cannes, even if some sidebars are sometimes open to the public, the main
section is only for accredited guests, with a rigid hierarchy among the accredited. In
Berlin, by contrast, screenings are open to the general public for the price of a regular
movie ticket. The Mostra welcomes around 3,000 journalists, including 1,100 from
foreign countries.184 By comparison, in May 2009, the Cannes Film Festival had
3,459 journalists, with 2,353 coming from foreign countries. The ‗press‘ and
‗industry‘ accreditations in Venice are easy to obtain and entail few extra benefits –
unlike in Cannes. For instance, during the 66th Mostra, it frequently occurred that
people with the ‗Industry‘ accreditation had to queue for a long time to enter the
main auditorium, the ‗Sala Grande‘ of the ‗Palazzo del Cinema‘- and even then were
not guaranteed a place, unlike all regular visitors.
9.1.3
Location
The 66th Mostra, which took place in September 2009, was dominated by the
construction site of the new ‗Palazzo Del Cinema‘, which is due to open in 2012.
The building chosen, designed by the Italian architect Alfonso Femia and his French
counterpart Rudy Ricciotti, was announced in 2005 and caused a sensation.185 The 75
million-Euro plan is described as follows:
‗We want to give new meaning to the existing landscape,‘ Femia says
about the plan, which intends to integrate existing Fascist-era buildings
182
As the president of the National Syndicate of Italian Film Critics, Bruno Torri, put it in the foreword to the
corresponding catalogue, the aim ‗concerns aesthetics, culture and social issues as it strives to discover, become
familiar with and promote films with an artistic motivation that reveal new talents, new authorial outlooks, new
film ideas.‘
183
http://www.venice-days.com/archivioedizioni/2004/presentazioneENG.asp.
184
See Schwartz, Arnaud. 2009. Venise, chambre d‘écho des tourments du monde. La Croix, September 13
185
See Vivarelli, N. 2005b. Org lays plans for a changing Lido. Studio 5+1 to redesign Venice Film Festival
grounds. Variety, August 29
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and gardens with an added 2,400-seat main viewing venue, the outer
shell of which would be made in Venice's shipyards with a mixture of
resin and organic earth-colored materials.(…) The drafter of the latemodel Lido said he envisions two silk-lined catwalks, both with sea
views, leading to the new palazzo respectively from the Excelsior and the
Casino docks (…) Femia said the new catwalks would be ‗a lot longer
and more free-form‘ than those at Cannes where, he opined, ‗stars are too
caged in.‘186
Set in Venice, the Mostra potentially has at least as much glamour as Cannes – with
stars arriving by boat to the Lido at the Excelsior, the most expensive and exclusive
hotel on the island – but the present infrastructure needs refurbishment. Even the
casino, which is the Mostra‘s main historical building, was not in good condition
during the last Mostra. When the construction of the new ‗Palazzo del cinema‘ was
decided upon, Marco Müller stated, ‗It‘s quite obvious that all the producers and
distributors who have decided to support us for this edition cannot continue to do so
indefinitely with the current infrastructure‘.187
9.1.4
Budget and sponsors
The festival budget is contingent on the Italian context. The Swiss film critic Jobin
wrote that ‗the Mostra has already had all the difficulty in the world maintaining, in a
Berlusconian context, its 10 million euro budget of which a quarter is now derived
from private sources‘.188 By comparison, the Cannes Film Festival has a budget of 20
million Euros, half of it from private sources, whereas the Berlin Film Festival
operates with a budget of 16 million Euros, with more than half from private sources.
The Mostra‘s main sponsors are the Italian automobile manufacturer Lancia. They
became the main sponsors in 2006, when they decided to use the Mostra to celebrate
the 100th anniversary of the company‘s foundation on the Lido. Since then, they have
assumed more and more importance for the festival: not only do they deploy a fleet
of 50 stylish cars to chauffeur the movie stars, they also set up a Lancia café as a VIP
meeting place on the terrace of Hotel Excelsior (only accessible with special
accreditation) and, since 2008, they have broadcast their own exclusive TV reports
on the festival on the internet (http://www.lanciachannel.tv/). Moreover, the last
festival introduced an innovation: new offshore boats were presented in front of
Hotel Excelsior.
Olivier François, who has headed the Lancia car company since 2005, explained his
strategy in the following press release:
‗Lancia, by confirming its presence at the Film Festival, underscores its
association with the film industry as a cultural expression in which the
186
See Vivarelli, N. 2005b. Org lays plans for a changing Lido. Studio 5+1 to redesign Venice Film Festival
grounds. Variety, August 29
187
See Vivarelli, N. 2005a. Muller Plays His Strong Suit in Streamlined Second Sesh. Variety, 8, A 11
188
See Jobin, Thierry. 2006. Venise sert un plat de résistance, August 30
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brand values can be identified. ―After our experience in previous years,
Lancia continues to partner the cinema because it has class and
excitement, tradition and innovation, elegance and temperament,‖ says
Olivier François, chief executive of Lancia Automobiles. ―It's the perfect
match: the art of filmmaking and the Lancia brand. The cinema is part of
our language, not just at events but also in our adverts. This can be seen
clearly in our publicity campaigns over the last few years and the huge
operation that saw the Lancia Delta become a star of international cinema
through its revolutionary placement in the film Angels & Demons‘.189
A few other important sponsors also have high-profile visibility during the festival.
These are L‘Oréal (cosmetics and beauty care) and Jaeger-LeCoultre (luxury watch
and clock manufacturer, sponsor since 2005). Other sponsors are also mentioned, but
they offer less support: Nastro Azzurro (beer), Persol (sunglasses), S. Pellegrino
(mineral water), the European Broadcasting Union, Venice Casino, the broadcasting
company Radio Monte Carlo, Outdoor revolution (outdoor event marketing), Kodak
and Canon. A well-known film critic, Marie-Pauline Mollaret, has criticized the
importance given to sponsors at the festival: ‗when we start to see (and know) more
sponsors than artists, it might be time to ask oneself questions. But in a city where
Lancia was allowed to cover the mythical Bridge of Sighs during renovation work
(…) this is not a big surprise.‘190
9.1.5
National rivalry
The Venice festival is eager to gain publicity and sponsors because, since 2006, it
has had to face competition from the RomaFest, a festival largely supported by the
Italian government. In an article entitled ‗Turf wars erupting all over the fest world –
Programmers, sponsors slug it out‘, the Variety journalist made the following
comment:
‗The biggest flash point is Italy, where the nascent Rome event, which
created a stir last year with a star-laden, 80-film lineup, is waging an
offensive against the 63-year-old Venice fest. Somehow wedging its midOctober dates into an already crowded fall calendar, Rome boasts a
government-subsidized budget said to be in the range of $10 million, and
has already nabbed Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth for a
slot at this year‘s event. (…) Last year‘s inaugural Rome fest reportedly
dangled big bucks to lure ‗Fur‘, along with star Nicole Kidman, to the
Eternal City for a splashy premiere.‘191
When the Rome festival was launched, the Mostra director, Marco Müller,
threatened to resign. He asserted, ‗Now that Rome has its mayor flying to L.A. to
189
http://www.lancia.com/cgi-bin/lancia.dll/LANCIA_COM/news/news.jsp?contentOID=1074669352.
190
‗Quand on commence à mieux voir (et connaître) les sponsors que les artistes, il est toutefois peut-être temps
de se poser des questions. Mais dans une ville où il a été possible à Lancia de totalement recouvrir le mythique
Pont des soupirs le temps des travaux de rénovation sans sembler réellement perturber les touristes, à quoi
s‘attendait-on ?‘ (http://ecrannoir.fr/blog/blog/tag/lancia/).
191
See Hayes, Dade. 2007. Turf wars erupting all over the fest world. Variety, May 25
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meet with studio chiefs, we should enlist Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli – who is
on our side – to do the same thing on our behalf‘ (ibid.). Soon, peaceful co-existence
was established and joint ventures even emerged, e.g. for the restoration of films.
Some members of staff are sometimes hired for both festivals, like Sylvain Auzou,
who is both deputy director of a sidebar of the Mostra, the ‗Venice Days‘ (‗Giornate
degli Autori‘) and co-ordinator of the ‗Business Street‘ of the Rome Film Festival
responsible for the acquisition, distribution and sale of audiovisual products. All
films selected by ‗Venice Days‘ are presented at ‗Venezia a Roma‘ (Venice in Rome)
events, organized in co-operation with the Mostra.
Asked about the importance of the venue during the 2009 Mostra, one of the
interviewees, Alessandro Mura, an Italian journalist, stated: ‗I‘d like to think there is
a link. Venice is a place of merchants. It was the centre of Europe before the
discovery of America. Rome has a festival, but a very young one‘. 192 For many
festival participants, the tradition associated with Venice and the Lido contributes
significantly to the festival‘s prestige. The festival is not very evident in the city
centre, but public transport operates a special vaporetto line during the festival. In a
section of her book on ‗the Mostra and cultural Memory of Space‘, Marijke de Valck
asserts that the Mostra has an advantage over its rival festivals as a memory site or
‗lieu de mémoire‘. She explains:
‗Festival memories are lost time that go through a Proustian retrieval
each year during the festival because the historical locations trigger the
past. The vaporettis (sic) or water taxis between the Lido and the
mainland, instantly remind of earlier festivals, as do the –lines of beach
houses along the south shore of the island.‘193
The festival clearly exploits this illustrious past by using the same design for the lion
sculptures in front of the ‗Palazzo del Cinema‘, staging meetings and receptions in
the same hotel Excelsior, as in the very first years of the festival, and holding
photograph exhibitions on the history of the festival every year.
9.2
The role of directors
Two persons have a significant bearing on the Mostra: the president of the Biennale
and the film festival‘s director. None of these positions have been uncontested in the
recent past during Berlusconi‘s government. The Biennale was headed by Paolo
Baratta till 2004 and briefly by Davide Croff and again by Baratta since 2009; the
Mostra itself was headed by de Hadeln between 2002 and 2004 and by Marco Müller
since. In what follows we describe how Italian politics has attempted to influence
192
Interview with Alessandro Mura, by the author, 5 September 2009. See his articles on the Mostra under
http://www.clerksoup.com/?cat=9.
193
See Valck, Marijke de. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam
University Press, p.138
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curatorial decisions prior to presenting an artistic profile of the Mostra‘s current
director Marco Mueller.
9.2.1
Italian politics
Born in 1939, Baratta is a businessman and an important political figure in the Italian
context. In the 1990s, he was minister of privatization, minister of foreign trade and
industry, minister of public works and minister of the environment. He also headed
many major companies like Telecom Italia (2004-2008). In 1998, Baratta was
appointed to head the Biennale for the first time, a position he retained for a mandate
of almost four years. Shortly after Berlusconi became prime minister for the second
time, Baratta read in the daily press that he had been dismissed. The under-secretary
at the ministry of culture, Vittorio Sgarbi, justified the decision by simply pointing
out ‗dialogue is impossible with someone appointed by the former government‘194
(Luksic 2002). Similarly, Alberto Barbera, who headed the Mostra, was abruptly
fired one year before his contract expired. He declared: ‗The first time I met Sgarbi
soon after the new government took office, he told me in these very words,
‗Everyone says you‘re very good at what you do. But we have to show signs of
change so don‘t delude yourself.‘195 In the British monthly The Art Newspaper,
which is devoted to the visual arts, an article explained the political dependence of
the Biennale director following Baratta‘s term of office:
‗When Baratta met the new minister of culture, Giuliano Urbani (Sgarbi
is his deputy), he raised questions about the independence of the
Biennale and its freedom to choose directors for the various areas. The
affair ended up in the press. Baratta and Urbani could not agree, and
probably failed to understand one another on a human level. (…) By way
of thanks to Baratta for his work, the directors of dance, music and
theater have been confirmed until his contract ends in September. The
new director of the Film Festival is an unexpected choice: Moritz De
Hadeln, former director of the Berlin Festival. From a professional point
of view, the choice cannot be faulted, and, as it has no political overtones
whatsoever, it puts a stop to some of the antics emerging from the Italian
provinces.‘196
For Variety magazine, which always has a close look at festival appointments, the
choice of Hadeln was rational and reflected the will to find a ‗stopgap solution‘.
Rooney commented:
‗As a foreigner, Swiss citizen de Hadeln represents a neutral choice in
political terms, as well as a means of circumventing the ―untouchable‖
status of the job for many qualified Italians wary of political interference
and sensitive over the shabby treatment given Barbera. Many insiders see
de Hadeln‘s appointment as a stopgap solution designed to tide Venice
194
See Luksic, Vanja. 2002. Main basse sur la culture. L'Express, March 14
195
See Rooney, David. 2002. Politics Generate Ripples. Variety, August 26, p.16
196
See Donaggio, Adriano. 2002. Political Tension At The Venice Biennale. The Art Newspaper, May 13
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over until the political stigma has faded, making it kosher for an Italian
candidate to step in.‘197
Moritz de Hadeln had been the head of the Berlinale for more than 20 years,198 but as
the first non-Italian chief of the Mostra, his reign lasted only two years before he was
‗ousted by Italian Culture Minister Giuliano Urbani after a power struggle.‘199 The
Guardian even reported that de Hadeln had been offered money to keep his mouth
shut about his dismissal and went on to say ‗The real issue was whether the Biennale
could retain ‗its autonomy and credibility‘ in the face of Berlusconi's all-powerful,
all-interfering government‘.200
During the first discussion about de Hadeln‘s appointment Rooney already wrote that
‗long-term Locarno chief-turned-producer Marco Müller made his availability
known but the Biennale failed to bite.‘201 The move was only possible when a new
director was chosen to head the Biennale, Davide Croff. This ex-banker (a Venetian
born in 1947) who was agreeable to the Berlusconi government chose Marco Müller
in March 2004, only one month after he had started on the job. Macnab commented
that this decision ‗certainly isn‘t likely to appeal to rightwing, nationalistic Italian
politicians‘. He added:
‗Muller is a producer; many of his movies have been banned or proved
hugely contentious. He has made films about the plight of the Kurds in
Turkey (Yesim Ustaoglu's Journey to the Sun); about life inside Chinese
prisons (Zhang Yuan's Seventeen Years) and about Hitler and Eva Braun
(Alexander Sokurov's Moloch.) During his stint as head of the Locarno
film festival, he was credited with introducing westerners to the work of
the great Iranians, Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf.‘
It seems that Müller was chosen as a guarantee that a certain degree of curatorial
freedom would be permitted at the Mostra. Croff often uses Müller‘s presence to
show his (relative) independence from the Silvio Berlusconi government. Asked by a
journalist about the level of political pressure, Croff answered ‗I have never been
exposed to any pressure from outside. As for Marco Müller, I am the person who
chose him in the first place and I think our competences complement each other. In
no way can we be separated! We both want the Mostra to retain its mission of
openness to the world. Venice must stay a reference point.‘202
Born in 1953 of an Italo-Swiss father and an Italo-Greco-Brazilian mother, Müller
studied orientalism and anthropology before discovering the use of cinema in these
fields, following Jean Rouch‘s seminal work. He speaks fluent Italian, English and
197
See Rooney, David. 2002. Politics Generate Ripples. Variety, August 26, p.18
198
Baer, Volker. 2001. Internationale Filmfestspiele : Closing the book : 1979 - 2001 ; [Moritz de Hadeln's
Berlinale]. Berlin: Internat. Filmfestspiele
199
See Fuente, Anna Marie de la. 2004a. Venice fest will have an American accent. Variety, March 21
200
See Macnab, Geoffrey. 2004. Silvio's tentacles. The Guardian, March 15
201
See Rooney, David. 2002. Politics Generate Ripples. Variety, August 26, p.16
202
Douin, Jean-Luc. 2005. Hollywood voudrait apprivoiser le Lion d'or. Le Monde, September 10
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French, but also Mandarin and Cantonese. He rapidly became a film festival
manager, heading the Rotterdam International Film Festival (in the Netherlands,
1989-1991) and then the Locarno International Film Festival (Switzerland, 19912000). He later became a film producer (CEO of Downtown Pictures), from 1998
until his appointment as Mostra director.203
Müller was the first Mostra director since 1992 to start with a four-year mandate.
Asked in an interview about the possible negative interactions with his job as a film
producer, he replied that, on the contrary, it was an advantage, ‗Because at any time
[he could] go back to producing‘. To ensure that there was no conflict-of-interest
issue, Müller declared:
‗Before taking on the Venice job, I had an output deal with both RAI
Cinema and Istituto Luce. I had been in talks with Medusa [Berlusconi‘s
film distribution firm, headed by his daughter] about making some bigbudget genre films with them, I had talked about co-producing projects
with Domenico Procacci‘s Fandango and also with (production house)
Mikado. These are most of the big players in Italy. So anyone, at any
time, can say that I might get money from these companies. The only
way I can deal with this is that I will not to start any projects during my
mandate. I am no longer the CEO of Downtown Pictures, or of the other
companies I was involved in. Of course, I could still try to curry some
favor, but it would be a losing game because the moment I let one of
them down, it would be a big mistake for my future. So the only thing I
can do is be completely impartial.‘204
If Müller managed to gain the trust of both key players in the film industry and film
buffs, it was probably because of his profound knowledge of film as both a
commercial business and an artistic means of expression. This is the subject of the
next section.
9.2.2
Mueller‘s pragmatic approach
In his first line up, Müller, who had been known for his cinephilia when he headed
the Locarno Festival, reassured the Hollywood moguls by appointing the former
executive director of a major US production company (Eleonora Granata of Pandora
Cinema) to act as the Mostra representative in the US. The weekly Variety brought
the enthusiastic headline: ‗Venice fest will have an American accent‘.205 Müller was
even quoted as saying of Granata, ‗Her impressive industry relationships along with
her artistic sensibility fit perfectly with our vision of the festival‘s future.‘ His first
line up confirmed the aspirations the major studios had placed in his appointment,
with 20 feature films originating from the United States. The opening film was The
Terminal, by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who
203
His biography is well documented on the Mostra website (http://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/director/).
204
See Vivarelli, Nick. 2004. Frosh Topper Marco Muller Rises Above Politics to Drive New Ideas. Variety 396,
no. 2 (August 30)
205
See Fuente, Venice fest will have an American accent. Variety, March 21
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both undertook the journey to the Lido. Müller justified his choice, saying to Reuters,
‗We needed an opening film which would feel like an opening film. It‘s a film which
tackles a lot of serious issues, but it‘s also a very successful comedy.‘206 In the
following years, the same kind of US mainstream film was often chosen: The Black
Dahlia by Brian de Palma in 2006, and Burn After Reading by the Cohen brothers in
2008. At the same time the festival was also used to feature more artistic films as
well as Asian cinema. As noted by Young in Variety ‗the professional cinephile, as
the Italian saying goes, will also ―find bread for his teeth‖. The competitive sidebars
Horizons and Digital Cinema reveal a lust for discovery more typical of freewheeling meets like Rotterdam, Locarno and Pesaro, all of which Muller has
directed‘ (Young 2004).
In 2005, the opening film was Seven Swords by Hong Kong Director Hark Tsui, a
film which, like The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, Silver Lion at the 1954
Mostra), tells the story of seven warriors who come together to protect a village from
a diabolical enemy.207 Writers took note that a ‗distinctly Asian flavour‘ wafted over
the festival, with a selection including films from Hong Kong and Beijing, but also
Seoul, Tokyo and Bangkok. Moreover, the legendary Japanese filmmaker of
animated feature films, Hayao Miyazaki, was presented with the festival‘s lifetime
achievement award. A journalist for Cineuropa commented on the selection in these
terms:
‗[I]f we still have to divide the cinema in geographical areas, at a time
when cultural exchange and mixing are at their most, one can say that
this year the Festival is equally shared between Europe, the East [Asia]
and the USA. The President Marco Mueller is insisting on a
‗contradictory pluralist selection, at the sign of a subjugated but not
pacified schizophrenia‘. We would like to create a dynamics between the
selected films‘ artistic interest and market value. (…) As far as the East is
concerned, people will attend the third opus of the ‗revenge trilogy‘ by
the Korean Park Chan-Wook, and the Chinaman Stanley Kwan will also
represent Asia. To everyone‘s surprise, Takeshi Kitano‘s new film could
be awarded the twentieth title in the Competition selection.‘208
The 2005 edition of the Mostra also honoured the ‗cinema d‘auteur‘. The Spanish
actress Ines Sestra opened 62nd Mostra by quoting Truffaut: ‗to have a notion of the
cinema is to have a notion of the World, because the cinema is the art that most
allows the free circulation of ideas and talent‘ (ibid.). This was best illustrated by the
choice of the 2007 opening film, namely Atonement, directed by Joe Wright. This
probably epitomizes Müller‘s interest in young modern cinema. To promote the film,
one of its production companies used excerpts of the speech held by Müller when he
declared: ‗In the year of its 75th anniversary, the Festival must look to the future. For
the first time in its history, the opening film is the work of a young director. A film
206
Anonymous short notice in the ‗arts briefing‘ section of The New York Times, 2 September 2004.
207
Six years after Kurosawa, John Sturges had shot the western The Magnificent Seven following the same
pattern.
208
http://cineuropa.org/newsdetail.aspx?lang=en&documentID=54386 Cineuropa is a website co-funded by the
MEDIA Plus Programme of the European Commission and many European ministries of culture.
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that the selecting committee has unanimously considered – in terms of emotive and
visual power – to be even greater than some of the major films of many confirmed
directors‘.209
In an interview he gave to the Franco-German TV network Arte, Müller defined
what he understood as modern cinema, commenting on the 2005 selection:
‗We really tried to take stock of modern directors, of what a modern
director is today. So we found a few answers, provisional ones, of course.
We reaffirm that a modern director is someone like Manoel de Oliveira
who, over 90, goes on thinking we can allow ourselves to rethink the
cinema after every film he shoots. ‗Modern‘ is surely someone who dares
to go far back into the past like Philippe Garrel who goes to find the
sources of the cinema, who goes further than Godard with Griffith, who
visits Edison to show that the flittering of a projector creates shadows
and lights on the screen which illuminate a face in close-up, so that you
feel the same emotion, to the point that all the audience again find the
lost innocence of vision.210
The next year, in the press conference to present his selection, Müller drew on his
cinephilia and his extensive experience as a festival director to assess more generally
the role of international film festivals for the film industry, which always combines
arts with business:
‗The pessimism of reason should lead us to declare that the time for
festivals is coming to an end. Whether we like it or not, we must accept
the fact that we will see many festivals continuing to brood over their
own touristic and promotional original sin, that of being a window
display and launch pad for the most visible, often most showy part of
film-making. A sin to be remitted by providing a temporary surrogate for
lacunae, for the lacks in the distribution and information circuits. The
optimism of willingness, on the other hand, leads us to focus on a
fracture, which in the past has perhaps been knowingly overlooked,
among the most usual idea-festivals and the philosophy in movement (it
should be constantly be undergoing redefinition) of an (international)
Festival of (cinematographic) Art. Not all the attempts at renewal are
destined to fail: without hypothesising a palingenesis (it is not yet time
for that), this ―non-festival‖ of ours, the Venice Festival, might finally
find some autonomous space, ephemeral perhaps but truly autonomous, a
209
http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/newsArticle.php?newsID=176.
210
‗On a vraiment essayé de faire le point sur les cinéastes modernes, sur ce que c‘est un cinéaste moderne
maintenant. Alors on a trouvé un certain nombre de réponses, provisoires, bien entendu. On réaffirme qu‘un
cinéaste moderne c‘est quelqu'un comme Manoel de Oliveira qui, à plus de 90 ans, continue de penser qu‘on peut
se permettre de penser réinventer le cinéma à chaque film qu‘il tourne. ‗Moderne‘, c‘est sûrement quelqu‘un qui a
le courage d‘aller très loin dans le passé comme Philippe Garrel, qui va retrouver donc les sources du cinéma, qui
va encore plus loin que Godard avec Griffith, qui va du côté de chez Edison pour montrer que le papillonnement
d‘un projecteur crée des ombres et des lumières sur l‘écran qui éclairent un visage en gros plan au point de vous
faire sentir la même émotion, au point d‘obliger tout spectateur à retrouver une innocence perdue de vision.‘
(Arte interview with Marco Müller, artistic director of the festival, by Lionel Jullien)
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moment marking a break with the balances crystallized by conformity,
vested interests (and lack of), and by the vice of habit. A point of
breakage of customs, a starting point for knowledge and investigation,
the vision and discussion of manifestations of bradeyism [slowearthquake], stirrings and ferments which still, at irregular intervals,
manage to invest the various ways of making films to the North, South,
East and West.‘211
This critical approach to the role of film festivals, threatened by various economic
interests (tourism and the commercialization of cinema), and calling for the latter‘s
renewal through greater autonomy could have caused turmoil at a time when
Mueller‘s contract renewal was due. The local correspondent of Variety wrote the
following year, ‗Though not impossible, a second mandate would be a feat
unprecedented in Venice‘s recent history, which, since the 1970s, has seen Italy‘s
revolving-door governments and their pork-barrel pois tap a long list of bosses to
head the Lido‘s parent org, the Venice Biennale. Each Biennale prexy has, in turn,
appointed a different Venice fest topper‘.212 Mueller did however get his mandate
renewed, probably also because of his pragmatic approach to putting the festival‘s
programme together. He seems overall to be willing to make certain compromises
with regard to the representation of commercial film interests as well as Italian
cinema provided he is left undisturbed in the design of the other, more artistic,
sections.
9.3
Networking structures
The Mostra is well embedded in the international film festival circuit. This is
illustrated, among else, by the biographies of its directors such as Moritz de Hadeln
or Marco Müller. Mostra is one of the five important points on the circuit, after
Cannes and together with Berlin, in front of Locarno and Toronto, which is more a
festival of the festivals, since it does not only show international premières.213 The
International Federation of Film Producers‘ Associations selected 13 films festivals
in the world to be accredited as ‗Competitive Feature film Festivals‘. In Europe, we
find Berlin, Cannes and Venice, but also Locarno, Warsaw in Poland, San Sebastian
in Spain and Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic.
Each of these major festivals has its own network with the main production
companies and directors. Over the years, the selection of films has become a decision
with important economic consequences, since the film industry uses the major
international festivals to launch films. This explains why film industry magazines
immediately commented on the appointments, within the Mostra, of the people who
211
Parts of this speech were reproduced in a newspaper article and completely translated into English on a
website (http://www.carnivalofvenice.com/argomento.asp?cat=135). See Armocida, Pedro. 2006. Alla Mostra dei
nuovi mondi c‘è la riscoperta dell‘America. il Giornale, July 28
212
See Vivarelli, N. 2007. Movie Maestro Keeps 'Em Guessing. Variety 408, no. 2 (August 27): A2
213
A distinction is usually made between world and international premières: world premières are films screened
for the first time to any audience, including country of origin, whereas this country is not included in international
premières.
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would represent the festival in the US, still the major film-producing country (Fuente
2004b).
Within the festival network, directors are swapped, but also films and jury members.
The swapping does not always result in a win-win situation. Sometimes it results
from rivalry. Marijke de Valck relates, for instance, the struggle between the Toronto
and Venice festivals to show the 2003 film by Jane Campion, In the Cut (Valck
2007, 138). A similar case can be made for the director Quentin Tarantino who was
till recently closely linked to the Cannes festival which also made him famous after
he received the Palme d‘Or in Cannes in 1994 for his feature film Pulp Fiction. In
May 2010, the Mostra announced that Tarantino had accepted to become jury
president for its next festival edition in September 2010. A journalist commented on
this news by writing ‗after this Italian escapade, will he be invited to Cannes
again?‘214
In this network of international film festivals, directors and actors have a value for
the prestige they can accord the events, but the festivals have a value in themselves.
They represent launching pads for many producers, but they also have the function of
distribution for many films which will only be seen on the festival circuit. This
concerns more the sidebars of the festivals, but also a few films of the main official
selection. In a special issue of the film magazine Schnitt, dealing with the role of film
festivals on the film market, the director of the Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Lars
Henrik Gass, in a rather pessimistic article entitled ‗Trade market becomes trade
mark‘, mentioned an interesting proposal put forward by Marco Müller for the film
festival circuit:
‗Marco Müller, director of the Venice Film Festival, has recently
proposed the founding of a trust to strengthen the distribution for the
festivals of Cannes, Berlin and Venice, as even most of the films from
these festivals wouldn‘t find their ways into the cinemas. This means that
even the concept of the marketplace itself is in crisis. Business is done in
other places, with DVD and also increasingly on digital channels. Movies
as products don‘t need festivals or maybe cinemas anymore. This opens
up the historical chance to finally screen better films.‘215
The idea to use the film festival to finance films has also emerged in Berlin, where a
‗World Cinema Fund‘ was founded in 2004 (see chapter on the Berlin Film Festival).
Similarly, even though it has not been established as a fund, the Cannes Film Festival
also supports the development of films by new directors (see the chapter on
Cannes).216 At a different level, film festivals also represent an attempt to assign
214
‗Après cette escapade italienne, Quentin Tarantino sera-t-il de nouveau invité à Cannes ?‘. See Leblanc,
Damien. 2010. Tarantino délaisse Cannes pour Venise. fluctuat. May 11
215
In the same edition of Schnitt, Mueller himself wrote: ‗Why continue to believe stubbornly in festivals, given
that the formulas for these have so often taken the form of outdated concepts? They reduce, in essence, to only
two options: the defense of whatever film-making would exist, for which the festival is window and launch-pad;
or alternatively, the possibility of continuing to supply a willing surrogate for what is needed in the distributioninformation circuit as a response to an even stronger market censorship.‘ (Mueller 2009,13).
216
This and similar propositions are not positively welcomed by everybody. For instance, Barbara Lorey de
Lacharrière, who was in the FIPRESCI jury of the last Mostra, was concerned that this would lead to the
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‗artistic value‘ to counteract economic prestige through commercialization. This is
the subject of the next section.
9.4
Representing and constructing value
9.4.1
Artistic vs. commercial films
In the article he published in Schnitt, Müller also dealt with the image of cinema.
Commenting on the commercialization and the power of production and distribution
companies, he wrote:
‗It is clear that ―countries‖ have for years been replaced by ―major
brands‖, and that the tribes of film-makers have become a single
multitude. (…) We can only reaffirm the futility of the consecration of
Art and Geography: the former a pet subject of festivals since the end of
the Thirties and the latter the pointless ecumenism of a festival as ―atlas
of the nations and the planet‖. What should be presented in a pluralistic
festival/non festival, one which is healthily (intentionally) contradictory,
is a collection of materials held together only by the intuition of the truths
and virtuality they conceal.‘217
This stance toward the cinematographic art explains the aspired reputation of the
Venice Festival as a place where cinema is first and foremost considered an art form
and only then a means for commercial concerns. In an interview for this project,
Alberto Iannuzzi, who is a photographic director and also works for festivals as
advisor and programmer, said that one of the goals of a festival is ‗giving a public
image to the cinema‘.218 Furthermore, cinema is an international art form, whereby
the trend today is towards trans-nationalism. For Iannuzzi and apparently also for
Mueller, ‗transnational identity is important‘. He explained that he watches between
three and five films per day, adding ‗At the end of the festival, I‘ve seen fifty films
from twenty countries and I have a good impression of the world cinema. Festivals
are still very international, like it was at the beginning, for example with the Japanese
films, which were in Venice in the 1950s.‘ (id.)
In this sense, Müller‘s penchant for Asian cinema can be seen as a renewal of a
Venetian tradition. The last selection comprised 25 films, including four Asian films:
Accident (Pou-Soi cheang, China - Hong Kong), Tetsuo, the bullet man (Shinya
Tsukamoto, Japan), Lola (Brillante Mendoza, Philippines) and Prince of tears
(Yonfan, Taiwan-Hong Kong). This latter film, which depicts the lives of two
families in the early 1950s when anti-communism was at its peak, received an
emergence of a new film genre, namely those made of and for festivals. Interview with Barbara Lorey de
Lacharrière, by the author, 10 September 2009, Venice, ‗Il y a tout à fait l‘émergence d‘un genre de films qui sont
destinés pour le festival, qui sont par exemple cofinancés par les festivals.‘
217
See Müller, Marco. 2009. Back to the future. Schnitt, no. 54 (February): 13-15
218
Interview with Alberto Iannuzzi by the author, 6 September 2009.
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enthusiastic reception from the audience. The film epitomized Müller‘s selection
policy, as he described it himself:
‗Over the years, I have learned to utilize different tones, to mix high and
low, experimental and popular. Only in that way could I avoid the
suspicion that the festival had gradually, over the decades, become part
of the establishment and avert risk that it be rendered meaningless either
by a subjection to the promotional strategies of the distribution of
movies, or by the tendency to turn the whole thing into a spectacular
show and, a problem common to many festivals, a tool for selfpromotion.‘ (Müller 2009, 15)
Paying attention to the artistic dimension of film is for Mueller not incompatible with
also paying tribute to commercial successes especially if these also manage to
integrate artistic value or new technologies. Indicative of this was the award of the
2009 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to ‗John Lasseter and Pixar Directors‘
who made Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999), Finding Nemo (2003) and The
Incredibles (2004).
Some film critics perceive what Müller is trying to do as a ‗carefully orchestrated‘
yet difficult ‗balancing act.‘ For instance, in 2004 upon occasion of Mueller‘s first
festival edition, Deborah Young wrote:
‗[the] final selection looks like a carefully orchestrated balancing act. On
the one hand, 20-odd American titles include plenty of studio vehicles for
stars from Kidman to Cruise (Muller ironically dubs this the ―mystical
side‖ of the festival) to please the ministers‘ wives and black-tie crowd.
Twenty Italian films should appease the national broadcasters and the
producers association. (…) More telling still of Muller‘s radical chic
origins is this year‘s breezy retrospective of Italian trash movies, selected
by specialists in the field Marco Giusti and Luca Rea, and introduced by
Quentin Tarantino and Joe Dante.‘219
This importance given to Italian cinema was also mentioned during the last official
selection. Of the 25 films, there were 4 Italian films, including the one shown during
the opening ceremony, Baarìa, by Giuseppe Tornatore, which describes the fate of a
Sicilian family over three generations. Silvio Berlusconi, who backed the film
through his production company Medusa, declared after the screening that the film,
‗a chef-d‘oeuvre‘, proved the inescapable failure of communism. This statement was
commented on the front page of Repubblica and in almost all the cinema dailies
produced during the festival (Variety, Screen International and The Hollywood
Reporter). The director, a well-known leftist, just wondered at a press conference if
Berlusconi was the best person to act as a film critic.
At the same time, whilst Berlusconi was obviously instrumentalizing the festival, a
film by Erik Gandini, Videocracy, was shown in a joint programme of two sidebars,
the Critics‘ Week and the Venice Days. As is stated in the catalogue, Videocracy is
219
See Young, Deborah. 2004. Fest Slate Offers Big Names, Stars ... and Art. Variety, August 30
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‗the system of television power of which Italy today offers the best
emblematic example. Videocracy is not exactly a film about Berlusconi
but a film about Berlusconi‘s long-lasting Italy: physiologically,
sociologically and perhaps even anthropologically Berlusconian. This
Italy obsessed with sexual exhibitionism and totally lacking in moral
restraints – in all probability also incapable of looking at itself in the
mirror – is portrayed by the attentive eye of a sui generis ―foreigner‖
[Gandini returned to Italy after twenty in Sweden], whose relative
Italianness gave him familiarity with the phenomenon he analyses.‘
Of course, this film did not receive the same attention as Baarìa, but all foreign
correspondents commented on this frontal attack against Berlusconi. On the Lido,
only posters of Baarìa could be seen, the major 25-million-Euro production.
Videocracy, in contrast, received little attention on this front.
9.4.2
The significance of place
Unlike Cannes and Berlin, Venice‘s geography isolates the festival in the city. The
Lido is an island made of an 11-km-long sandbar, to which a 15-minute vaporetto
ride is needed from the main part of the city. Therefore, most of the festival-goers are
concentrated in a small area, which is also a popular international celebrity
destination.
The former director of the Biennale, Davide Croff, tried with Marco Müller to extend
the area of the Mostra. In 2004, the last production of Dreamworks Studio, Shark
Tale, was screened on the Piazza San Marco, the Lions were awarded in the freshly
renovated Gran Teatro la Fenice and a candle-lit dinner was given in the Doge‘s
Palace for a thousand exclusive guests after the ceremony.220 The same 18th-century
theatre la Fenice was also used two years later for the world premiere of Kenneth
Branagh‘s The Magic Flute, but these have remained isolated initiatives, the festival
clearly belonging to the Lido. The construction of the new Palazzo (mentioned
above) will merely reinforce this fact.
The spatial concentration of the festival in the central section of the Lido, between
two renowned hotels, the Excelsior and the Des Bains (the setting for Thomas
Mann‘s novella Death in Venice), reinforces its identity. Sponsors have also used this
identity, for instance when Lancia presented a new off-shore in front of the
Excelsior.
Whereas most of the festival-goers concentrate in this small area, the office of the
Venice Days, which are also close to the Excelsior, but in the opposite direction,
constitute a ‗haven of peace‘ for those who prefer enjoying discussions in a calm
atmosphere, with fewer sponsors and a more art-specific audience.
220
Douin, Jean-Luc, and Jacques Mandelbaum. 2004. Contrat rempli sur la lagune, grâce à beaucoup de films
audacieux, September 14
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9.4.3
Films and performance
Film festivals are places of hybridized performativity. Apart from the screenings,
there are press conferences, photo calls, parties and all possible tricks to gain the
attention of the journalists. Sometimes, these parallel events avoid the purely
commercial goal. In 2004, the federation of NGOs, Global project, organized a
‗global beach‘, which in fact was almost like a new sidebar. Roughly equipped with
a restaurant, a camping site, a few showers and a screening room, this minialternative-festival was run on a co-operative basis by anti-globalization protesters.
Participants went for a few demonstrations in front of the main entrance of the
Mostra and two films were shown which were also in the selection: The Take by the
Canadians Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, and Embedded, by the American Tim
Robbins. On the website of Global Project, the beach was described in these words:
‗GlobalBeach is a squatted beach, a space of communicative action, of
rights. GlobalBeach reclaims spaces and human rights! The beach as a
metaphore of culture, sociality and actions. The Beach of dreams that
seemed to be lost and is finally found. GlobalBeach recalls of the
common desires that slide away on the waves that link isles,
communities, brothers and sisters, individuals to reach the Point Break,
which every time reveals new escape lines towards other islands of the
rebellious archipelago.‘ (http://www.globalproject.info/)
9.4.4
Film and politics
As we have seen politics is an inherent element of the Mostra with regard to its
organization and repeated attempts to instrumentalize it. Politics is however also
present outside the Italian political scene as a means of creating and presenting
content and message. One instance of this was already mentioned, namely the use of
the Italian film Videocracy to advance critique against the use of the media by the
present Italian government. One need also not go far to find several other
international examples.
Thus during the last Mostra, the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who had been
one of the pet bugbears of the Bush administration less than a year before, stole the
show from the stars on the red carpet at the Lido. Debonair and humorous to the
point of taking a camera in front of journalists to take his own souvenir photo, ‗El
Presidente‘ was there to support Oliver Stone‘s South of the Border, a documentary,
presented out of competition, on all the South American countries that dared to defy
the dictates of the IMF and the foreign policy of the United States. Exasperated by
the caricature reports in the US media coverage of South America, Chavez being
described as ‗worse than bin Laden‘, Stone decided to meet these dangerous
‗dictators‘ who had been democratically elected (and often re-elected) in Venezuela,
Bolivia, Argentina, but also in Paraguay, Ecuador and, of course, Brazil. Since the
Bolivian President, Evo Morales, is considered a ‗junkie‘ in the US because of his
habit of chewing coca leaves, Oliver Stone tried it out himself in his film, triggering
a good laugh in the crowded ‗Sala Darsena‘, where the screening took place. Later
in the film, Stone spoke to the president of Ecuador who said he wanted to put an end
to the presence of military bases on Ecuadorian territory. He explained to the
‗Gringos‘ that if they wanted to have a base in his country, they should accept that
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the Ecuadorians have a base in Miami. This also provoked many laughs, like when,
at the end of film, Chavez discussed with Stone the possibility that the Bolivarian
spirit might spread from Latin America to the United States by contagion.
In this first week of September 2009, Stone also met Michael Moore, who came to
the Lido to present, in competition, his most recent work, Capitalism: A Love Story,
a story which has become a nightmare for many US citizens. The audience, mainly
Italian, male and in their early thirties, gave him a warm welcome. Using a variety of
film techniques (animation, dubbing, slow-motion and montage), Moore attacked the
very roots of liberal capitalism, the lust for profit at any price, regardless of human
life, and the absence of any sense of social justice or even morality. During the press
conference, Moore made a reference to the film criticism that Berlusconi had made
of Baarìa, and denouncing the omnipresence of the prime minister, he joked and
said, as if he were hidden off backstage, ‗you can come out Mr. Berlusconi, nobody
will hurt you‘. Marco Müller, who had already selected a Moore film when he was
head of the Locarno Festival (The Awful Truth, 1999), commented on the presence of
Moore at the Mostra in relation to his success at Cannes (Palme d‘or in 2004): ‗I
think he has had a terrific time in Cannes. He needed a change. And we needed a
different Michael Moore film. This one is incredibly symphonic‘.221
Having seen the films by Stone and Moore, the festival-goers could view a different
perspective with the thriller Brooklyn‘s finest (by Antoine Fuqa), The Men Who Stare
at Goats (by Grant Heslov, starring George Clooney, a regular guest at the Mostra)
or The Informant (by Steven Soderbergh, with Matt Damon). The first film depicted
New York policemen who were so badly paid and respected that one of them risked
eviction from his apartment, as in the Moore film. The second dealt with a special
unit of the US Army which used psychological techniques to break the resistance of
alleged terrorists, and the third, based on real facts, could be seen as a plea for the
legalization of ‗whistle blowers‘ to counterbalance the havoc wreaked by capitalism.
Migration was also another important topic of the 2009 selection and the scope of
freedom offered by the festival seems to have caused problems in Rome. Senator
Alessandra Mussolini, proud grand-daughter of the late Italian dictator, tried to
censor the Romanian film Francesca (by Bobby Paŭnescu, shown in section
Orizzonti), which describes the conditions under which migration to Italy takes
place, cattle being considered higher than human beings. In this film, Mussolini is
quoted as saying that Romanians have a rape instinct in their genes and one of the
characters insults her for this statement. At least three other films confronted the
issue of migration, the documentary about African presence in Italy, Il colore delle
parole (by Marco Simon Puccioni), Good Morning Aman (by Claudio Noce), which
depicted a friendship between an Italian ex-boxer and a 20-year-old Somali boy, and
Little Foxes (by Mira Fornay), which shows the difficulties encountered by two
Slovakian sisters who have emigrated to Ireland.
221
News from Associated Press, ‗Venice film festival retains allure without deals‘, 1 September 2009.
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9.4.5
Representing and debating Europe
Europe was very well represented in the different film selections, and not only in
relation to the migration issue. The Egyptian-Swedish director Tarik Saleh presented
his animated science-fiction film, Metropia, set in 2024, which denounced the power
of the media in a Europe running out of oil and reduced to the interconnection of its
subway networks. This film opened the 24th Critics‘ week on 3 September 2009 and
so the president of the Biennale, Paolo Baratta, made a short speech before the
screening. He insisted on the fact that the Mostra was ‗not a fair‘, adding ‗We are not
selling goods‘ and to praise the role of this section of the festival he asserted, ‗We are
here to be oriented by what we see (…)The Critics‘ week is very important for the
intellectual role the Mostra has to play.‘ In the Q&A session that took place after the
film, Saleh explained he considered ‗metropolitanism‘ was a ‗common point between
Europeans‘. In an interview he gave later, Saleh went on to explain:
‗I wanted to say, Yeah OK, we have this past with Hitler and Stalin and
all these kinds of leaders. In Europe we always say ―Never Again‖, that‘s
a cliché that people repeat constantly, ―Never Again‖, when they talk
about Nazism and the Holocaust. Well, what‘s stupid with that statement
is that, yeah, it will never happen again like THAT. It will happen in a
new way. It will come in a new form. Fascism will come dressed up like
something else.‘222
Whereas Metropia dealt with Europe in a futuristic perspective, other films of the
selection praised the European construction. Honeymoons, by Goran Paskalijevic,
presented in the section ‗Venice Days‘, was the first-ever Albanian-Serbian coproduction. As Deborah Young put it, the film ‗addresses the Balkan youth drain, in
a tale about two young couples, one Serbian and one Albanian, who leave their
countries to seek greener pastures in Europe‘.223 Paskaljevic commented on the
enlargement of Europe, declaring during the Q&A session that followed the film,
‗The Balkans are still a powder keg (…) but I hope that will cease once Serbia enters
the European Union‘. In a special interview given to the daily Il Manifesto, he went
into greater detail on the present political situation in Europe:
‗The whole of Europe is moving to the right, it‘s the opposite to what
was wanted when the European Union was founded. Europe is a bit like
Tito‘s Yugoslavia, a federation based on King Alexander of Yugoslavia.
The Nationalists have broken this frame and I think that this could also
affect Europe.‘224
When festival-goers to the Mostra were asked about the significance of Europe,
different answers were given. Barbara Lorey de Lacharrière, of the FIPRESCI Jury,
said, for instance, ‗I would not say Europe is present here. There are more countries.
222
Interview with Suzanne Lynch for FEST21.com (‗Pro Film Festivals social network‘), 29 April 2010,
http://tinyurl.com/345exv7.
223
See Young, Deborah, 2009. Honeymoons (Film Review) - Masterful storytelling in the first co-production
between Serbia and Albania. Variety, September 7
224
Author‘s translation from Silvestri, Silvana. 2009. Venezia: il Kosovo fa paura. Il Manifesto, September 6
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Anyway, among the festival-goers, there are a lot of Italians, and many of them don‘t
even speak English.‘ (ibid.) She also added that many discussions in the sidebars
were only taking place in Italian, whereas, in her view, English should be the
European lingua franca. Other interviewees answered by noting that there were a lot
of Italian, German or French films in the selection (about half of the films in
competition for the Golden Lion). The young director Alexandra Kaufmann pointed
out that Europe was only a concept mentioned when it was negatively connoted.
According to her, since the inner EU-borders have gone, we do not speak about
Europe anymore.225
9.5
Role of the media
As one of the main film festivals in the world, the Mostra does not really have to rely
on the media. As with all important festivals, press conferences are held after all the
press screenings and the international press report on the Venice Festival on a daily
basis. As mentioned above, the three main US cinema journals, Variety, Screen
International and The Hollywood Reporter, every day publish special issues which
are handed out free and avidly read by festival-goers.
Nevertheless, the Toronto Film Festival, which takes place at the same time, is
increasingly attracting journalists who are usually loyal to the Mostra. For the French
daily Le Monde, Thomas Sotinel simply wrote he preferred going to Toronto. In her
chapter on Venice, Marijke de Valck showed how The Times only reported to ensure
the promotion of George Clooney‘s latest film (see above). Other newspapers or
websites used the festival to emphasize their commentaries on geopolitical events, as
it was the case with the film Lebanon (by the Israeli Samuel Maoz), when the antiwar film was awarded the Golden Lion. The case of Lebanon is particularly
interesting because the film had been rejected by all sections of the Cannes Film
Festival a few months earlier (official selection, Director‘s Fortnight and Critics‘
week).226
9.6
The Mostra audience
The Mostra is primarily a magnet for all young Italians, mostly men, who are
interested in cinema. On a stroll between the Hotel Excelsior and the Palazzo del
Cinema, you notice that Italian is clearly the dominant language, more than German
in Berlin during the Berlinale, or French at the Cannes Film Festival.
The general audience is also well represented at Venice, since it is possible to buy
tickets for almost all the screenings, provided tickets are booked in advance. In terms
of ticket sales, Venice lies somewhere between Berlin (300,000 tickets sold in
225
Interview with Alexandra Kaufmann by the author, 10 September 2009.
226
This was revealed when the film was released in France and confirmed by Jean-Christophe Berjon in an
informal discussion with the author, Berlin, 17 February 2010. See Douin, 2010. La guerre à travers le périscope
d'un char israélien. Le Monde, February 3.
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February 2010) and Cannes, where people without accreditations have almost no
chance of accessing the official selection. The international press is well represented
and constitutes a large section of the audience, as can be noticed by looking at the
accreditations that most of the festival-goers have hanging around their necks.
There are two main kinds of accreditation at the Venice Film Festival: Press
accreditation (for printed media, online media, radio & television crews,
photographers, and press attachés) and ‗Industry‘ (Film Delegations have a different
accreditation and those who can prove that they are cinephiles, by writing a
motivation letter, can receive a ‗Cinema accreditation‘). The general attendance is
estimated at 50,000 people, including around 3,000 journalists or media accredited
and 6,000 persons with an ‗industry‘ accreditation.227
9.7
Conclusions
The Venice Film Festival relies on a fragile equilibrium to maintain its place on the
festival circuit. Italian politics represents a possible source of instability for the
programme and primarily for the job at the head of the Mostra. Commercialization
constitutes another threat, and this concerns the sponsors of the festival as well as the
expectations of the film industry. Nevertheless, Marco Müller manages to navigate
between these potholes and his interests in both the arts and politics are expressed in
the official film selection. Furthermore, the sidebars give scope for more curatorial
freedom, as was demonstrated last year with the debates concerning Videocracy.
227
Figures are taken from (Schwartz 2009) and the website http://www.filmfestivalworld.com/.
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10
The Berlin Film Festival—Berlinale
Jerome Segal
‗In its nucleus, a festival is composed of three elements: its
programme, its organization and its atmosphere. And all three are, if I
may say so, making good progress.‘ Moritz de Hadeln, director of the
Berlin Film Festival from 1980 to 2001, in 2000.228
Commonly nicknamed the ‗Berlinale‘, the Berlin Film Festival is often compared
with those of Cannes and Venice. In 1956, these three festivals were recognized for
their international non-specialized competitive status by the International Federation
of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF).229 After 60 rich years of history, the festival
appears to be very closely linked to the capital city of Germany. Berlin has
influenced the course of the festival and, inversely, the festival has also become a
fixed star among the cultural events that attract Berlin residents. Whereas the Cannes
Film Festival is almost reserved for film professionals, at least as regards its two
main sections (the competition and the section ‗A Certain Glance‘), Berlin is wellknown for its openness towards the general audience. Compared with the Venice
Festival, concentrated on an island, the Lido, the Berlinale is much more interwoven
with the city. The Berlinale is also often cited for having a strong political agenda, a
claim that will be discussed in the following sections.
Based on seven days of field work, seven expert interviews and a media clipping
analysis, this chapter will concentrate on the organization of the festival, the
importance of the background of the directors, the networking structures, the
symbolic representation strategies, the role of the media and an analysis of the
audience.
10.1
Organization and finances
The Berlinale is one of the three fields of activity of an association established to
promote important cultural events in Berlin on behalf of the Federal State of
Germany (‗Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin GmbH‘, hereafter KBB). The
KBB is in charge of the ‗Berliner Festspiele‘, which is a set of relatively small
festivals (including the International Literature Festival), the House of the Cultures
of the World (‗Haus der Kulturen der Welt‘), an important cultural centre set upin
what used to be a congress centre in 1989, and the Berlinale.
228
See Jacobsen, Wolfgang. 2000. 50 Jahre Berlinale. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin. Berlin: Filmmuseum
Berlin - Dt. Kinemathek und Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung Beuermann GmbH, p.537
229
The Karlovy Vary Film Festival, established in former Czechoslovakia in 1946, was also ranked with the
festivals in Cannes, Venice and Berlin, but between 1959 and 1993, it had to alternate with the Moscow Film
Festival.
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10.1.1
Location
Among the main international film festivals, the Berlinale is probably the one which
has evolved most with the city. Since 2000, the Berlinale has occupied a strategic
position in the city centre, on the new Potsdamer Platz, which was intersected by the
Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1989. This location epitomizing post-modernism, with
high-rise buildings by star architects like Renzo Piano, has become the heart of the
Berlinale. The gala evenings take place at the Berlinale palace, which was actually
conceived as a theatre for musicals
with a seating capacity of 1,600. Three
other important cinemas on the
Potsdamer Platz contribute to the
Berlinale: Arsenal Cinema, run by the
former association of the friends of the
German
cinematheque
(renamed
‗Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video
Art e.V.‘ in 2008), dedicated to the
‗Forum‘ section, CineStar in the Sony
Centre (8 screens) and Cinemaxx,
housing 19 cinemas. Usually, this
multiplex is only for blockbusters, but
during the Berlinale it becomes the
main venue after the Palace.
All together, there are no fewer than fifteen venues with a total of 46 screens for the
different sections of the festival.
These venues are situated in many
important areas of the city such as the
Kurfürstendamm in the western part
of the city (with the Berlinale‘s
historical cinema, the ‗Zoo Palast‘,
where gala screenings took place
until 2000) or the Schönhauser Allee
in the eastern part (Colosseum
Cinema).
The European Film Market also contributes to the density of representations of the
Berlinale in the public sphere. It is located in the ‗Martin Gropius Bau‘, 500m from
the Potsdamer Platz. A shuttle service is organized for these 500m. This can be
explained by both the very low temperatures which can prevail in Berlin in February,
but also by the desire to enhance the presence of the festival in the city.
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10.1.2
Sections and other affiliated structures
Officially, the Berlinale is composed of seven sections:
The ‗Competition‘ and the ‗Panorama‘, organized by the Berlinale team ,
The ‗International Forum of New Cinema‘, which is actually organized by an
independent entity, the ‗Friends of the German Cinematheque‘, but with a
programme presented within the framework of the Berlinale,
‗Generation‘, dedicated to films for younger audiences,
‗Perspektive Deutsches Kino‘, which promotes German cinema,
‗Berlinale Shorts‘ for short films
and the ‗Retrospective‘ to highlight examples of the world cinema heritage.
Three other parts of the festival deserve attention for the implications they have on
the debates enabled by such a festival. The first is the ‗Talent Campus‘, intended for
education in the film branch. It was deliberately established as a place for discussion
in 2003. Every year, a group a young filmmakers is invited and two kinds of events
are presented: ‗hands-on training
events‘ where the selected
participants meet about 150
experienced film professionals
(experts in the fields of sound,
script, light, cutting…)
and
‗events open to the public‘. These
latter events are placed under a
general heading, like ‗Cinema
Needs Talent: Looking for the
Right People‘ for the 2009 Talent
Campus.
On
Monday
15
Jean-Marie Teno, Vincenzo Bugno (moderator) and Rafi
February, a discussion was held
Pitts
under the motto ‗Cinema Unlimited: Intercontinental Connections‘ with four film
directors, Madhusree Dutta, Rafi Pitts, Natalia Smirnoff and Jean-Marie Teno. Each
of them comes from a completely different background (India, Iran, Argentina and
Cameroon respectively), but the discussion showed that they shared a common
heritage in the way they presented stories centred on the relations between human
beings. Some places like London and Paris also seemed to play an important role in
the way they enabled the development of networks. During the discussion, excerpts
of films were shown, including The Hunter, by Rafi Pitts, which was also shown in
competition. This section is important for a new generation of film directors who
estimate their debt to the organizers. In the editorial of the 2009 programme, the
director of the Berlinale, Dieter Kosslick, writes:
‗(…) [F]ormer Campus participants give their ideas and creativity to the
Berlinale. Like in 2010: Many of the lovely birthday greetings from
friends around the world (…), have been collected and provided by the
Berlinale Talent Campus community. But, more importantly: the official
Programme of the Berlin International Film Festival is enriched year
after year by Campus alumni films. In this anniversary year, we are
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proud to present 33 films made with the major involvement of 45 former
Talents in the official Berlinale selection.‘230
No fewer than 350 ‗talents‘ were invited from 95 countries in 2010 ‗to speak the
same language: the language of cinema ‗(as was stated in the welcome address by the
organizers, Christine Tröstrum and Matthijs Wouter Knol). Over this last year, the
Talent Campus has developed in other countries: the 5th Talent Campus Buenos
Aires took place in April 2010, the 3rd in Sarajevo and the 4th in Sarajevo were both
organized in July, and the 2nd one in Guadalajara took place in March. This busy
activity by the Berlinale shows how this festival is now committed to the
development of cinema worldwide.231
The second important institution emanating from the Berlinale is the World Cinema
Fund. As is officially stated, ‗the aim of the World Cinema Fund is to help the
realization of films which could not otherwise be produced, i.e. feature films and
creative feature-length documentaries with a strong cultural identity.‘232 Established
in 2004 with an annual budget of € 500,000, the fund supports both production and
distribution. It has subsidized the production of almost 40 films, including Paradise
Now by Hany Abu-Assad, shown in competition during the 2005 Berlinale, which
sparked off significant controversy in Vienna when the Jewish Film Festival chose to
screen it (in January 2006, the film won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign
Language Film). The fund also contributed to the production of Milk of Sorrow, by
Claudia Llosa, which won the Golden Bear in 2009, or Ajami, by Scandar Copti and
Yaron Shani, one of the interesting surprises of Directors‘ Week during the 2009
Cannes festival. With these activities, the festival has also become a producer, and
some commentators are worried by a possible ‗vertical concentration‘ (Rothöhler
2010).
230
Magazine – Berlinale Talent Campus, 13-18 Feb. 2010, p. 8 (grey literature).
231
Indeed, the Berlinale Talent Campus has acquired such importance that foundations choose to invest in the
event. The Robert Bosch Foundation, for instance, funds exchanges between young German filmmakers and their
counterparts in Eastern and South-eastern European countries.
232
Booklet
presentation
of
the
World
Cinema
Fund,
(http://www.berlinale.de/media/pdf_word/world_cinema_fund/WCF_Booklet_2010.pdf).
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The third and last part not constituting a section is the ‗kulinarisches Kino‘, linking
film and gastronomy with the motto ‗in the food for love‘. Thomas Struck and his
team present different films over five days. The films are all connected to cuisine as
an important element in human culture. The film is shown at 19:30, and later on a
dinner is served for 150 guests in a temporary setting constructed for the event
between the ‗Martin Gropius Bau‘ and the Potsdamer Platz. A well-known chef
prepares the menu according to the
‗Slow Food‘ philosophy, which aims at
developing consumers‘ awareness of
sustainable agriculture, the reduction of
the carbon footprint, biodiversity,
traditional recipes and organic food.
‗Slow Food International‘ is one of the
partners of these five evenings, which
are always well attended.233
10.1.3
Budget and sponsors
The total budget of the Berlinale is estimated at 19 million Euros (18.5 in 2009).234 In
terms of the composition all that is certain is that one third comes from federal funds
allotted to culture and media;235 other significant subsidy grant givers include the
Foreign Office, the Film Promotion Funds and the MEDIA Programme of the
European Commission. The European Film Market which is organized during the
festival brings in revenues for the renting of stand space (at between 250 and 420
Euro per square meter); other revenues come from accreditation fees (€ 100 for each
of the 15,586 persons accredited, excluding the 3,912 journalists, i.e. around 1.2
million), the box office (299,478 tickets sold in 2010, i.e. around 3 million in total),
merchandising236 and publications. Major private sponsors include ZDF and ARD
(the public broadcasters), L‘Oreal and BMW.237 Their contribution to the overall
festival budget is now know. According to Meza who estimated the budget for 2009
at around 15 million, ‗about a third of the festival‘s funding comes from the federal
government, a third from merchandising and ticket sales, and a third from
233
In February 2010, the costs were of € 49 for a complete evening (film, food and drinks) and € 7 for those who
only want to see the film, without supper.
234
For the Forum alone, the budget is 1.2 million Euros (Personal communication by Karen Peek in charge of the
programme coordination of the Forum, 15 July 2010).
235
See Rodeck, Hans-Georg. 2009. Filmfestspiele: Berlinale verliert Hauptsponsor VW. Die Welt, April 29
236
Merchandising is increasing in importance as it is already omnipresent, usually in the shopping mall called
‗Arkaden‘. The imagination goes wild with merchandising, from a babies‘ bib to all kinds of clothes, bags and
pens
237
The sponsors are ranked by their importance on the festival‘s website. As Alexander Steffen from the
Sponsorship Department of the Berlinale wrote in an email to the author in March of this year, ‗last but not least,
the sponsoring contracts constitute an important pillar in the financial model of the Berlinale. The income from
sponsorship has increased over the last ten years.
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sponsorship.‘238 During the last three years, revenues have stayed at the same level
(+/- 10%).
The sponsors also leave their mark on the public sphere in the city, especially on the
Potsdamer Platz. The three
main
sponsors,
ZDF
(German public TV), BMW
(the
car
manufacturer
replaced Volkswagen, which
decided not to renew its
seven-year partnership with
the film festival in April
2010) and L‘Oréal (the
world‘s largest cosmetics
and beauty company, which
also sponsors the Cannes
and Venice festivals). Since
2008, when the company
decided to sponsor the
festival for the tenth year, L‘Oreal has set up a portable make-up centre nicknamed
‗beauty box‘, where anyone can go to have their make-up taken care of.
10.2
The role of directors
At least three persons have profoundly influenced the recent history of the Berlinale:
Moritz de Hadeln who was the Berlinale director from 1980 to 2001, Dieter
Kosslick, who took over the leadership and still has the reins in his hands, and Ulrich
Gregor, who co-funded the section ‗International Forum of New Cinema‘ in 1971
and presided over it from 1981 to 2000.
Since the history of the Berlinale is very closely linked to that of the City of Berlin,
Moritz de Hadeln (born 1940) had a tremendous role in two major events: the Fall of
the Wall in 1989, which led to the first Berlinale in the reunified city in February
1990 and later on, in 2000, the move to the Potsdamer Platz. His influence was
discussed in the previous report, Deliverable 2 of the project. De Hadeln introduces
himself as a ‗Swiss documentary film director and photographer, who became a Film
Festival director‘. Like Marco Müller, who is the director of the Venice Film
Festival, de Hadeln is a product of the festival circuit: ‗he co-founded and directed
the International Documentary Film Festival in Nyon from 1969 to 1980 (today
‗Visions du Réel‘). He headed the Locarno International Film Festival from 1972 to
1977, the Berlin International Film Festival from 1980 to 2001 and the Venice
International Film Festival in 2002 and 2003.239
238
See Meza, Ed. 2009. BMW rides to rescue of Berlinale. Variety, November 30
239
On the website of the company he founded with his wife, ‗de Hadeln & Partners‘, created ‗to give a legal basis
from Switzerland to the activities of Moritz and Erika de Hadeln in the field of festival organization and
consulting.‘ (http://www.dehadeln.com/MoritzBiog1.html).
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For the 60th anniversary of the Berlinale, he was asked to assemble his memories and
analyze the growth of the festival.240 He first considered his role in the Cold War era
as if he had been an important diplomat:
‗In all this time, my role was to see how to prevent a major breakdown in
East-West relations while securing the freedom of the event from undue
compromises. Sitting between two chairs was not always easy.‘241
The Berlinale was founded by an American officer of the occupying forces (Colonel
Marty), and Moritz de Hadeln is well-known for increasing the Americanization of
the Berlinale. On this topic, he wrote:
‗The strong participation of American films and talents was thus
essential, but not everybody in Hollywood wanted to risk their products
in what they considered a troubled spot. In my first years, I had to invest
quite a bit of energy to calm down fears. In fact, the breakthrough came
the day it was decided to send James Stewart as ‗Ambassador of
President Reagan‘ to Berlin in 1982. After his visit, things became easier
and we were able to achieve a more healthy balance of films from all
parts of the globe.‘242
At the same time, de Hadeln managed to keep a balance with artistic films, which he
decided to present in the official selection of the Berlinale programme. In an
interview he gave in 2004, having been ousted from the Mostra by Italian Culture
Minister Giuliano Urbani, he gave five ‗hot tips‘ of how to become a good festival
director. One of them is:
‗Be aware that film festivals might soon become cultural ghettos. There
is a very fine line between just showing entertainment for the sake of
entertainment and focusing only on films for a small elite. Festivals are
not subject to box-office criteria, so they can and must take risks
presenting difficult and even unpopular films. But they should never
forget the interests of the public at large.‘243
The decision to show a wide variety of films in the official selection led to rivalry
with the ‗International Forum of New Cinema‘, co-funded by Ulrich and Erika
Gregor in 1970. In the interview he gave within the framework of this project,
Gregor said that this rivalry lasted until Moritz de Hadeln left the direction of the
Berlinale in 2001. As far as the relations between the Forum and the rest of the
Berlinale are concerned, he concluded by stating: ‗now we have Glasnost and
Perestroika‘.244
240
See Hadeln, Moritz de. 2010. Moritz de Hadeln reflects on Berlin fest. Variety, February 10
241
Ibid.
242
Ibid.
243
See Hadeln, Moritz de, and Melanie Rodier. 2004. Years of living dangerously. Screen International,
November 26
244
See references to the interviews at the end of this chapter.
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The ‗Forum‘, as it commonly called, aims ‗at promoting film as a platform for
cultural exchange and political discussion‘.245 Asked in our interview to comment on
the trans-nationality issue, Gregor answered that the important point for the ‗Forum‘
was really to be ‗international‘. In 1963, he participated in the foundation of the
association of the ‗Friends of German Cinemateque‘ which helped to create the
‗Forum‘ in 1970. The goals were to screen films, communicate, circulate them,
distribute them and archive them (‗Aufführen, Vermitteln, Zirkulieren, Verleihen,
Archivieren‘). Gregor said he had never thought in terms on nationalities: he just
wanted to present new cinema and possibly new trends in Europe. It was first Latin
America, then Asia in the 1980s (the Taiwanese ‗nouvelle vague‘, films from Japan,
Korea, China…). Gregor did not have a special interest in European cinema per se,
he merely used Berlin‘s geographical location to introduce films coming from the
other side of the Iron Curtain (especially Hungary and Poland). He remembered the
difficulties he had getting copies from the Soviet Union, for instance, specifically for
Tarkowski‘s films. Gregor had always said that these films did not represent Soviet
film and that they could not be sent. Although it was difficult to get these films, East
German film-makers like Konrad Wolf could easily compete in the official part of
the Berlinale.
Christoph Terhechte, the current director of the ‗Forum‘, is presented as ‗belong[ing]
to a generation whose cinematic education was largely shaped by the Forum. Under
Terhechte‘s leadership, the section continues to strive to meet high political and
artistic standards.‘ The tribute to Ulrich Gregor and his wife Erika is always very
present, and in 2010 they received the prestigious ‗Berlinale Camera‘ which, since
1986, has been awarded to personalities who have greatly contributed to the success
of the Berlinale (among the recipients, actors and actresses are usually found like
Claudia Cardinale and Klaus Maria Brandauer or directors like Francis Ford
Coppola, Constantin Costa-Gavras and Claude Chabrol).
Terhechte works at ease with the present director of the Berlinale, Dieter Kosslick,
since Terhechte has already been involved in the selection committee of the
competitive part of the Berlinale. Trained as a film critic, Kosslick was already a
festival organizer in Hamburg and gained great experience at the head of the NRW
Film Foundation, one of the most important film funding agencies in Germany
(located in North Rhine-Westphalia). He is well-known for his communication
talents, presenting, for instance, the 2005 Berlinale under the motto ‗football, sex and
politics.‘246 Politics is always presented as an important feature of the Berlinale. In
the interview she gave for this project, Cornelia Hammelmann said that the whole
team around Kosslick made the Berlinale into a political event. At the same time, the
French journalist Thomas Sotinel noticed that Kosslick always chooses film that are
certain to create a ‗buzz‘.247 Recently, a Swiss journalist asked Kosslick about the
role of scandals in the programme to attract attention. Koslick answered:
‗With political films today we hardly get a scandal. Two years ago, a
documentary film about torture in Abu Ghraib, SOP Standard Operating
245
Official presentation, http://www.berlinale.de/en/das_festival/festival-sektionen/forum/index.html.
246
See Vogel, Elke. 2005. Berlinale-Programm: "Fußball, Sex und Politik". Stern, February 2
247
See Sotinel, Thomas. 2006. La mutation des festivals de cinéma. Le Monde, October 17
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Procedure, by Errol Morris, won the Grand Jury Prize. It is incredible to
see what was in it. But nowadays people listen every day to the most
incredible things that happen in the world. I can assure you, however, we
have again this year a film with potential scandal in the competition. But
I am not saying which one it is.‘248
This kind of statement also demonstrates the art of rousing attention (and the scandal
film mentioned by Kosslick is discussed in the fourth section of this chapter). For
Kosslick, media attention is maintained at a high level by (more or less) prepared
scandals and, of course, stars. He understood early that the presence of stars
represented a win-win situation for the festival and the major US studios. In 2004,
James Ulmer reported these sentences from Berlin festival chief Dieter Kosslick:
‗Without the marketing value of these festival screenings, why should the stars come
to Berlin? (…) Bringing them is also the responsibility of the film companies,
because if I put a movie in competition and give it a red-carpet show, they‘d better
make sure the stars show up.‘249
One of the reasons why stars might not show up, is the competition from other
festivals, which have largely the same networking structures as those of the
Berlinale.
10.3
Networking structures
Every major festival accredited by the FIAPF as a ‗competitive feature film festival‘
(the so-called ‗A-festivals‘) has a network of representatives in the major studios or
people who can report to them from the main national film institutions (such as the
CNC in France or the NRW Foundation in Germany). These networks partly overlap
and rivalry often arises. Moritz de Hadeln expresses it as follows, ‗there is not much
love lost between A-list festivals. One of the most high-profile examples of festival
rivalry was when Venice and Locarno squabbled in 2003 over the competition
programming of The Return, the debut of Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev.‘250 In
this interview, de Hadeln gives many examples of haggling over films or stars and
concludes by insisting on the fact that A-list festivals never negotiate with one
another: ‗Festivals have relatively friendly relations between each other as far as
common problems are concerned. But as soon as competition comes into their
relationship, there are no negotiations. Besides, what would there be to negotiate?
‗Don't take this film, please give it to me?‘ This would be ridiculous. No-one would
ever do that.‘
These major festivals also constitute a network, and it has already been observed
how directors easily switch from managing one festival to another (Marco Müller
248
See Kosslick, Dieter, and Christian Jungen. 2010. «Es gibt zu wenig Schweizer Filme». NZZ am Sonntag,
February 7
249
See Ulmer, James. 2004. Trophy Guests: For Festival Directors, It's All About Bagging the Big Ones. Variety,
August 30
250
See See Hadeln, Moritz de, and Melanie Rodier. 2004. Years of living dangerously. Screen International,
November 26
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and Moritz de Hadeln are the best examples, but lesser known directors like Olivier
Père are also concerned, who quit the post as head of Director‘s Week in Cannes in
2008 to manage the Locarno Film Festival). In this network, described as the
‗festival circuit‘ by Marijke de Valck, directors are also important observers251 Dieter
Kosslick, for instance, was not afraid to admit that he copies the trends set in Cannes,
if they are successful. More precisely, in February 2010, Christian Jungen tackled the
issue of 3D technology, also mentioning that the President of the Cannes Film
Festival, Gilles Jacob, was considering showing films which would be broadcast on
TV and the internet the same day. Kosslick responded:
‗With its success Avatar brought to the cinema the largest advertising
campaign, simply because many people got up from the couch, put on
their shoes and left the house to watch films in the cinema. That remains
the objective of the Berlinale: we want to show movies so that they will
be later shown in cinemas. But if Cannes wants to show movies directly
on the TV, I will closely observe this – and, if it is successful, I will copy
it. But only then!‘252
Festival directors attend other festivals themselves, but filmmakers also circulate in
the circuit. Each of the sub-sections of the Berlinale maintains a network interwoven
in the festival circuit. Both the World Cinema Fund (WCF) and the Berlinale Talent
Campus have set up networks that are primarily used by the Berlinale, but also by
other festivals (Huacho, a film by Alejandro Fernández Almendras, funded by the
WCF, was among the seven films selected for the 2009 Critics‘ Week in Cannes).
Moreover, the European Film Market, which has been continuously growing over the
years, also constitutes a network of film buyers and sellers. In 2010, the market
welcomed 6,450 participants from the film industry, 679 films were presented in
1,020 screenings and 419 exhibitors were distributed throughout the ‗Martin Gropius
Bau‘. Camille Rousselet, who ran the booth of a French film production company,
Wide Management, explained that she went to both Cannes and Berlin, but that the
networks created by the two film markets were different. In Berlin, she said that she
was looking for buyers for the films they had produced with Eastern European
directors, because the Berlinale had a historical tradition of importing films from this
part of Europe.253
10.4
10.4.1
Symbolic representation strategies
Arts and the city
As was explained above, the Berlinale is very visible in the city and not only with all
its forms of advertising or with the conspicuous presence of sponsors. Cinema
251
See Valck, Marijke de. 2007. Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia. Amsterdam
University Press
252
See Kosslick, Dieter, and Christian Jungen. 2010. «Es gibt zu wenig Schweizer Filme». NZZ am Sonntag,
February 7
253
This tradition was also mentioned by the actor and director Christopher Buchholz in the interview he gave for
the present project.
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students, for instance, came up with an interesting idea which fitted in very well with
the festive atmosphere of the festival. They suggested a one-man screening in a
‗Kinobox‘. Inside, one could see red curtains and choose one of the 19 films on the
programme. All these films lasted between 1 and 5 minutes.
Since the Berlinale always takes place in February, it is probably difficult to create a
really festive atmosphere, which is why this activity takes place in the underground.
Many journalists reported that the opening event of the 2010 Berlinale, which was
broadcast at Brandenburger Gate, was hard to attend because of the icy weather. A
new, restored version of the famous film by Fritz Lang, Metropolis (1927), was
shown in the Friedrichstadtpalast, in former East Berlin, with musical
accompaniment by the Berlin Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester. It was the second world
premiere of the film, and thousands of people watched it on a giant screen unfurled
on Brandeburger Gate.254 Some films are advertised more or less legally on walls,
others simply on the ground
For this special 60th festival, a programme entitled ‗Berlinale goes Kiez‘ expanded
the presence of festival films throughout the city. A ‗flying red carpet‘ was moved
about the city, laid down for one evening in small art cinemas in districts of Berlin
usually not involved in the Berlinale (in ‗Kino Toni‘ in Weißensee ‗‘, in ‗Neues Off‘
in Neukölln and in ‗Union Filmtheater‘ in Köpenick ).
10.4.2
The films
Through the variety of sections included in the festival, and with the annexes it also
has, like the Talent Campus or the WCF, the Berlinale might claim to represent all
genres of film, whatever their topics and forms might be. The ‗Forum‘, for instance,
insists that they do not make any distinction between feature films and
documentaries. They are also interested in experimental films. Indeed, a special
section of the official selection is also dedicated to short films deriving from all
possible genres.
As Harald Peters explained, ‗even if some films are successful with the audience and
others receive poor reviews, they are all, primarily, merely replaceable material, the
accumulation of which constitutes the event called Berlinale‘.255 The festival lives
from the exchange on film that it generates. Peters goes even further, stating:
‗And so it is only thanks to the event ‗Berlinale‘ that suddenly, for
example, masses of people gather to book tickets for a deeply
incomprehensible Uzbek art film, or discover their taste for a colourful
254
As the press release announced, ‗a unique art installation entitled The Curtain will tell of the magic and power
of the cinema: renowned artist and international Korean-American designer Christina Kim (‗dosa‘) will create a
300–square-metre symbolic movie-theatre curtain from recycled film and Berlinale billboards, DVDs, and other
film-related materials. After the opening ceremony on February 12, the world premiere of the restored original
version of Fritz Lang‘s Metropolis will be transmitted live to the public from the Friedrichstadtpalast to a screen
at the Brandenburg Gate. The public is invited to enjoy this significant moment in the history of film - free of
charge - at this very special setting.‘
255
See Peters, Harald. 2004. Wer braucht schon Filmkunst? die tageszeitung, February 7
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Indian adaptation of Macbeth interestingly presented in song form. For
this reason alone, you just have to love the Berlinale.‘ (ibid.)
A few films, like Boxhagener Platz (by Matti Geschonneck), shown out of
competition, dealt directly with the city of Berlin. This film is about the life of a
grandmother and her grandchild in 1968 as they try to cope with the Socialist regime
in East Germany. It can also be seen as a means of sharing a past affecting all Berlin
residents. The history of East Berlin is still largely unknown in the western part, or
only through films that are somewhat exaggerated, like Sonnenallee (Leander
Haußmann, 1999) or Good by Lenine (Wolfgang Becker, 2003).
Among the 20 films in competition, the German film Shahada, by Burhan Qurbani,
also dealt with Berlin, more precisely, with the diversity of the Muslim population.
The film focuses on three young women who are all Muslims in different ways,
experiencing different crises that will change their systems of values and beliefs.
When Dieter Kosslick commented on the 2010 film selection, he found that the
economic crisis and the family where at the heart of many films: ‗One has the
impression, as we say here in Berlin, that one can live better without excess fat. In
terms of content, the family is the most frequently discussed topic: functional,
dysfunctional, terrible or wonderful.‘256
10.4.3
Politics and democracy
Kosslick often likes to stress the political dimension of the Berlinale. In his view,
even the glamorous aspects of the festival can be occasions for political statements.
When he was reminded of the US origins of the festival and asked about what
exactly brought about the red carpet, Kosslick answered surprisingly:
‗It is a 50-foot staging area for celebrities, and thanks to the
photographers, the performance is multiplied. The ritual is not an end in
itself. Many stars express their political opinions there, like George
Clooney, who has drawn attention to the conflict in Darfur. The red
carpet has become the principle Speakers‘ Corner on carpet.‘257
Just a glimpse at the twenty films in competition shows there were indeed many
films with political content. Caterpillar (by Koji Wakamatsu) deals with the
atrocities of the Second World War in Japan, If I want to whistle, I whistle (Florin
Şerban), concerns prisons for juvenile delinquents in contemporary Romania, Na
Putu (‗On The Path‘, by Jasmina Žbanić) offers a disturbing analysis of the growth
of Islamic fundamentalism in Bosnia, The Hunter (by Raffi Pitts) denounces the
abuse of power by the police in Iran and the lack of liberty to demonstrate
opposition.
256
See Kosslick, Dieter, and Christian Jungen. 2010. «Es gibt zu wenig Schweizer Filme». NZZ am Sonntag,
February 7
257
See Kosslick, Dieter, and Christian Jungen. 2010. «Es gibt zu wenig Schweizer Filme». NZZ am Sonntag,
February 7
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However, the film which was perceived as a political scandal (and introduced as such
by Kosslick, even if, as explained above, he did not divulge the name of the film),
was a film about the Nazi propaganda film Jew Süss (directed by Veit Harlan in
1940 and starring Ferdinand Marian as Joseph Süß Oppenheimer). The German
director Oskar Roehler has taken some liberties with history which many believe go
far beyond those usually permitted for artists. In Jew Süss, Rise and Fall, the actor
who agreed, to play the title role, Ferdinand Marian, at Goebbels‘ request in 1939, is
portrayed as a victim of Nazism, whilst he actually benefited enormously from Nazi
cultural policy, making ten more films after Jud Süss. The script of the 2010 version
transforms Marian‘s wife into a ‗half-Jewish‘ person (in the terminology of the time)
and - even worse - makes the audience believe that Marian hid a Jewish gardener.
This is historically false, but Roehler defended himself during the press conference
by saying that his film was not a documentary, but fiction.
The film was the only one to be booed by the audience during the press screening,
and many journalists like Christian Jungen were somewhat puzzled that Kosslick had
selected this film on purpose; to be sure he would have a ‗scandal‘, toying with the
idea that a German director falsifying the Nazi past would spark off waves of
indignation. Ultimately, the film Jew Süss, Rise and Fall may have attracted too
much attention in the media, attention other films would have deserved more.
10.4.4
Europe
Like the other main film festivals in Europe, it is definitely the idea of
‗internationalism‘ that best characterizes the Berlinale in the opinions of the different
persons interviewed. Karin Hoffinger, for instance, who is in charge of international
relations of the Berlinale, said that the European issue is not so important, either for
her work, or for the festival itself. She added that the debates related to European
integration may nevertheless occur in the discussions following films and so she
insisted on the distinction between the different sections (whereas the discussion can
take place with the audience in the form of a Q & A session after the screening in the
case of the Panorama section or the ‗Forum‘, there is only a press conference
reserved for accredited journalists for the films shown in competition).
Although Europe is not a topic in itself in the film selection, it seems well
represented at the European Film Market (as the title of the section already
indicates). Diana Kluge, who is in charge of festival management for Smiley Film
Sales, a distribution company from New Zealand, considers the Berlinale market the
‗best place to meet all European TVs‘, with the hope of selling some of the
documentaries produced by her company. Cornelia Hammelmann, the head of the
MEDIA programme of the EC for Germany, was also interviewed for this project. In
her view, Europe is important in the media for the film selections in the different
sections and as far as the film market is concerned, she explained that a lot of coproductions are negotiated during this week or later on, once contacts have been
finalized. This is how a European network is being built up with a few other
countries like Israel, which has special status as a country eligible for the European
Film Award. Founded in 1988 and headed by the German director Wim Wenders, the
European Film Academy now unites more than 2,000 European film professionals
with the common aim of promoting European film culture. The Academy bestows
awards, the award ceremony taking place in Berlin every second year.
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10.5
Role of the media
For the 2010 Berlinale, 3,912
journalists from 82 countries
received accreditation. The FrancoGerman TV network, arte, set up a
studio on the Potsdamer Platz and
reported at prime time every day. In
order to interview people from the
audience, and possibly to highlight
their presence, they even set up a
‗live studio‘ on the pavement in
front of the Cinemaxx. This took
place under very difficult conditions
in the light of the icy weather
prevailing in Berlin in February
2010.
As far as the Cannes and Venice festivals are concerned, the events are largely
covered by the main media in most countries. Since the Berlinale is a more public
festival, many informal comments are also made on blogs or in the grey literature, as
non-professional journalists can easily join the general audience and gain access to
most of the screenings.
10.6
The audience
Unlike Cannes, many tickets are sold to everyone for almost all the screenings. Apart
from the gala evenings, which are
reserved for film teams, the jury and
persons accredited, all the films are
open to the general public. In the
shopping mall ‗Arkaden‘, people can
be seen queuing up to buy tickets the
whole day. Another office with fewer
staff is meant for persons who have
bought their tickets online and still
have to fetch them. As mentioned
above, a total of 299,478 tickets was
sold in 2010, and on the official
webpage of the festival, it is proudly
announced:
‗With almost 300,000 tickets sold, the Berlinale is not only a meeting
place for the film industry. It also enjoys by far the largest audience of
any film festival in the world. For two weeks, art, glamour, parties and
business meet at the Berlinale.‘ (berlinale.de)
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As a consequence of this openness, there are much fewer privileges for persons
accredited than in Cannes or even Venice (and also much less hierarchy among those
accredited). The audience accredited must get tickets at a special office and cannot
book more than two days in advance. This special office for persons accredited has
also become a meeting place, eight computers can be used for free and food and
refreshments can be ordered in a small cafeteria inside the area. A lot of exchange
takes place there and two of the interviewees, for example, were found at this place.
The fact that the Berlinale is an audience festival also leads to novel behaviour on the
part of festival-goers. A blend of audience cultures already takes place in the use of
the different cinemas (46 screens overall, plus those of the event ‗Berlinale goes
Kiez‘). In the Cinemaxx,
which performs commercial
cinema, during the Berlinale
there is a special sign saying
‗We don‘t sell popcorn
during the festival‘ (whereas
all kinds of beverages are
still sold).
Throughout the festival, a
certain respect for film is
shown, here expressed by the
fact that munching popcorn
is forbidden during the screening. In a sense, considering the diversity and the overall
quality of the films selected, the Berlinale is a popular festival in the positive sense
of the word, an application of the cultural policy defined by Antoine Vitez when he
was the head of the Theatre National de Paris as ‗an elitism for all‘. In 2004, Peters
described the sense of common affinity emerging during the Berlinale:
‗The Berlinale is not seen as a public festival, as many believe, but rather
as a wonderful family celebration. We know how it goes, we know one
another, we see one another, and we are just pleased. We develop an
understanding of one another and, tapping on the shoulders of those who
have queued in vain for hours for a ticket and look sad, we say before
they disappear into the cold streets: ‗it‘s not so bad, what the film was
like will be in the newspaper tomorrow . And actually it will really be
there in the newspaper the next day, this or that film, (…) and the
disappointment will be quickly forgotten.‘258
The media act as the cement for the community of festival-goers. The Berlinale is
evidence that, even if home cinema is gaining in significance, the experience of
watching movies with an audience in a cinema remains unique. Analyzing the recent
trends of film festivals, Simon Rothöhler refers to the theories of the film specialist
258
See Peters, Harald. 2004. Wer braucht schon Filmkunst? die tageszeitung, February 7
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Thomas Elsaesser, who considers cinemas to be more and more mere addresses of
places to go to, meeting social rather than aesthetic needs.259
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Berlinale, Kosslick was asked what
makes the Berlinale so unique. He answered
‗We are a public festival and have always been involved with the
programme, and in current political and social discourses. The Berlinale
has also always discovered films in new countries. Zhang Yimou‘s film
Red Sorghum won a Golden Bear in 1988 and it was the first time for
China, suddenly present on the world cinema map. And now our last
year‘s winner, La teta asustada, by Claudia Llosa, was nominated for an
Oscar. Peru suddenly got enormous international attention as a film
country .‘260
Actually, Asian cinema was probably better represented in Venice, and much earlier,
since Akira Kurosawa‘s Rashomon was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film
Festival in 1950, but it is interesting to see how Kosslick presents the features of his
festival. The Berlinale probably played a significant role for Eastern European films
and is today still considered the gateway to Central and Eastern Europe. The political
and social aspects are still present, even if, as evidenced by the arranged scandal
concerning Jew Süss, Kosslick might be tempted to instrumentalize this reputation of
the Berlinale as a political festival. The relative harmony between all the sections
seems to be a guarantee of diversity, so that the Berlin Bear can carry all the flags of
the world.
259
See Rothöhler, Simon. 2010. 21st Century Fox - Die Festivalisierung des Films oder: Interessanter als der
Rückblick zum Jubiläum sind Gegenwart und Zukunft der Filmfestspiele, February 10
260
See Kosslick, Dieter, and Christian Jungen. 2010. «Es gibt zu wenig Schweizer Filme». NZZ am Sonntag,
February 7
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11
The Vienna Jewish Film Festival
Jerome Segal
The Vienna Jewish Film Festival (VJFF) was inaugurated in 1991 and is hence the
oldest Jewish film festival in Europe still in existence.261 It is run by a couple, the
Kaczeks, two cinephiles and secular Jews who are strongly committed to defending
tolerance and supporting a broad understanding of Jewish identity. To gain better
insight into this festival, its nature, its significance and the values it promulgates, but
also the way it is perceived by the audience, extensive field work was conducted over
a period of almost two years. This research was based on a dozen interviews (listed
in the appendix), attending many events, and constituting a film focus group.
11.1
Organization and finances
The VJFF has been an amateur festival since its very beginning. Amateur is here not
used to imply that it is poorly organized; but rather that it continues to be run largely
on a voluntary basis since the festival meagre revenues make it impossible to employ
permanent festival staff. The two persons heading the festival, Frédéric-Gérard and
Monika Kaczek have full-time jobs elsewhere. They are assisted by a network of
friends and acquaintances who similarly are otherwise employed. This includes
Armin Loacker of Filmarchiv Austria, John Bunzl of the Austrian Institute for
International Affairs, Frank Stern of the University of Vienna (until 2006) and the
author of the present chapter. Their input comes in the form of previewing films
recommended for screening at the festival, introducing films, moderating debates or
writing texts for the festival catalogue.262
Initially, the festival was called Jewish Film Week (Jüdische Filmwoche). It was
renamed into the Jewish Film Festival in 2007 in direct reference to other Jewish
film festivals. The festival always takes place in the fall – usually in November – but
it follows a varied time scale largely as a result of its insecure financial basis: four to
five days in the first years of its existence and an extended period of 15 days in 2007
and 2008. In 2009 the festival lasted 8 days. Over the years, the festival location has
changed from the Adult Education Centre (‗Volkshochschule Margareten‘), where it
was inaugurated, located in the Stöbergasse in Vienna‘s fifth district, to art cinemas
situated in the inner city or very close to it.263
261
A Jewish and Israeli Film Festival existed in Montpellier (France) from 1986 to 1998. The Mediterranean
Film Festival, which took place in the same city, gradually took over the programming of Israeli films. The
history of the VJFF is the subject of a different publication—see Segal, Jérôme. 2010. Identities and Politics at
the Vienna Jewish Film Festival. In Film Festivals and Imagined Communities, 2:198-217. St Andrews Film
Studies. Film Festival Yearbook. St Andrews (Scotland)
262
The work is also done on an honorary basis, but when the academics present many discussion forums, they get
a fee (of up to € 1,500 for the whole festival).
263
Usually, the festival is held in two or three such cinemas, but in 2007 it was extended to four cinemas, creating
a ‗cinema mile‘ around the Ring, dedicated to the festival. The result was quite disappointing, since there was not
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By statute, the festival is a registered society, the Austrian Society for the Support
and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Tradition (Österreichische Gesellschaft zur
Erhaltung und Förderung der jüdischen Kultur und Tradition). The society was
founded in 1982 by Frédéric-Gérard Kaczek and initially sponsored by the Austrian
government, the City of Vienna, the photographic material producing company
Eastman Kodak and two other film-related companies.264
The Vienna Jewish Film Festival is basically run on public subsidies, the lion‘s share
coming from the City of Vienna and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education,
Arts and Culture. In recent years the City of Vienna has supported the festival with
€70,000 – this was cut in 2009 down to € 50,000 due to general austerity measures265
leading to a shrinking of the festival programme. In the same year, the Ministry of
Education, Arts and Culture supported the festival with a grant of € 10,000 – in better
years this was €25,000. In addition the festival receives €7,000 from a mobile
telephone company (A1) and €5,000 from the Society for the Representation of Film
Artists (Verwertungsgesellschaft der Filmschaffenden, VDFS).
The festival does not earn much income from the screenings, since half of the
revenue goes to the cinemas hosting the festival. In 2009 and with 1,563 visitors
attending the 13 screenings (as against 3,500 visitors following 70 films in 2008) and
a ticket cost an average of €7, the screenings earned around €5,000. The total budget
was therefore limited to € 77,000; better years brought a bit more but never
significantly more than €110,000.266 In comparison to other Jewish Film Festivals
running in Europe, the VJFF is in the middle-range: the Amsterdam JFF operates
with a budget of € 35,000 and the Berlin JFF, which tours different German cities,
has a budget of € 230,000.267
The festival budget is used to cover the license fees for the movies (between €800 to
€1,200 per screening), the shipping of film copies,268 the printing and transport costs
for the festival catalogue, and the personnel costs for an administrative assistant and
those of a graphic designer in charge also of the festival‘s website.
enough audience to fill four cinemas. The festival directors later conceded that the idea was too large for the
publicity they could afford.
264
The chairman is Frédéric-Gérard Kaczek, assisted by Jérôme Segal, the recording clerk is Monika Kaczek,
assisted by Nicole Philipp, who runs the association ‗Fran:cultures‘, dedicated to the promotion of francophone
cultures, and the treasurer is Alfred Philipp, also involved in fran:cultures.
265
Personal communication from Monika Kaczek, 26 February 2010.
266
This is also likely to be achieved in 2010 as the City of Vienna is increasing again its contribution; and a new
sponsor has been found. This is the Austrian Regulatory Authority for Broadcasting and Communications (RTR).
267
Personal communication of Jack M. Weil, 22 March 2010 fr. See also Anderman, Nirit. 2010. Germany's only
Jewish film festival in danger of closure. Haaretz, February 9.
268
Assistance in this respect in terms of providing secure transport is provided by the Israeli Embassy and the
French Cultural Institute
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11.2
The role of directors
The idea of organizing a Jewish film festival in Vienna dates back to 1991 and was
the brainchild of the President of the Jewish Institute of Adult Education (Jüdisches
Institut für Erwachsenenbildung), Kurt Rosenkranz. Rosenkranz continues to be
proud for first coming up with the idea even if he has in the meantime distanced
himself from the festival‘s critical attitude towards Israel.269
Since Rosenkranz was not familiar with the cinema milieu, he asked Frédéric-Gérard
Kaczek, a cameraman at the time, to realize his project. A Belgian citizen who grew
up in Brussels, Kaczek had close ties to Austria: his parents were Viennese Jews who
escaped from Austria in 1938. He studied at the National Institute for
Radioelectricity and Cinematography (INRACI) in Brussels and completed his
education in Prague with a year at the Film and TV School of the Academy of
Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague. He saw a job vacancy on a film shot in Austria:
the French film director Bernard Borderie was looking for a cameraman who could
also speak German. This is how he came to Austria.
In unpublished interview notes prepared for the seventh festival in 1997, Kaczek
described his reaction when Rosenkranz approached him about organizing a Jewish
film festival:
I found the idea attractive, particularly as I saw the opportunity to use my
knowledge of the medium of film and my experience as a manager for
another very meaningful task. It seemed to me a special challenge to be
able to employ film as a weapon against anti-Semitism and intolerance,
but also — in Vienna of all places — to illustrate the normality of being
Jewish and Jewish life in film. Moreover, I think that every minority
must be able to experience its own culture, so that it can cultivate and
consolidate its identity. Hence, the Jewish Film Week appeals to both
non-Jews interested in Jewish topics and the Jewish community, which is
given the opportunity to reflect on their film culture. For me, however,
organizing the Jewish Film Week ultimately implies giving my parents
evidence that you do not need to hide in Vienna any more as a Jew.270
Nowadays, Kaczek works on developing new film techniques with his own company
‗Kaczek Visuals‘. The festival‘s management, communication and organization now
rest with his wife, Monika Kaczek who is a full-time secretary at the Vienna
University of Applied Arts. The festival is run from their home offices.
269
, interview with Kurt Rosenkranz, 20 November 2009.
270
Private archives of the festival, held by Frédéric-Gérard Kaczek, in one of the three files labeled ‗1997‘, see
(Segal 2010).
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11.3
Networking structures
The Vienna Jewish Film Festival is one of more than one hundred Jewish film
festivals existing throughout the world, about two-thirds of them in the Unites States.
Many of these festivals have the format of side-events and are organized by official
Jewish organizations. The Washington JFF, for example, is presented annually by the
Washington DC Jewish Community Centre; the NoVa International Jewish Film
Festival is organized by the Jewish Community Centre of Northern Virginia while
the Baltimore JFF and Berlin JFF receive significant financial support from the
official Jewish organizations of their local communities.271
The Vienna JFF does not enjoy similar support from the official Jewish organization
in Vienna, the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG). This is largely because the IKG
has a stronger religious than cultural orientation and its members are apprehensive of
secular Judaism as represented by the VJFF directors, especially given their critical
stance towards the interpretation of Jewish identity in relation to the state of Israel.
We return to this issue in a subsequent section.
Subsequently, the VJFF‘s networking structure relies more on personal affinities
among film festival directors and experts on Film or Jewish Studies, like the Jewish
Museum in Hohenhems (Vorarlberg, in Western Austria). An earlier link with the
Vienna Jewish Museum was severed when the City of Vienna tried to integrate the
activities of the VJFF in those of the Jewish Museum. Another regular guest to the
festival is Evelyn Böhmer-Laufer who organizes Peace camps every summer with
young people from Palestine, Israel, Arab and European countries. The films made
about the camps are regularly screened at the VJFF. International contacts include
Sharon Pucker Rivo, who heads the National Centre for Jewish Film, and Ruth
Diskin the manager of the film distribution company, Ruth Diskin Films Ltd.
The VJFF is also informally linked to other Jewish film festivals taking place in
Europe. A workshop on how to promote collaboration among Jewish film festivals in
terms of fund-raising, marketing and exchange took place in 2006 upon the initiative
of Jack M. Weil, director of the Amsterdam JFF. The meeting involved the directors
of the Jewish film festivals of Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Sweden, the UK,
and Austria. The main outcome of the meeting was the setup of a common website.
In terms of fund-raising, the idea originally discussed, namely to submit a joint
application to the EU MEDIA programme was dropped for two reasons: the
overwhelming amount of paperwork involved and the quota of 70 percent EUproduced content, which would have impinged on curatorial freedom.272
The VJFF is best connected with the JFF in Berlin and New York. Monika Kaczek
exchanges ideas with the New York and Berlin JFF directors, Aviva Weintraub and
Nicola Galliner respectively, usually on the films to be programmed, but also on
271
See (Kaufman and Plotkin 2007) and the web pages of the festivals mentioned (www.wjff.org,
www.jccnv.org, www.baltimorejff.com/ and www.jffb.de/). An annotated list of the main JFFs is provided in
Iordanova, Dina, and Ruby Cheung. 2010. Film Festival Yearbook 2: Film Festivals and Imagined Communities.
St Andrews Film Studies, pp.271-2.
272
Author‘s interview with Jack M. Weil. See also http://www.jewishfilmfestivals.eu/.
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political events in Israel. When Galliner decided to publish a book to celebrate the
tenth anniversary of the Berlin JFF, in 2004, she asked Monika Kaczek to publish an
article (Kaczek 2004b). In February 2010, when the Berlin JFF was in danger of
being closed down due to lack of funding,273 this European network of JFFs
witnessed a short revival. The Kaczeks sent information for a press release,
expressing their solidarity, so that Nicola Galliner could demonstrate that the Berlin
Jewish Film Festival – the only one of its kind in Germany – was part of a network.
11.4
The significance of Vienna as site of a Jewish film festival
The location of the festival in Vienna is particularly relevant for the festival‘s
sponsors. For Sylvia Faßl-Vogler, responsible for the funding given by the City of
Vienna, the festival is linked to ‗[Austria‘s] grisly history‘.274 She explains that the
City is eager to see Jewish life and culture come alive again. It is even a ‗prime
concern‘, which is why they also sponsor the Jewish Museum. In other words, the
festival is one of the many activities supported by public authorities as a form of
Widergutmachung for the horrors of World War II.275
An interesting and humorous example exemplifying the resurgence of Jewish life in
Vienna is the film Zorros Bar Mizwa by Ruth Beckermann, which was screened in
the 2006 edition of VJFF and which is set in Vienna. The festival catalogue
presented the film as follows:
The film accompanies four Viennese 12-year-olds – Sophie, Sharon,
Tom, and Moishy – as they prepare for their bar or bat mitzvot (Jewish
coming-of-age transition). André Wanne specializes in making home
video movies of Jewish ceremonies. Whether it be a short Zorro film
commissioned by a family of Georgian Jews or the preparations of an
Orthodox family, his experiences take him through a whole variety of
ritual initiations into adulthood.
Contributing to the reinvigoration of Jewish life in Vienna also entails showing
historical films documenting Viennese Jewish life in earlier times. This was the
subject of a ‗special‘ section in 2009 focusing on Yiddish film. This included among
others the screening of the East and West (by Sidney M. Goldin and Ivan Abramson,
Austria, 1923) and Jiskor (by Sidney M. Goldin & George Roland, Austria, 1923).
Both films were screened with live music and shown at the old Jewish theatre
Nestroyhof.276
273
Anderman, Nirit. 2010. Germany's only Jewish film festival in danger of closure. Haaretz, February 9
274
Author‘s interview with Sylvia Fassl-Vogler on 18 January 2010.
275
The directors are well aware that they can be used for alibi compensation by City officials or even ministries.
In her interview, Monika Kaczek reported that when her husband initially asked for support, he was told, ‗can we
afford to say no?‘
276
See http://www.hamakom.at/ for the history of that location.
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11.5
What is Jewish film?
As it is committed to diversity with respect to Jewish identity, the VJFF has made it
its goal to show films that deal with this subject from different perspectives. In other
words the festival‘s approach is not that of featuring Jewish film directors – even
though directors of Jewish origin are over-represented among films shown – but
rather to thematize Jewish identity as such. To illustrate this, a thematic analysis of
all films screened in 2008 and 2009 was carried out.277 The films fall into five
categories:
Almost every year, a few films deal with the Holocaust (or Shoah).278 It is almost an
obligation for the VJFF to show films related to this aspect of Jewish history, but
they try to downplay its importance in the programme and do not accept all films
dealing with the subject. Asked about the content of the programme at the time she
was helping the festival, the journalist Ruth Ribarski said she categorically rejected
the ‗Shoah business‘ (commercial films only setting the Jews as victims in the
Second World War). When she started to work for the festival, the absence of films
related to the Holocaust was a part of its identity. It merely programmed Shoah, by
Claude Lanzmann (France, 1985). By contrast, Ribarski stressed a positive definition
of Jewishness, and not one focusing on persecution alone.
At the last two festivals, of the nearly 50 films screened, four dealt with this topic:
two documentaries and two feature films. There was one documentary each year,
each time with discussions after the screening. In 2008, it was an almost unknown
documentary on the Austrian concentration camp at Mauthausen, Auf der anderen
Seite des Lebens (by Greta Jamkojian, Austria, 2008), and the following year the
famous film by Alain Resnais Nuit et brouillard (France, 1955). In 2008, the film Un
secret (by Claude Miller, France, 2007) was shown to a wider audience, with
screenings for school classes. The film deals with the story of a Jewish family during
the war trying to flee to unoccupied France (Vichy France). The film shown the
following year, Berlin 36 (Kaspar Heidelbach, Germany, 2009), is set in pre-war
Germany.
Another important sub-genre is Jewish comedy. This was the main focus of the
fourth festival in 1994, and has since always been represented as it is considered a
good way of providing entertainment without extra expense for live performances. In
2007, the opening film was Mauvaise Foi (by Roshdy Zem, France, 2007), an easygoing comedy about a love relationship between a Muslim man and a Jewish woman.
Roshdy Zem, who is a Muslim himself and plays the main role, was present for the
opening ceremony. Choosing him as the main guest of the festival was in a way a
political statement by the festival directors eager to show that they had taken the
Arab view of Jewish culture into account. At the last festival, another comedy was
screened, Simon Konianski (by Micha Wald, Belgium, 2009). The film tells the story
277
Niki Rodousakis, Ronald Pohoryles, Michael Schmidt and Liana Giorgi carried out fieldwork observation and
event protocolling during the festival edition of 2008, Jerome Segal that of 2009.
278
‗ Shoah‘ has become the common word in Europe to designate the extermination of the Jews during the Second
World War, whereas ‗Holocaust‘ is much more used in the English-speaking world.
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of a young father, Simon, and his difficult relationships with his father, obsessed by
his deportation 65 years before, his wife, who left him for a black dancer, and their
five year-old son. The second half of the film is a kind of a road-movie, as Simon
decides to bury his great-uncle in the Shtetl he came from.
The third category includes new films from Israel and Palestine. For Monika
Kaczek, Palestinian films shed light on contemporary Jewish life in Israel. This
political stance constitutes one of the main points of conflict between the VJFF and
the IKG. The films may be documentaries like We Too Have No Other Land (by
Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler, Israel, 2007), depicting multi-ethnic life
around a mixed football team, or a feature film like the famous Lemon tree (by Eran
Riklis, Israel 2008), addressing the issue of land claims on the West Bank. Chronicle
of a Disappearance, by Israeli-Arab director and actor Elia Suleiman also counts as
one of the highlights in recent festival history (VJFF 2008).
The fourth category consists of films depicting contemporary Jewish life in different
countries. This category covers countries whose film industry is little known in
Europe, e.g. Argentina, represented by Empty nest, by Daniel Burman, screened at
the 2009 VJFF. Most of the films in this category come from France, a country
always over-represented at the festival, because of its important cinematographic
production. Over the last two years, the programme has included Dans la vie (by
Philippe Faucon, 2008), Deux vies, plus une (by Idit Cébula, 2007) and Cycles – Les
Murs porteurs (by Cyril Gelblat, 2008).
Finally, the last category relates to special events around anniversaries or special
tributes. In 2008, a tribute was organized to the Austrian actor of Jewish background
Otto Tausig. Some of his films were shown in a mini-series entitled ‗Emigration and
Return‘.
The above short review illustrates the international orientation of the festival – both
in showing films from different countries and in addressing universal themes such as
migration, humour and human rights. Austria, France and Israel are the three
countries on which a special focus is placed: Austria is emphasized for its history
(the 70th anniversary of the ‗Anschluss‘ was commemorated on a large scale), France
for its many films with Jewish backgrounds and Israel for the selection of films often
critical of national politics.
The festival‘s repertoire is mainly high- and middle-brow. The comedies are often
entertaining films requiring no prior knowledge, whereas the documentaries require
certain background information.
11.6
More than films
The use of film festivals to present other arts forms has become common today, both
as a way of diversifying the programme and attracting a wider audience (and
possibly additional financial support). The VJFF is thus a place for developing
mixtures or interfaces between art forms. In the first years of the festival, a concert
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and a photo exposition was organized.279 In 2008, en evening was dedicated to jazz,
with The Jazzish Quintet: Mayne Teg. Many of the audience were of Polish origin
and had learned about the event from the Polish Cultural Institute. The programme
consisted of pieces inspired by Jewish poets and was jazzy and Yiddish at the same
time.
Similarly, the last festival hosted an evening with the actress Caroline Koczan
portraying the life of the Yiddish artist Molly Picon. Alone on stage, just with a
pianist, she used two film excerpts to recall the American woman who succeeded in
switching from the Yiddish theatre to the Yiddish cinema, promoting a feminist
image of the Jewish woman over decades.280
11.7
The festival’s contested political messages
Politics play a major role at the VJFF. Although the Kaczeks are not well-known
activists, they do not hesitate to hire John Bunzl as a consultant, a political scientist
widely known and contested in Austria for his strong anti-Zionist attitudes.
Some films on the festival programme have caused controversy and even outspoken
attacks in the media, usually by the IKG. In 2005, the festival decision to show
Paradise Now (Hany Abu-Assad, 2005), a film co-produced by the Occupied
Palestinian Territory, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Israel, caused a deep rift
with the IKG. The film, which had been nominated for a foreign language Oscar and
had received the audience prize at the Berlinale, had been co-financed by the Israeli
Film Fund. It depicts the life of two young Arabs who become suicide bombers due
the lack of alternatives posed by the extreme poverty of their environment. Raimund
Fastenbauer, secretary general for Jewish affairs at the IKG, claimed that the
‗scandalous film‘ legitimized ‗the killing of innocent Jewish people in Israel‘. He
further stated that the festival team promoted ‗either intentionally or naively the
interests of the enemies of Israel and Jewishness‘. In his release, Fastenbauer called
the Kaczeks and Bunzl ―radical Jewish peripheral figures, otherwise unseen in the
Jewish community, except when ‗Israel bashing‘ is called for‖.281 The festival team
posted a reply on the festival website:
This Dutch/French/German/Israeli co-production touches highly
sensitively on the issue of the motives of suicide bombers. But Paradise
Now also asks us questions in Europe, not least how we here deal with
racism, anti-Semitism and fundamentalism. Such films, which provoke
and provide food for thought, belong to the Jewish Film Week, which
presents not just a nostalgic image of the Jews in the Shtetl or playing
Klezmer music, but also the humanistic picture of Jews facing the
279
Interview with Monika Kaczek op. cit. and (Segal 2010, 202).
280
See Segal, Jérôme, and Monika Kaczek. 2009. Molly Picon and the Cinematic Archetype of a Jewish Woman.
Cinémascope 6, no. 14. http://www.cinemascope.it/
281
Edlinger, Thomas, and Stefan Grissemann. 2005. Anschlagskultur
Selbstmordattentäter-Film 'Paradise now' sorgt für Zündstoff - auch in Wien. profil
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Der
palästinensische
214
problems
of
today‘s
www.jfw.at/2005/popup.htm)
world.
(Festival
website,
Every year, a number of films on the programme is intended to convey a political
message, first, that Jewish identity is intrinsically about diversity, second, that Jews
do not necessarily support Israeli policy towards Palestinians. At the last festival, two
films were particularly striking: a short film, Sinner (Meni Philip, Israel, 2009),
which deals with sexual abuse in an orthodox boarding school and Eyes Wide Open
(Haim Tabakman, Israel/Germany/France, 2009), which portrays a homosexual
relationship between two orthodox Jews in Mea Shearim, a staunchly orthodox
district of Jerusalem. These two films, which were also selected for the last major
international film festivals (i.e. in Venice and Cannes respectively), were premiered
in Austria thanks to the VJFF. Their subject matter caused quite a stir. To ensure that
the screening of the films would encourage democratic debate, the festival
management decided to show them together on the same evening, and twice the same
week, with an ensuing open discussion.
The result was gratifying, as the cinema was almost full. This was all the more
important for the festival organizers because, on the same evening that these films
were shown, an independent ‗Jewish Film Club‘ celebrated its first anniversary with
a film evening. The festival management considered the decision to hold the
anniversary celebration as a parallel event as a sign of hostility towards the festival.
Actually, both events were well attended – a fact that also appears to confirm the
diversity of Jewish life in contemporary Vienna. The positions these two
organizations hold regarding the Sabbath are also symptomatic: the Film Club does
not show films on the Sabbath, on which the pious are not allowed to attend movie
screenings, whereas the festival does.
The Jewish Film Club, which was initiated by a former collaborator of the VJFF,
displays some of the characteristics of a fringe festival in relation to the VJFF insofar
as it appears to take a part antagonistic relationship to it – and is so perceived by the
VJFF management. On the other hand, however, the Jewish Film Club is
conceptualized first and foremost as a club showing films on a monthly basis.
The VJFF‘s political character and feeble for provocation is also illustrated by its
solidarity with the student protests. These concerned the teaching conditions under
budget cuts and talk about the re-introduction of student fees. The VJFF screened
one of its films in the main university auditorium which was being occupied by the
students;282 and it issued the following rather dramatic solidarity call on its website:
The Vienna Jewish Film Festival expresses its solidarity with the
Austrian students in their struggle against injustice. In our understanding
of Jewishness, studying plays a central role (...). In some way, Jews are
‗eternal students‘ who cannot imagine having to pay extra tuition fees
just because they study too much. It is ‗meshuga‘ [Yiddish for ‗crazy‘].
Studying is at the core of human existence. Jews do not say they ‗read‘
the Torah, but that they ‗study‘ it. It can be that after two centuries of
persecution, Jews have developed a particular sensitivity towards
282
The same was done by the Biennale, the Austrian Film Festival a few weeks earlier.
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injustice. We cannot accept that the freedom to study goes unheeded, that
billions go to the banks and not to the universities or – to take a concrete
example – that some students should pay tuition fees just because they
were born here and not there. Daniel Cohn-Bendit said in Paris in 1968,
‗We are all German Jews‘. Today, we would like to say to you, ‗You are
all Jewish combatants and we are proud of you‘.
In contrast, Europe does not play a specific role in the festival – other than
representing the geo-political area from which most films and contacts come from.
For directors who work in Israel and are invited to the festival, like Jerrold Kessel,
the VJFF is European in character –for its approach to identity in general and Jewish
identity in particular.
11.8
Role of the media
As a small amateur festival with a niche clientele, the VJFF does not entertain an
especially prominent position in the Austrian media. Its media presence is limited to
the occasional mentioning at the beginning or end through one or another film
critique. In 2009 the media presence was nevertheless significantly more extensive
(in relation to the number of screenings) by reason of the festival‘s budgetary
problems.283
In summer 2008, as it was unclear whether the festival could take place in the fall
because of drastic cuts in the subsidy of the City of Vienna, the Kaczeks wrote an
appeal and distributed it to the media. The weekly profil quoted Kaczek as saying ‗It
would be a disgrace‘, an allusion to the fact that Austria could not morally say no to
giving its Jewish film festival adequate support.284 (Grissemann 2008) in a year
which marked the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht. The daily Der Standard also
reported on the budget problems of the festival, insisting on the fact that the Green
283
Print media: Der Standard 30.10.09 - Lottery to win two tickets for any film of the festival; profil
9.11.09 - Mentions the reduced budget and mentions a few films; Der Falter, 11.11.09 - Presentation
of all the films + article on the festival, which also mentions the reduced budget and describes two
films, Berlin 36 & Eyes Wide Open; Die Furche, 12.11.09: general presentation; Wiener Zeitung,
12.11.09: on the opening film + Mary & Max (animated film); Der Standard, 12.11.09 on Killing
Kasztner, announcing the film and contextualizing it; Ray Filmmagazin, Nov. 2009, they also mention
the reduced programme and focus on the opening film, Berlin 36 and four other films; Media biz,
Nov. 2009, on the statement by Elisabeth Vitouch, politician of the City of Vienna, in which she
assures that the 2010 Festival will have more money; Die Gemeinde (official monthly of the Jewish
community in Vienna) : neutral article, announcing there would be 40 films (actually, there were 12
films). They gave details on the opening film and four others. On the internet: Press release of the
main private sponsor A1; Skug, ‗Journal f. Musik‘; Ritesinstitute israelestine: reproduction of the
press release by the festival team; French Cultural Institute in Vienna: announcement of the Frenchspeaking film, Simon Konianski (Belgium); Rosa Lila Villa (Gay/Lesbian Center in Vienna):
announcement of the festival; - Kurier (website of an Austrian daily): short report; Wiener Zeitung:
short report. On radio: Ö1 (92MHz) 11.11.2009, 7:20-7:25 interview with Monika Kaczek on the
opening day; Orange (94 MHz) 13.11.2009, 21:00-21:30 with lottery to win tickets.
284
Grissemann, Stefan. 2008. Wäre eine Schande. profil, June 16
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party considered the low subsidy to the VJFF as an example of political decisionmaking privileging the organizations closest to the Social-democratic Party.285
11.9
The audience286
In order to gather information about the audience of the VJFF a survey among
participants was organized in 2008; and in 2009 a focus group took place.
142 participants returned the festival questionnaire in 2008. Considering that in 2008
the festival sold around 3,000 tickets and that the average number of events attended
per person was three, the survey sample is thought to correspond to around 10% of
all festival visitors. In conjunction with the stratified sampling of events, it could
therefore be said to be reasonably representative.
95 per cent of the JFF visitors are Vienna residents, less than one per cent comes
from abroad. The overwhelming majority (60 per cent) have a university degree – of
these two thirds of postgraduate level (masters or Ph.D.). Women outweigh men by
far: 63% of all festival participants are women. In terms of age, the JFF public is
divided equally across the age groups: 27 per cent are in the age group 18-29 and 30
per cent are in the age group 50+. Table 1 presents the socio-demographic profile of
the JFF festival.
Table 1. Socio-demographic profile of Jewish Film Festival 2008
In % of total (N=142)
Residence
Vienna resident
95%
Austrian resident (but not Vienna)
4%
International resident
1%
Highest educational background
Compulsory education / vocational training
3%
Secondary education (high-school)
37%
University first-level degree
18%
University postgraduate
42%
Gender
Female
63%
Male
37%
Age
18-29
27%
30-39
22%
40-49
21%
50+
30%
285
Trenkler, Thomas. 2008. Selbstbedienungsladen der SP. Der Standard, 13. Juni edition
286
The audience survey data were analyzed by Liana Giorgi; the focus group moderated by Ronald Pohoryles.
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The majority of the respondents attend between 2 and 5 performances. A significant
number, namely 32%, attend only one performance, only 12% attend more than five
performances.
The Jewish Film Festival answers to two distinct clienteles. The largest group is that
of the ‗regulars‘ – 63% of the survey respondents stated they knew the festival from
previous years. The festival‘s loyal clientele is of the order of 1,000 to 1,500 persons
(considering that the festival did not sell more than 5,000 tickets in its best years).
The ‗new‘ visitors are a younger group: 39 per cent of those who say they do not
know the JFF from previous years are 18-29 years old as compared to 19% among
the regulars. This younger group of festival participants are also over-represented
among those saying that the festival did not meet their expectations. Overall, the
festival displays high ratings with 77% of the survey respondents stating that the
festival met their expectations fully. But of those who are not of this view, 70% are
less than 40 years of age (as compared to 42 per cent among those fully satisfied).
Table 2 lists the motivations for attending the Jewish Film Festival.
Table 2. Motivation for attending JFF (in %)
Motivation factor
Specific films
I am a cineaste
To learn about international trends
The theme(s) of this year‘s programme
A good opportunity to meet people
The locations of the festival
The festival publicity
Events organized around festival
No specific reason, just happened to be around
Wanted to meet prominent people
N
73%
50%
26%
23%
13%
11%
10%
9%
6%
1%
142
The film selection is the strongest motivation for attending the Jewish Film Festival,
and every second festival participant considers himself / herself a cineaste. However,
only every fourth visitor pays particular attention to the overarching themes of the
festival. In conjunction with the finding that a large proportion of festival participants
attend no more than 2-3 events, these findings suggest that the festival programme is
dependent on variety for maintaining even its present number of visitors, despite the
fact that many are regulars.
The ‗festival‘ elements do not figure prominently in the programme and also not in
the visitors‘ motivations – but this probably also reflects their low incidence.
Table 3 lists in descending order the visitors‘ associations with regard to the Jewish
Film Festival.
Table 3. Assessment of JFF
(in % considering very relevant)
Statements about JFF ...
JFF an opportunity to learn about other countries
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JFF is an expression of multiculturalism
JFF a way to meet educational goals
JFF is an expression of liberal ideas
JFF is an expression of cosmopolitanism
JFF an opportunity for artistic experimentation
JFF is the means to make political statement
JFF a festival for all Vienna citizens
JFF the means to promote specific artists
JFF a principal way for promoting arts
JFF an expression of consumerist culture
JFF a means for some people to make money
N
95%
94%
80%
80%
77%
73%
70%
61%
37%
18%
6%
142
The Jewish film festival presents itself as a multicultural, cosmopolitan event,
offering the opportunity to learn about other countries (and especially Jewish culture
and identity). This vision seems to be fully accepted by the JFF visitors as shown by
table 3. Almost all respondents see the JFF as a learning opportunity, an expression
of multiculturalism and as a festival with strong educational goals. Four out of five
respondents also link the festival to cosmopolitanism and liberalism. Only a small
minority see the festival as an expression of consumerist culture or a means to make
money.
The above findings were confirmed by the focus group discussions:
The VJFF was liked for its selection of films in conjunction with its
international scope. Focus group participants disagreed on the question of
size: some were happy with the festival size as is; others wished it would
expand.
The festival‘s liberal approach to Jewish identity was also appreciated,
especially the distinction drawn between religion and culture and the
avoidance of reducing the subject to the experience of the Holocaust. At the
same time, some participants expressed the wish to see more films dealing
with Austria‘s role during WWII and the contemporary situation with regard
to anti-Semitism.
Opinions were more divided with respect to the festival‘s critical stance
towards Israel. One participant pointed out that Israel-critical films can also
be instrumentalized by anti-Semites and therefore caution is warranted.
Insofar as debates were concerned – most participants thought that these were
in principle a good idea but often difficult to organize because of the
complexity of the subject-matter. Creating more spaces for informal
discussions before or after the screenings was suggested as an alternative to
formal debates.
In conclusion, the JFF audience represents a largely homogeneous public in terms of
socio-demographic background and cultural taste. The ‗typical‘ JFF visitor is female
of high educational background and varied cultural taste and interest. S/he has
internalized and values the JFF for what it claims itself to be, namely,
cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism and education.
The film selection rather than the programmatic themes are the main motivation for
participating in the Jewish Film Festival. The average participant will attend around
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3 events. The Festival is valued primarily for the films its screens, less for its festival
elements which are also rare.
11.10
Summary and conclusions
The festival has set itself many objectives. Besides the educational goal, it advocates
a very broad definition and image of Jewish identity, and this is probably its most
important characteristic. The complex relationship with Israel, including the ArabIsraeli conflict, is also at the core of programming. The festival team also endeavours
to promote aesthetic values in film, not merely because this is close to FrédéricGérard Kaczek heart as a cameraman.
All these goals are, of course, not always clearly perceived by the audience, firstly
because festival-goers usually only see a couple of films i.e. lack an overview of the
festival and, secondly, because the audience is fragmented, i.e. has varying interests.
These goals, which determine the agenda-setting of the festival, have nevertheless
enabled the festival to maintain a small circle of disciples throughout the years.
Financial support is a perennial problem.
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Methodological Appendix
The MaxQDA database on film comprises interview protocols, programmes,
fieldwork notes, biographies and media clippings.
The following persons were interviewed for the project (in alphabetical order)
Antoine de Baecque, Cannes film historian and film critic
Laura Balasuriya, film director
Ruth Beckermann, Film director
JC Berjon, Assistant director Critics‘ Week (Cannes)
Rémi Bonhomme, Director of Critics Week (Cannes)
Christopher Buchholz, Actor, director, producer
Alina Butunam, film producer
Shira Carmi, Holon Cinematheque
Paul Chaim Eisenberg, Chief Rabbi of the Vienna Jewish Community
Sylvia Fassl-Vogler, City Council Vienna (VJFF)
Barbara Fränzen, Dept for film, Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts
and Culture
Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate Cannes Film Festival
Nikola Galliner, Director of Berlin Jewish Film Festival
Ulrich Gregor, Former director of ‗Forum‘ (Berlin)
Georges Goldenstern, Director of Cinéfondation
Cornelia Hammelmann, Head of EC MEDIA programme for German
Alberto Iannuzzi, Festival consultant (Mostra)
Eva Illmer, producer
Monika Kaczek, Director of the VJFF
Reda Kateb, Actor
Alexandra Kaufmann, Film director
Jerold Kessel, Film director
Diana Kluge, In charge of festival management for Smiley film sales
Christophe Leparc, Directors‘ Fortnight (Cannes)
Barbara Lorey de Lacharriere, Member of the jury (Mostra)
Jacque Mandebaum, Film critic
Allesandro Mura, Journalist
Ruth Ribarsky, Journalist (ORF)
Alon Rosenblum, Holon Cinematheque
Kurt Rosenkranz, Initiator of VJFF
Camille Rousselet, Head of Festivals WIDE Management—International
Sales and Production
Kurt Schramek, Film buyer and exhibitor
Boris Spire, Film Exhibitor
Michael Stejskal, Director of distribution company Filmladen
Caterina Adriana Terzo, Journalist
Jack Weil, Founder and director of Amsterdam Jewish Film Festival
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Part IV. Urban Mixed-Arts Festivals
Monica Sassatelli
In this second part of Deliverable 3 of the Euro-Festival project we examine three
urban festivals: Brighton, Venice and Vienna. The three festivals differ quite
extensively: not only do they take place in different countries; they also display
different thematic specializations and genre orientations. Yet with respect to
organizational set-up and evolution they display many similarities.
Inside the urban festival
All three festivals began as public initiatives and some are still physically residing
within the premises of local institutions. Over time they have been transformed into
private, not-for-profit institutions and receive substantial amounts of public funding
from local and national funds. They are all in the meantime well-established in their
local and national contexts and also internationally; but they all began as personal
initiatives of charismatic figures to rapidly institutionalize in the subsequent years.
The origins are covered by an almost mythical aura: sometimes as the result of a
contested starting point (as in the case of Vienna, where the official 1951 start date is
contested by those who see it in continuity with pre-war festivals dating from the
1920s); other times by creating semi-legendary figures of the first directors and
funders (as in the case of Mr Festival in Brighton). Rapid institutionalization in the
context of a constant process of reform is another common trait with Biennale being
the extreme case with its many overhauls and continuous small amendments. As nonprofit organizations, they share a similar structure, made of a permanent management
staff and a governing body. The latter are variously composed of members of
relevant ‗local‘ organisations and stakeholders. People in charge of the actual
programming form a third categody and include artistic directors. These are usually
appointed on a fixed term or work as free-lancers. Presently, directors tend to be
professional managers rather than cultural entrepreneurs—this distinction was
blurred in earlier times and especially for the founders.
Despite their institutional embeddedness, all three festivals remain small
organizations in management terms and, as such, they are highly connotated by
individual figures and their personal preferences and inclinations. Even in the
Biennale the senior figures see themselves as a ‗little group of old friends.‘ Personal
networks are at the core of the functioning of these organizations that from the
outside are highly institutionalised. Formal networks do not play as big a role and
rather tend to be snubbed at by the key festival actors who prefer to rely on their own
informal networks and their chains of personal relationships linking directors,
curators, artists and promoters. It is not rare to find the same person covering two
different roles, in different organizations, so these chains are rather dense and close,
rather than open and fluid. These ‗networks‘ have indeed global reach, but that does
not make them ‗open‘: possibly because they are personal, but also in connection to
the structure of the different art-worlds, they essentially function as gatekeeping
devices, as witnessed by the fact that the same artists are to encountered again and
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again at different festivals. The observed organizational isomorphism, which, in the
absence of clear coercive pressures, can be identified as mimetic and displays an
incremental adaptation to uncertainty and favours networking, therefore also impacts
on the festival‘s contents and rationales.
Branding the festival, branding the city
The three festivals have different overall rationales: the Biennale still claims an
‗encyclopedic‘ function in that it aims to establish the ‗state of the art‘ and indicate
new avenues (of artistic research and debate); in Vienna, democratization of art as
well as cultural diplomacy co-exist, more or less comfortably; in Brighton, which is
in a transitional phase with a new director, increasing the festival‘s profile and
finding its specific voice is central. However what they share is the fact that the
‗overall rationale‘ is just a perceptual and temporary surface balance of a number of
different agendas (economic, social, cultural, but also variations withins each of
these) struggling to emerge from underneath. This framing of an overall rationale
appears intrinsic to the core material and symbolic configuration of the urban
festival.
More than other cultural industries or institutions (and more than ‗private‘ or purely
commercial festivals), urban festivals elicit a strong, local feeling of ownership that
festival organisers recognize, even though the radium of ‗local‘ can vary greatly. The
several, precariously balanced, agendas are thus to be linked with the strong but often
also conflictual relationship of urban festivals with ‗their‘ place. What would seem a
typical configuration is the creation of whole new sections within the festival
(although possibly with slightly different status, expressed through a specific
collocation, if at all, in the main programme) devoted to either more maverick, or
more outreach, or more generally ‗fringe‘ events (as the ‗Into the City‘ in Vienna, or
the Fringe in Brighton). Sometimes the resulting incremental structure, where
previous approaches and parts are not abandoned but juxtaposed to the new ones, is
described through ecological metaphors, as an equilbrium of parts that requires the
contribution of all and a circular relationship rather than a linear one, between city
and festival. A recurrent theme – that emerged more explicitly of all in Brighton
(possibly also because of the English language) but that is found also in the other two
cases is that of the brand. Branding the city and branding the festival go hand in
hand: the festival is fundamental for the city profile, and vice versa, they are linked
by a symbolic (rather than causal) relationship. For instance, landmark buildings as
festival main venues of HQ are important as they contribute to the profile of the
organization—this is obvious both when they are there as in Brighton as when they
have come to be missing (and are felt as important missing element) as in the Vienna
festival. If the importance of this branding component for a cultural sociology of
festivals is difficult to grasp with a superficial, city-marketing notion of city branding
that emphasises the exploitation of a city‘s (and festival‘s) identity in terms of
consolidated traditions or heritage (which is quite a key theme in local cultural
policies seeking to promote place specificity), it can however be looked at from
another angle. Following recent sociological exploration into the notion of branding
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and its role in the global culture industry,287 to conceptualise the festival as brand
allows an analysis of phenomena of commoditization (or commercialization) without
simply reducing the festival to a commodity being produced, sold and consumed.
Instead, like a brand the festival is not for sale, although it is really what people are
buying (into). And this is linked to its multi-form, ‗poietic‘ (productive, rather than
produced), narrative (part of a ‗story‘ of the city), singular (as opposed to the
exchangeability of the commodity form) nature. An interesting way these festivals
are like brands is in their use of themes. These are increasingly used as framing
devices (to both gain internal coherence and external distinctiveness), as verbal logos
that work both as an organizational and as an artistic device, allowing however a
substantial degree of variation and interpretation. ‗The brand is like an organism,
self-modifying, with a memory‘:288 the value it brings is a sign-value dependent on
relations and experience. However, by spilling over outsite the corporate domain,
and being associated with a ‗place‘ (as a cultural object) the brand does go unchanged. A city (or a festival) as a brand is not a corporate brand, it cannot be
subsumed by a single, corporate ‗identity‘ or strategy – and in fact, as we will see,
everybody has different ideas of what the festival should be and represent. Fringes,
an almost ubiquitous counterpart of urban festivals, exemplify the forms of resistance
and attempts of reappropriation of the festival brand as expression of hegemonic
culture and inequalities. To what extent this effectively happens or succeeds, how the
balance is struck, is an empirical question to be answered every time, and probably
never definitively.
The cultural public sphere of urban festivals
Our three case studies all started as mono-genre (classical music, de facto if not
officially the core programme in both Brighton and Vienna, visual art in Venice) and
then developed into the fully fledged multi-genre festivals they are now. Still the
balance of genres remains a difficult issue for these festivals, as the predominance of
one genre can be detrimental, in the long run, to the festival‘s overall cohesiveness.
Directors and managers in particular seem to struggle with this, and have found
different solutions. In Brighton currently genres are kept in control by organizing the
programme in diary form, based on date, rather than divided by genres (little icons
remain to identify these, and online one can search by both date or genre), in an
attempt to bring the guest artistic director unifying vision to the fore. But it is
probably in the segmentation of the audience that the composite nature of these
festivals emerges, as shown in particular by the Venice festival. Still, the perception
of the audience that guides the organizers is one of a possibly segmented but
certainly committed audience, and an audience that is or can be ‗trained‘: although
there are different audiences for the different genres, these are also specific ‗festival‘
(and biennale) audiences, that value (also critically) the programmers choice and
therefore follow their programmes as a whole, people that go ‗to the
287
C. Lury, Brands: the Logos of the Global Economy, Routledge, 2004. S. Lash, C. Lury, Global Culture
Industry: The Mediation of Things, Polity, 2007.
288
Lash and Lury, Cit., p. 6.
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festival/biennale‘ rather than to single events.289 As a result, festival goers may not be
‗onmivorous‘ in the strict sense of being able to appreciate and integrate in their
habitus a vast range of genres (it was observed for instance in Vienna that they may
just to to the cinema outside festival time), but during the festival they are (made
into) risk-takers willing to have ‗encounters‘ with experiences that challenge their
preferences and habitus. These quite high-brow festivals are certainly not as much a
rite of passage into adulthood as some of the pop music festivals seem to be, but
enduring some intellectual as well as physical discomfort and being prepared to
participate in ‗marathons‘ of events is part of what makes the role of the audience an
active one in festivals, and what makes a festival, not only in the performing arts, a
‗live‘, transformative experience.
When this contemporary wave of post-traditional festivals started, post-World War
Two, an essential component of this ‗encounter‘ with what was ‗new‘ was their
international qualification, and the latter was used and understood as a sign of
distinction. The Biennale, with its inception at the turn of the 20th century is among
those we could call the precursors of the contemporary, post-traditional festivals (the
oldest probably the Bayreuth Festival that started in 1876). They became a
phenomenon in the second half of the 20th century, which is when most of the now
major festivals were established (Edinburgh, Avignon, Vienna) as well as the
European Festival association (1954). To this day, ‗international‘ remains by default
associated with artistic quality, whereas the ‗local‘ components tend to be justified
more in terms of community, out-reach, social objectives. Today however,
‗international‘ is by no means a sufficient mark of distinction or ‗alternative‘, as the
national level has lost part of its hegemonic grip on cultural life. ‗Encounter‘ with the
new remains central, but is now complemented by something else, some other inter-,
especially inter-disciplinary and inter-cultural (or ‗foreign, first, foreign‘ according to
the Brighton festival programmer‘s formula).
At the same time, the very idea of ‗new‘ has been somewhat undermined by instant
global communication. As we have seen, many of the key festival actors are well
aware of – or even more, they are part of – a global public sphere, although global
does not imply an equal covering of all four corners of the worlds and all the
stratified layers of the different locales. Instead, global means fragmented and
polycentric, whilst at the same time characterized by circulation and repetition of the
same contents (artists, shows, exhibitions, new genres and experimentations).
Because of this, and seen from the outside, framing festivals within the increasing
commercialisation of the public sphere is not sufficient. Indeed, we have observed
(see D.1.1 in particular) how in the limited social science literature on festival this
critique is part of a mainstream vision based on dichotomies – such as mere
entertainment vs. critical, avant-garde art; commercialisation vs. authenticity or, even
more general, economic vs. aesthetic – that typically puts contemporary festival on
the ‗negative‘ side of the divide, so that if they are not considered for their economic
returns, they are mostly dismissed. Now, if we want to avoid these dismissive
289
This is referred here to the representation of the audience that informs the key producers (organisers,
directors, artists) choices and rationales, as it is formed by their own means of observation, that sometimes do
include festival‘s own survey on publics, but is also often based on a quite direct relationship with at least the
most vocal part of the public (such as the Festival Friends association). Although not statistically representative,
our focus group with audience results confirms this picture.
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mainstream accounts that see contemporary festivals in terms of what they lack
compared to their forebears, and therefore fail to consider them as equally significant
in cultural terms, we need to elaborate more nuanced and focused conceptual tools.
In particular to overcome the narrative of lost grace from a culture debating to a
culture consuming public sphere, of which festivals would be a prime example, we
can introduce the notion of cultural public sphere,290 that allows for a more complex
conceptualisation of cultural change and its political and social significance. In
terms of the cultural public sphere festivals are not described by those dichotomies
and shifts, or rather they are places and times where their opposite poles find an
unstable yet dynamic equilibrium. This is based on discursive neutralisation and
practical juxtaposition, which are at the basis of the festival experience as encounter.
They practically juxtapose the contradictory elements and in that create an aesthetic
solution (‗the proof is in the pudding‘ the organizers said – it may seem impossible in
theory, but it works in practice if you simply do it). This is also discursively justified
through an aesthetics where openness, innovation, hybridity, change are constitutive
and not subsequent of cultural identity or specificity.
So why do festivals seem to hold so many paradoxes together? Because they perform
a solution. That solution is not, and cannot be, a political-ethical one, and as such it is
not detected by the idea of ‗culture debating public sphere‘ based on rational
argumentation. By focusing on dimensions of experience other than rationalargumentative debate—namely, on affective and aesthetic dimensions instead—the
idea of the cultural public sphere is better positioned to interpret urban, contemporary
festival experience as characterized by festive sociability and aesthetic
cosmopolitanism.
290
G. Delanty, L. Giorgi and M. Sassatelli (eds.) Arts festivals and the cultural public sphere, London:
Routledge, forthcoming. See in particular Sassatelli‘s contribution for the notions of festive sociability and
aesthetic cosmopolitanism.
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12
Brighton (& Hove) and its Festival
Monica Sassatelli
Brighton Festival is the biggest in England (second to Edinburgh in the UK), has an
articulate structure made of several ‗festivals‘ within, it is officially ‗international‘
and aspires to showcase exceptional work. It has, in short, many characters of
exceptionality and singularity. Still, it is a good example to study ideal-typical
contemporary urban mixed arts festivals: a medium sized seaside town or city
wanting to regenerate itself, an active city council and a socio-demographic situation
varied and wide enough to stimulate ‗fringe‘ mobilization and to provide a
responsive local audience. The festival rush that many observers have detected in
recent decades sees many cities with similar ingredients and circumstances, although
not always with equally successful results. Established in 1967 and therefore
approaching its 45th anniversary, Brighton is among the well established European
festivals, although its reputation remains mainly local and national (as many
indicators, from audience to media coverage, confirm).
As festivals go, nearly half a century is a respectable longevity that allows for
traditions to be established as well as observable changes and shifts at various levels
as also shown by the Wiener Festwochen. The historical trajectory can indeed be
interpreted, as we have seen (see the historical analysis in Deliverable 2.1) as a
succession of three types of festival: from the didactic festival of the first decades—
whose rationale was a top-down ‗democratisation‘ of the arts, bringing the great art
to the people of Brighton, with an educational purpose and style—to the organic
festival of the mid 1980s and early 1990s—with a remit of place specificity, urban
impact and engagement of the local artistic grassroots—to the more recent
entertaining festival with the predominance of flagship events, glossy brochures and
emphasis on ‗fun‘. Whilst this classification provides a useful periodization that
situates Brighton festival in particular within urban cultural policies (and analogous
shifts therein) and prepares the ground for interpreting the current phase (yet
unnamed), as it is based mainly on archive research and data previously available, it
does not go a long way into answering our guiding questions on the cultural
significance of festivals; questions that are on a different plane from those of
mainstream cultural policy analysis or, even more, impact research. As we shall see
also from the analysis of the present situation in what follows, typical traits of
festivals that have been highlighted and found here confirmation include
professionalization, forms of standardization, and so on; yet there are aspects that
tend to escape exclusively organisational analysis as well as an exclusively cultural
one. What follows is thus an effort to combine them (following our Methodology
detailed in D 1.1, chapter 2) in order to unpack Brighton festival‘s cultural
significance in a complex field of cultural production and consumption. We will look
at organization and finance (section 1), role of directors and networks (section 2), the
composition and role of the audience, in relation to cultural policy rationales as well
as to the local embeddedness of the festival (section 3). We will then move on to
tease out the Festival‘s representation strategies (section 4), concentrating in
particular on the issue of ‗indicators‘ of cultural exchange and cosmopolitan
dispositions (section 5). In all sections the issue at stake will be looked at from a
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variety of perspectives, that of festivals directors, artists, policy makes, media, the
audience as well as our own perspective as participant observers.
This richness of data has been obtained through a diversified research methodology.
In particular, in terms of how our methodological framework translated in actual
research techniques, this chapter draws on case study research based on multiple
sources, notably interviews, observation, documents and focus groups. Starting in
autumn 2008 and up to early 2010 I have interviewed 18 key informants 291 within the
festival including past and present festival directors, programmers, festival managers,
artists (local and international), policy makers (city council and arts council), private
sponsors. The observation was conducted during the 2009 festival and covered a
range of single events (14) across different genres, venues, ticketed and free events,
as well as multiple visits to ongoing exhibitions and festival‘s key sites (such as the
festival‘s club). This was used to collect fieldwork notes as well as for informal
conversations with members of the audience. Documents include festival
programmes (past issues of which have been a key source for the historical analysis,
see Deliverable 2.2), websites, media clippings, other festival‘s own documents (e.g.
end of year statements and other publicly accessible documents), secondary literature
(including grey literature and festival own reports). Focus groups were conducted in
May 2009; although full results have been reported separately, the main insights
impacting on the research result are included in this report. The research focus has
been on the official, programmed festival however the Fringe festival has also been
included, precisely as ‗fringe of‘ (I have attended some events and sites, interviewed
the director, operation manager and an artist). In what follows reference to Brighton
Festival, or simply BF, mainly indicates the official festival; any specific reference to
the Fringe is clearly spelled out.
12.1
Organization and finances: (Brighton) festivals mean business (only?)
Since 2000 the British Arts Festivals Association has periodically published reports
titled Festivals Mean Business. The gist of these is well synthetised in the foreword
to the third edition, by the then chairman of BAFA and director of the Brighton
Festival, Nick Dodds, who stresses how the report show festivals to be ‗sustainable
businesses…generating revenue from a wide range of sources‘. Indeed festivals seem
to have taken onto themselves the onus to prove above all their economic worth,
whether to the detriment of a less clearly defined cultural value or because the latter
is taken for granted is difficult to say. This brief foreword however has a distinctively
managerial approach: it talks repeatedly of ‗new work‘ and ‗creative sector‘, whilst
‗artistic life‘ and ‗cultural scene‘ are mentioned in passing. In Brighton this
approach—that sits squarely within a general trend in local cultural policies across
Europe since the 1980s promoting culture-led regeneration—is embodied in a recent
report, that is the main source of evidence I am referred to whenever I ask questions
about impact or finances. This is the 2004 Everyone Benefits report, commissioned
by the Brighton Festival to the local marketing research company Sussex Arts
291
In 15 interviews, two of which were collective ones. All interviews were face to face, recorded and
transcribed. In a few cases the interviewees asked to see the questions in advance, or to have a copy of the
transcript. See the list of interviewees in the Appendix.
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Marketing, that is also the yearly provider of marketing research and audience
profiling for the festival. This report presents jointly results for the Brighton Festival
and its Fringe, without giving separate figures (something defined ‗controversial‘ by
a Fringe festival member). The key figures given (in Pounds) are:
20 Million ‗overall economic impact‘
1 Million Box office
1,1 Million public funding (500.000 by Brighton and Hove City Council,
400,000 by Arts Council South East, and 200,000 of other public sector
investment)
1 Million of press coverage
This tripartite budget structure of box office, public funding and sponsorships, each
contributing about one third ideally, is still today at the basis of the festival, and the
answer the BF manager gives when I ask about the budget ( ―I mean, in very, very
simple terms, it tends to come down to thirds. So we get one third from Arts Council
and City Council, one third from private sponsorship and one third from ticket
income, that‘s in very simple terms is how the income is broken down…‖). The
guiding principle of festivals as ‗sustainable businesses‘ also means that revenues
and expenditures have to meet, and each Department (Marketing, Sponsorship,
Events management) works to target. Public funding is set in advance and it is a
known figure, whereas sponsorships and box office have to be raised each year. In
fact, the figure of private sponsorship is difficult to pin down, as an important
dimension of if are the media sponsors292 or ‗Media partners‘ (the Guardian
nationally and, locally, the Argus) that as we have seen is estimated as worth 1
Million pounds, excluding cash sponsorships.293
The early 2000s have been years of expansion that translated also in
institutionalisation and professionalization (a similar phase was experienced in the
mid 1980s). These processes are clearly reflected in the organizational structure.
Started, as most festivals, with very little permanent staff and virtually no
headquarters (as an initiative of the city council itself), the BF is today a major
institution, managing year-long the main cultural venues in town (the Dome arts
complex), the freeholder (owner) of which is the Brighton and Hove City Council. In
fact, it is not any more just the festival, but an organization called Brighton Dome
292
Currently the other major sponsor contributing in excess of £50,000 are American Express and Southern. It is
interesting to note that sponsors tend not to be in the cultural sector, but rather, in the words of the BF manager
‗local corporate big businesses‘.
293
The latest published data of overall income and expenditure for the Brighton Dome and Festival refer to 2008
and are, respectively 7 Million Pounds (of which 2.68 of grants and donations, that is mainly public funding) and
8 Million Pounds. From the Arts Council website we know that from them: ―Brighton Dome and Festival will
receive £921,622 in 2008/2009, £1,071,506 in 2009/2010 and £972,062 in 2010/2011.‖ In the ‗Fast Forward
Report‘ of 2007 (by Sussex Arts Marketing) the percentages for the company in 2005/2006 were indicated as
Grant Income 34%, Ticket Income 31%, Other Earned Income 35% (Including bars, sponsorship, hires and
conferences). Figures for the Festival are given separately in the charity‘s Annual Report and Accounts for 2008
(and published by the Charity commission, www.charity-commission.gov.uk). Here the Festival income is
composed as follows: £703,000 from Brighton and Hove City Council, £487,000 from Arts Council, (other
grants, £42,000; Donations Trusts and Foundations £95,000), for a total funding of £1,3 million (it was £1.1 in
2007), £605,000 from sponsorships, £640,000 from ticket sale. For the Brighton Festival Fringe, also a registered
charity, overall expenditure and income are, respectively 252,000 and 265,000 Pounds for 2008 (income includes
small grants from the Arts Council, City Council and Brighton Festival).
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and Festival. Currently, the Dome and Festival employs 76 permanent and 200
casual staff as well as, especially during festival time, volunteers. Permanent
employees dedicated to the Festival are mainly administrative and organizative roles,
whereas the programme advisors, or ‗programmers‘ are, and have traditionally been,
free-lance experts for specific genres (there are six programmers, most of which have
held their place for 15-20 years: literature, classic music, music and dance, theatre,
family programme, children. Currently theatre is under the remit of the chief
executive). This dual structure makes it somewhat difficult to clearly separate the
Festival from the permanent structure in financial or organizational terms—however
that was precisely the rationale in creating such a structure, so that the Festival could
benefit from a stable organization. In the words of a former director, joining Dome
and Festival
made a huge, huge difference, both creatively, to have the means of
production if you like in your hands, but also organisationally, to have a
big enough company around you to be able to really take the Festival
from quite a low level to something much bigger [BF former director 2].
This organization is a charity (a non-profit organization) ‗which is a standard model
for many British Festivals‘[BF former director 2]. As a charity the Brighton Dome
and Festival has both a management structure, led by the Chief Executive and
Festival director, and a Board of Trustees, with the role of overseeing the financial
and strategic plans. The Fringe too, that only separated as a totally independent
organization in 2006, has a similar structure.
in Britain, I think there‘s always a very—and this is true of all boards—I
think there‘s always a very clear distinction between the board and board
members looking after sort of governance arrangement and agreeing on
strategic direction, whereas the chief executive and her or his officers are
involved in the operational planning. And, so board members never got
involved, as far as I know, with those sort of artistic issues [BF former
board member].
Given that the Festival was from the outset an initiative of local public institutions
pushed by a few individuals (‗like all festivals it started with, you know, a strong
passion by a small number of people really‘[BF former director 1]) and has grown to
be the most important element of the local cultural policy (see Section 3) it is not
surprising that these are involved in the Festival in a number of ways. If we consider
for instance the local universities, these are not only regular sponsors, but also
provide venues (Sussex University‘s Gardner Centre was for many years a key
venue, before closing down in 2006. It is due to re-open in time for the University‘s
50th celebrations in 2011-12 as Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, in honour
of Lord Attenborough, who interestingly has been both the University‘s Chancellor
and the Festival‘s President. According to some, its closure is at least partially linked
to the re-opening of the Dome as a year-round venue), members of the Board of
trustees, performers. In the City Council, the person charged to monitor the Festival
is also ‗seconded‘ as its outdoor events programmer. Formal and informal ties
definitely contribute to the sense of ownership between the Festival and the city. This
seems to have been a constant of the Festival‘s history, and has not really been
affected by the festival‘s growth or professionalisation. Also the type of relationship
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that the festival builds with the sponsors is one of involvement, and at the same time
feeling of belonging to a selected, special group:
part of the sponsorship is that there, there‘s a, a big main event being
held in the, the, the palace itself and we got two tickets for that as part of
our sponsorship deal and it‘s like a black-tie do, I think, and the
Philharmonic Orchestra is going to be there […] Two extremely senior
people are going to go to that event. We‘re having our own main event
for our main sponsorship event for Antony and the Johnsons. We‘ve set it
up, so we‘ve bought 30 tickets to the event for a competition for BUPA
International which also links in with our branch in Copenhagen and the
night of that event, we‘ve got, we‘ve got our own private room which is
our VIP room for the people to come to first to have drinks. [BF sponsor]
Embeddedness by no means implies that the festival equally reaches (and is ‗owned
by‘) all sectors of society (see Section 3), but it does mean that it is something
audience are likely to talk about as their own.294 And that they are likely to adopt the
festival‘s current general self-representation and rationale. For instance, even some
of the people I spoke to in the audience mentioned the economic value of the festival;
a graduate met at the ‗Creative Brighton debate‘ precisely referred to the fact that the
Festival ‗generates several millions in the economy‘—something that made her
conclude that maybe the festival was more ‗commercial‘ than ‗cosmopolitan‘. These
issues will be discussed later, but it is worth noting how questions of organization
and finances are inextricably linked to the other aspects under consideration. Indeed,
going back to the starting point on the role of economic regeneration, there are signs
that things may be changing at a fundamental, general level. In the ‗corporate
strategy‘ released in 2009 the Festival director refers to a recent national report that
is at the basis of the Arts Council new guidelines on ‗excellence‘ in the arts:
Only a year on from Sir Brian McMaster‘s seminal report (and its
implicit challenge) we are faced with an entirely changed economic
environment. Yet the legacy of more than a decade of significant cultural
investment happily finds our leaders and our communities with a
renewed commitment to the arts: a belief in their ability to stimulate
understanding, to be a catalyst for regeneration and social change; and
ultimately a belief in the arts‘ intrinsic value.295
After years of repeating the mantra of arts-led regeneration (indeed, recalled here
too), the fact that professionals can call ‗ultimately‘ for a consideration of ‗arts‘
intrinsic value‘ may indicate, if not a return to ‗art for art‘s sake‘ or committed
highbrow approaches per se, a clear turn towards a new (and at the same time old)
direction. It certainly indicates, are we are going to discover and analyze in the
sections that follow (in particular 3 and 4) that the balance of different rationales—
economic, social/political, artistic—remain one of the key stakes of festivals.
294
This was particularly evident in the Focus groups, the participants being self-selected and therefore mostly
very committed festival goers, and a couple of people formerly or currently involved in the Board of Trustees.
295
Andrew Comben, BF director, foreword to the Brigthon Dome and Festival Corporate Strategy, published in
2009 and available at issuu.com/brightondomeandfestival/docs/bdflcorporatestrategy). The Mc Master report can
be found at www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/publications/3577.aspx.
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12.2
Directors and networks
As we have seen in the historical analysis, Brighton festival‘s trajectory is in many
respects a function of its directors. This is a circular relationship, rather than a simple
causal one, because as pointed by a former BF director, festival directors and thus
festival styles are chosen on the basis of what the ‗spirit of the age‘ is:
Brighton wants to have an open, easily accessible festival. If you said, we
want to be a festival of, let‘s say contemporary classical music only, I
think the authorities would say, that doesn‘t really fit Brighton and so we
might not want to give the money for that, and so they would have the
influence for that, but as the ultimate, I was going to say, they don‘t own
it, but as one of the very key stakeholders in, in the Festival, they make
sure that they hired the right people who had the same feelings about the
way that festivals should be going as well, you know? So, it‘s quite a
subtle influence, but we altogether felt that it was important that Brighton
had a broad, open, accessible, inclusive type of festival [BF former
director 2].
Indeed in Brighton the festival directors have always been professional managers if
you like, as opposed to entrepreneurs owning the festival (which is connected to the
fact that the ownership, practical and symbolic, stayed always with the city itself).
This is typical of festivals that are public rather than private initiatives, although they
might become private organizations. What has tended to vary, according partly to
individual personalities but mostly to intentional choice and the type of ‗subtle
influence‘ the previous quote talks about (or as the City Council representative put it
‗[the festival] changes depending on who‘s at the helm I think, and I think who‘s at
the helm reflects the needs of the organization to a certain extent as well‘), is the
ratio between managerial and artistic directorship, or between a chief executive role
and an (artistic) director role. As the Festival manager put it ‗it depends on the chief
executive that you‘ve got, because some of them concentrate on systems and fund
raising and some of them like to concentrate on the artistic side, so it depends on the
individual chief executive that you‘ve got‘. In Brighton the recent years of institution
building (and Dome refurbishing) have meant a major emphasis on the
organizational aspects; when this is the case, when the director identifies more with
his/hers function as chief executive, it is the genre programmers that become de facto
sub-directors (in Brighton so much so that, when the chief executive left in 2008, the
theatre programmer became the ad interim director for that year before the
appointment of a new one). What programmers and directors offer is expertise, of
course, and networks.
I mean, they [programmers] are obviously they‘re always going to see
stuff, they‘re always having work sent to them by artists that, you know,
are keen to get work presented, and because that‘s their job, because they
are programmers, they‘re always out there looking for stuff and looking
for companies that they are interested in working with for the future, and
so they, for this year, they‘ve been given the guidance by our chief
executive, so they know in the back of their mind where, which direction
they need to go in, and then because of the experience of all their years
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doing this job, they‘ve either got companies that they know will fit that
bill or they‘ll be going out there looking for companies that will fit the
bill that we‘re trying to, to make really [BF manager].
There is thus also a circular relationship between professional networks and festivals:
festivals draw on networks (also in practical terms of touring artists doing the
festivals season in spring-summer), but also networks, once established, look for new
outlets for the artists and events they promote, so they look for new festivals—as a
former director said of the first one, Ian Hunter, ―He had artists whom he wanted to
book, so he was building a circuit for his agency‖ [BF former director 1]. With the
current director, that started in 2008 and had his first festival in 2009, the balance of
managerial and artistic directorship is a much more explicitly addressed issue:
There are two types of arts managers, I think, and one is purely artistic
and some then are purely business and you often see a joint partnership
of executive director and artistic director. I happen to think that the two
go hand in hand, really, and making an artistic choice is also making a
business choice related to the audience, related to the market, related to
ticket pricing, all those kinds of things have to come into it. So, that‘s the
way my mind works but it‘s not necessarily right for everybody. So, you
know, I… It‘s a very long winded answer but, I think, Chief Executive,
Artistic Director, I don‘t mind what the title is, really, but I see it all as
part of one whole [BF Director].
The artistic director is, tendentially, much more a ‗public face‘, somebody that
people in the public may relate to, whereas the names and identity of programmers
and managing directors are something that tends to concern a very small part of the
audience—people in the cultural sector (although this is certainly disproportionately
represented, in excess, in Brighton, see Section 3), members of the friends
associations (that receive letters and newsletters signed by Festival people). The idea
of the guest artistic director launched in 2009 thus works towards giving the festival
a signature, literally and metaphorically. At the same time, although the guest
director brings a thematic focus, this is less restrictive and limiting than a festival
theme as such. Themes had been a key element in the festival identity, especially in
the first decades: they are seen internally as a sign of the director style. They had
been abandoned in the mid 1990s, and whilst most people seem to think of them as
limiting and burdensome, others thought that they could provide a good stimulus for
creativity.
The programmer making this comment also elaborated providing a perceptive,
almost apologetic but also self-affirming account of the work of the programmers in
the Brighton festival:
What we are is actually, we are more, more, I hate... I don‘t like to say
this, but we‘re more like an artist really. I think we‘re a very, very
creative department. What we do is we look at the palette and we have
ideas and we create things off that palette. And sometimes that palette is
an inspired individual like the guy who does these shows. He walks in
the door and you‘re thinking what can I do with him? And there‘s
something, you know, but it‘s our ideas that will... Like we‘ve got
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Shakespeare à la Carte for example, I mean that‘s just got its first gig in
Europe. It‘s off now, but that was just from out of this department
thinking, trying to put things together. Which I think is how an artist
works. I think we‘re a very, very creative little team. And it can seem
quite maverick. Andrew [Comben] he celebrates that, I think he gets us, I
think he understands that if he lets us have our head we actually will be
to the common good of the festival. And we will respect the world that he
wants the festival to sit in. And actually we‘re an advantage for that, you
know. So he‘s by far the most exciting director we‘ve got, we‘ve ever
had, you know. And that brings its own challenges because in a way
we‘ve just been having fun for years. And now we have to have fun but
in a little bit more serious way and with a little bit more international
perspective, I guess, you know. [BF family programmer]
If the festival director/programmer is an artist, the artwork is the festival itself one
should say. Indeed members of the festival, especially those in programming
positions talk of the programme in terms that resonate of how artists talk of their
works (the ‗palette‘, the skilful combination of different elements, the creativity).
More than one interviewee among the festival staff also noted how the best ideas for
the festivals are the ideas that develop within it, ideas that programmers have and
decide to commission or co-commission. These not only tend to be the biggest
projects (also in financial terms) but also those that help giving the Festival an
identity, both locally but also globally (‗if we co-commission a work with somebody
else, it‘s very important for us for them to be going off to other festivals, so they are
branding the Brighton festival, for example, is, is then seen at Sydney festival in
Australia‘[BF manager], on the issue of cultural prestige see below Section 4). In
order to go deeper we should address one by one the issues that, starting from the
more organizational and practical ones, we have gradually seen emerge: the
connection to place—even place branding--,the way the audience is composed and
conceived, issues of creativity and in general of festival rationale and value
commitment as reflected in representation strategies: these we address in the next
two sections.
12.3
Local embeddedness, audience and cultural policies
I think what‘s really interesting about the model of the Brighton Festival,
something that‘s evolved out of it, is that projects that start there as an
element of the festival become festivals in their own right, as well, and
they tend to be the ones that are very, sort of, embedded, locally [City
council representative].
This comment by the City council Arts manager (and officer in charge of the
Brighton festival) is interesting in that it shows how issues of the festival‘s local
embeddedness, cultural policy and, as we shall see, audience are closely linked. This
is so not only from the perspective of the local authority, clearly interested, as its
official continued, in giving to the local cultural sector the possibility to grow and
become independent as well as develop new, local audiences, but it is a position that
has been a constant finding. An indication of the major role of place specificity in
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this case is the fact that two interviewees used the metaphor of ecology, the city‘s
cultural ecology and the festival ecology:
Say you have an ecology in a pond, like you have the water and you have
the insect life and you have the plant life and you have the air and all
those things kind of work together, whereas if you take that into culture,
you‘ve got the site, you‘ve got the people, you‘ve got artists, you‘ve got
economy, you‘ve got all of those things and they all kind of work
together. So in Brighton, for example, we have lots of creative industries.
We have a big dance economy. We have a lot of visual arts people. We
also have a lot of people who are performers and all of those things kind
of fit together into the city and then you get this kind of external factor
coming in, all these artists and companies who are from outside and it‘s
how the two sort of mesh. [Local marketing researcher]
Because it is seen as an ecology, most interviewees tend not to want to disentangle
Brighton and the festival, or especially to establish a causal relationship, but rather
tend to see a circular one. If place specificity in cultural policies (and industries)
comes up mainly in terms of ‗brand‘ and branding, this circular relationship is
demonstrated by the fact that branding the Brighton festival and the city of Brighton
seem to go hand in hand. Talking about the city profile as reflected in media
coverage, the local marketing researcher just quoted remarked that ‗the festival is
actually developing the recognition of the Brighton brand. So that‘s a very important
part of its activity‘. This goes a long way to explain the involvement of the local
authorities as well as the overall perspective of the Board of trustees, that is supposed
to represent the local civil society, and also possible divergences with the motivation
of the Arts council.
In fact, in terms of governance and cultural policy, the trustees‘ most important job is
arguably the selection of the chief executive, and someone even commented that if
they get that right, their work is done. The City council has a voting member, whilst
the Arts council is only an observer. Through sitting at the Board meetings, both
organizations constantly monitor the developments in the Festival, and both the City
council representative and the Arts council representative described a ‗working
relationship‘ made of frequent contacts between key people, exchange of ideas (and
drafts documents), in short a ‗partnership‘ rather than a top-down relationship. They
are jointly committed to the Festival (the grant from one depends on the grant from
the other, and they are decided for three years periods), and they mutually recognize
they different agendas: arts oriented for the Arts council and directly linked to
national politics and policies, tied to local politics and therefore to the promotion of
local community for the City council (―if it‘s Arts Council, it would be national set
priorities. If it‘s Brighton and Hove council it will be whatever kind of political
colour you‘re on at the moment.‖ [Local marketing researcher]. Both institutions
have different indicators, or even ‗deliverables‘ that the festival has to meet, or show
its contribution to. For the Arts council these are directly linked to national
guidelines and are thus an expression of the national policy; but also the City council
is part of the network of local authorities that ultimately respond to national ones. So,
if the Arts council is now following its new guidelines that have five core indicators
(engagement, diversity, excellence, innovation and reach), the City council has a
‗local area agreement‘ with the national government to measure its activities, and
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among the 35 indicator they have to choose, National Indicator 11, which Brighton
and Hove signed up for is ‗Engagement in the arts‘.296 These indicators are therefore
passed on, more or less directly, to the festival to ‗tick the box‘—an expression often
used to describe the type of condition attached to public funding, as this short
passage shows: ‗Yes, so sometimes I think they felt that, you know, they‘d given us
quite a small amount of money but they felt that then they could, I think they felt that
they could tick a lot of boxes via us.‘ [BF children‘s literature programmer]. At the
same time, these indicators are quite flexible and a matter of self-assessment and
self-presentation: ‗I think, it [BF] would always have enough capacity in it to adapt
to any indicator, actually. Really, the cleverness is to say, yes, we can do, we can tick
that box with this, we can tick that box with this, you know? And it doesn‘t really
affect its core proposition. It‘s a very clever game‘ [Local marketing researcher].
Still, there is a general agreement that local authorities, or private sponsors, do not
interfere with the artistic side of things, because ‗you can‘t design festivals by
committee‘ [City council representative].
Given its local community remit and its own need to report nationally, the City
Council is particularly interested in audience indicators (having also been recently
satisfied about economic impact ones). For the Arts council too however, audience
can provide measure for a number of their priorities. Not surprisingly therefore after
economic impact, data on audience and audience targets are the most publicised
outcomes of the Brighton festivals. And, judged from the audience distribution (as
published in 2007 in the Fast Forward Report), the Brighton festival is mainly a
local one, with 56% of attendees coming from Brighton and Hove, and 38% from the
South East and London, leaving only a remaining 6% for further afield and abroad.
The Festival profiles its audience, and, according to statistics by the Festival Fringe
40% are from the so-called ‗urban intelligence‘ (according to the marketing profile
classification used by both main and fringe Festival).297 This socio-demographic
cluster – within a ‗Mosaic‘ of 11 groups defined in 2003 by Experian, the consumer
research and credit rating agency, and then widely used in marketing research by
both private and public organizations in the UK--mostly contains 'young, well
educated and open to new ideas and influences. They are cosmopolitan in their tastes
and liberal in their social attitudes ', they typically read the Guardian (the Festival
media partner) and have an intense social and cultural life. Interestingly, whilst this
group represents the 7.19 % of the national population, in Brighton and Hove they
are the 31% and the biggest single group. Although Experian has now abandoned
this classification in the new Mosaic published in 2009, this data was proudly
mentioned to me by a few interviewees, and it is part of the new Brighton Dome and
Festival Corporate Strategy also published in 2009. Indeed the latter says that they
aim to ―reach 35% of the mosaic ‗Urban Intelligence‘ population in the city as ticket
buyers or participants.‖ Other audience development target include ‗reach one in four
296
These were set up in June 2008. ―NI 11 measures the percentage of adults in a LA who have either attended an
arts event or participated in an arts activity at least three times in the past 12 months. Engagement must be for
leisure purposes.‖ In Brighton and Hove the estimated baseline (on a sample of 2000 interviews) was 61.2%, by
far the highest of the municipalities that signed up (the second being Wokingham with 49.9%). See DCMS,
National Indicators 9, 10 and 11: Baselines for local authorities Statistical release, 2008,
www.culture.gov.uk/images/research/National_Indicators.pdf
297
The information reported here is as inferred from interviews and documents. It was not possible to obtain
more comprehensive data on the profile results from their marketing research from the main Brighton Festival.
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households in the city as ticket buyers or participants‘ (is was one in six in the 2007
report), reach further afield than currently and ‗reflect the city‘s diversity profile‘
(the data that 5.4% of the city‘s population are white non-British and 5.1% of the
population are non-white is reported). So, at least at the level of targets, there seems
to be an attempt to combine increased participation by underrepresented sectors of
population, with a clear focus on also increasing the already overrepresented upper
strata, those that are supposedly more interested in excellence (‗urban intelligence‘
people are supposed to ‗value authenticity over veneer, and have a sophisticated
understanding of brand values‘).
The balance of local and non-local in the audience (and in particular international),
and how this combines with striving for both excellence and social aims, is even
more crucial, and more obviously seen as a critical area, on the side of production –
that is of the composition of the artists taking part in the festivals – where again
artistic and managerial issues meet (or clash, depending on the views). Here is a
quite explicit quote from a former Brighton festival director:
But I do like to stress the point that the strength of Brighton, culturally,
lies with the people who do things. But one of Brighton‘s dilemmas,
almost, is that on the one hand it‘s a City where people make things
happen, while on the other the public in Brighton expect the best from
outside to be delivered. Now this was a tension I found at the outset, and
is a feature of British cultural life as a whole. Sir Thomas Beecham once
said: Why do we have to have all these third-rate composers from
overseas, when we‘ve got so many second-rate ones of our own?‘ This,
in a sense, is Brighton‘s problem. Why do we have to have here
‗national‘ or ‗international‘ events when we‘ve got so many remarkable
people working within the City? My involvement with, my ‗brokerage‘
of, the Festival began in 1967 when I was part of a fringe, itself almost a
protest movement, saying: ‗Why can‘t the people of Brighton play some
real, not peripheral, part in the Festival?‘298
The ‗balance‘ of local and international is key and clearly a subject of explicit
reflection today too:
I think there is a paradox and there is a tension there [between relying on
the local community or the international stars], but I think, you know, I
don‘t think it‘s too much of an issue. I think it‘s only an issue when you
think about it in terms of, sort of, theoretically, because, actually, it does
work, you know, and that‘s the proof of the pudding, really, in a way. It
does seem to work. In terms of the perception of local people, I think that
might be, that might be different. I‘m sure that there are people who only
engage with the festival through the Children's Parade, for example and
won‘t go to see the international work, but the fact that they sit alongside
each other in a brochure and underneath an artistic vision, I think is very
important. So it‘s actually, it really doesn‘t matter if, you know, if the
perception of a particular person doesn‘t understand it, because it does
298
Gavin Henderson, in the booklet of interviews with Open Houses artists Making waves available at
http://www.fivewaysartists.com/group.php?view=books.
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work, you know, and it does sit alongside each other [City council
representative]
In this balance, local stands for community or social value and international for
‗excellence‘ or artistic value, (‗striving for those international profile to improve the
excellence of the programme‘) and they tend to be paired with the Fringe and the
main festival respectively. Even in the new corporate strategy, whilst one objective is
to ‗build relationships with four artists or companies based in Brighton & Hove and
the South East region‘ this is with a view of ‗reflecting the particular diversity of the
city‘ and ‗develop their artistic ambition‘, rather the other way around, as is the case
of international stars that brought in to raise the artistic profile of the festival.
Although most interviewees want to avoid these simple binary schemes, and indeed
‗tension and paradox‘ may be the more accurate description, in the last instance the
international work is justified for its excellence or artistic value, the local work for its
‗community‘ or social value. The discursive solution is that of ‗excellence for all‘,
the driving force of the new Arts council guidelines. This entails going back to the
idea of promoting high-quality art as an end it itself, without also going back to the
elitism that used to accompany it and that had been therefore contrasted, in the last
few decades, with a strong emphasis on non-artistic objectives, economic and social
ones in particular (and, more covertly, political). Certainly ‗quality‘ and ‗excellence‘
were the criteria most often mentioned (within economic constraints). But it was also
recognized that these may clash with other criteria, and in particular, that there has
long been a debate on the ‗elitist‘ (or not) character of the festival. Most interviewees
absolved the Festival of the ‗sin‘ of elitism, but at the same time were eager to stress
the importance of ‗raising the profile‘ of the festival. Again, that these aspects can
combine rather than clash is a matter of interpretation of every single edition, if not
show, of the festival. It may be that, as one of the interviewees quoted says, it is very
difficult in theory, but in practice it works (or not) – so that it not possible to say –
without making the critique as ideological as its target, whether ‗excellence for all‘ is
achievable, wishful thinking or false consciousness. Still, it is interesting to see what
type of representations and arguments are put forward to make things ‗work‘.
12.4
Representations
So, what is the Brighton festival rationale, presently? Different people will give
different answers, as many interviewees stressed, but it is important to assess the
festival‘s own representation as well as what can be considered the dominant ‗public
image‘ of the festival, through the eyes of key actors within it. This is what then
constitutes the representation against which others have to position themselves and
see themselves as ‗alternatives‘. Indeed, the image of the Brighton festival is
remarkably consistent across the different types of interviewees and documents.
There are a few recurring themes, that take almost the form of a syllogism (and
therefore reinforce each other):
Festivals are risk-taking, mind-expanding experiences, culturally but also
socially
Brighton is an eccentric, ‗cosmopolitan‘, risk-taking city
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Brighton and Brighton festival correspond to each-other, are part of one
‗brand‘
In a way, a proper syllogism would have concluded ‗therefore Brighton is a festival‘,
which is in part what many people half-jokingly imply, when they stress Brighton‘s
association with seaside holidays, and before that with the Prince Regent seaside
retreat in the 19th century (‗Brighton‘s history as a place of pleasure rather than a
place of industry‘ [BF director]). In particular the ‗risk-taking‘ element is interesting
as I found it in every type of data and from very different sources: it is not only one
of the keywords in the Arts council guidelines, but also of the Brighton Festival itself
(in the new Corporate strategy one of the audience targets is to ‗encourage increased
cross artform attendance and audience risk-taking across the programme‘. And the
audience have been responsive: risk taking, ‗edgy‘ and ‗cutting edge‘, were among
the expression often used by the participants of the focus groups, as well as – looking
again from the point of view of the people making the festivals, by most of the
interviewees. Risk-taking is interesting because it presupposes, on the part of the
audience, a degree of trust in the festival itself. This was quite clearly expressed in
the focus group: you would go to a show you would not normally have chosen
because you trust the festival, because in fact you go to the festival, rather than to
single events. That does not mean that the audience undersigns automatically the
festival choices, they often criticise them and are in fact, very vocal – being mainly a
local audience they have easy access to the organisers, and often use that possibility,
especially the members of the Festival Friends association. It does mean however
that they ‗own‘ the festival, which is also what entitles them to criticize it.
From an artistic point of view, ‗risk-taking‘ seems to be taking the form of
interdisciplinary work, and of ‗breaking boundaries‘ also between high- and lowforms of art. This is a topic we will encounter also in the following section (because
inter-disciplinarity and inter-culturality appear connected), but it is particularly
relevant to understand the festival‘s value commitment. The guest artistic director for
2010 is particularly explicit about this intention to break boundaries, disciplinary in
this case more than ethnic: it‘s the musician Brian Eno, that has been writing articles
in the press about ‗global governance‘ and has been, in his work, very interested in
mixing genres as well as ‗levels‘, questioning the high/low culture distinction, and
that writes in his introduction to the Brighton festival programme: ‗My feeling is that
culture is an ecology of ideas – and just as we wouldn‘t imagine a biological ecology
where horses where seen as ‗important‘ and goats as ‗trivial‘, nor should we do the
same thing with art.[…] whether my attention is engaged by the most ‗profound‘ fine
art or the most ‗trivial‘ pop, I want to acknowledge and take seriously the
engagement‘, concluding that his aim for the Festival is ‗keeping the mind open and
awake and clear of boundaries and snobberies‘.
It would be all too easy to criticize the disingenuous nature of this stance – to keep
the metaphor, it might be the case that in a hypothetical state of nature, goats and
horses are equal, but it is certain that in our human (Western) world, they are part of
a cultural hierarchy, where horses are important and goats trivial, as in fact their
representation in the visual arts quite clearly demonstrates – but at the same time it is
clear that the intention here is precisely to defy a dominant classification with a new
one (recurring to the usual trope of appealing to the ‗natural‘ realm). But what is the
new classification that allows selection to be made in the festival? The organizational
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fusion of the Festival with the permanent programme in the Dome, has in a way
made it even more necessary to clearly identify what is specific of the festival, and
what are the specific criteria of selection. The features indicated by most
interviewees (among those with an influence on the programme) are, in three words
first, foreign, festive. An event for the festival, as opposed to the regular programme,
should have at least one of these components making it special: be a premiere at
some level, coming from abroad, be particularly ‗festive‘. This emerged in particular
in the interview with two programmers, in an exchange that is worth quoting directly,
also for the interaction between the two:
[BF Family programmer]: You know, on the computer shows come in all
the time. People are sending shows, we know without a second‘s thought
whether it‘s a festival show or a Dome show.
Question: Okay, how?
[Laughter]
[BF Family programmer]: That‘s what I‘m wondering. I don‘t even have
to think about it I just say, oh festival...
[BF Children‘s literature programmer]: No, you do. No you do have to
think about it, because sometimes that‘s not, that‘s slightly, you know.
Because often the discussion isn‘t whether about you think this is quite a
nice show, but actually maybe that‘s better for the Dome. But I think for
the festival they have to be a bit more innovative, they have to be more of
a one-off. They have to be a bit more special. Because and not so much
part of a tour that‘s going to.
[BF Family programmer]: Yeah, it has to be the start of the tour.
Sometimes you think this is a festival show but only if we get if first. We
do say that.
[ description of a specific past event, lots of overtalking]
[BF Children‘s literature programmer]: That‘s how the international
works work. Apart from it being really good quality. It is, it‘s got that
specialness that the festival; the idea of something that you wouldn‘t, sort
of, go to Norwich or Cambridge or something and see. You know, you
see something special or particular to Brighton, this particular festival.
[BF Family programmer]: But you can also make something into a
festival show. […]
[BF Children‘s literature programmer]:
You can make things more
special.
[BF Family programmer]: Make things more special.
Question
So it has to be special to be...
[BF Family programmer]: Yeah, unusual; first, foreign. First, foreign
and I need an F, yeah. […] Festive, yeah.
As we have seen, it is the programme itself becomes the main ‗work‘ presented, the
programme as a whole needs to have an integrity, that is what makes the festival
meaningful. It is presented as a creative process, although it is recognized that it is
the result of compromise and opportunities as well, and of collaborative work. And
this is important, because as it becomes clear that a programme‘s integrity needs
collective understanding, then also the audience‘s understanding is potentially
relevant, as they may read in the festival something that was actually not
intentionally there, and that is part of what makes the festival experience. Artistic and
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political aspects meet, because the artistic experience provided by the festival is seen
as facilitating forms of culturally active engagement that, at least potentially, spillover to other realms. In fact, if we consider the coding of my research data, I didn‘t
use the two codes ‗Arts‘ and ‗Politics and Democracy‘ very often. Interestingly
though they where mostly paired, because those who actually spoke in those general
terms, tended to combine them and see the connections between the two. Here are
two revealing passages from interviews, both from BF directors (current and former):
I mean, again, I think every Festival will change, for me, every Festival
will change except that there is, at the basis of it, I think, and something
that‘s consistent year on year, or I hope will be consistent year on year, is
that this particular community has something quite special to contribute
to a wider national and international debate about the importance of
culture in a social and political context. Which I suppose is quite
grandiose but it‘s the thought that a three week festival is a unique
opportunity to actually explore ideas about who we are and what we‘re
doing here and how we organise ourselves, and by that I mean socially
and politically and that that‘s a much better way often of having and
starting those discussions, because they no longer are, I suppose,
paradoxically, those discussions stop being abstract, they stop being
about the process of political organisation, they stop being within the
realm of Government or, you know, TV, yes, exactly and [unclear]. They
start to be between real people about real things about the way they feel
and the arts, fundamentally, I believe, express it better than anything else,
what it is to be human and how fallible and how changeable and how we
can improve as a society. [BF Director]
So, you know, the Festival made a mark; it did make statements. It was
making statements all the time about changing the nature of the town,
trying to bring the partnership with Hove together, you know. For
heaven‘s sake, whilst we were trying to express about a united Europe
culturally we were having real difficulty in expressing a united Brighton
and Hove [BF former director]
The second quote is interesting also because it introduces another theme that has
been quite marginal, quantitatively – it very rarely emerged unprompted in
interviews – but displays many valences. The former director was certainly
particularly interested in a European dimension – he had been president of the
European Festival Association, of which during his time Brighton festival was a
member, and had a thematic festival, in 1990 on ‗Curtain up: The New Europe‘ (to
which the last quote is referring), but also the current one sees it in a number of
ways:
I‘ve already referred to the position of Brighton geographically being
quite important to me and that for this country it‘s on the edge of Europe
and I see that as an important connection, you know, we‘re as close to
France as we are to other areas of the UK. So, there‘s one level at which
it‘s kind of intellectually and artistically interesting. There‘s then the
more important for me, as a programmer, level of involvement with
European festivals that we are playing on a European field of artistic
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endeavour so that many of the artists that I‘m most interested in are
actually German, Austrian, Eastern European to some extent and
Spanish, just off the top of my head. Then our engagement with Europe
as a, you know, on a political level. I don‘t know how much we as a
Festival engage on that but where we are important I think is in bringing
to what could otherwise be a fairly insular, I hesitate to say culture,
because there are many different cultures within the UK but also within
Brighton and Hove as well but that said, I think, in bringing European
practice to Brighton we raise levels of ambition, we also raise
understanding and awareness of current European thinking and I‘m not
sure that there are many channels to do that in England at the moment.
So, yes, is the short answer. I see us as an important connection…[BF
director]
A more ‗intimist‘, but at the same time revealing of what forms of Europeanization
may be affecting daily workings of organisations as well as strategic decision, is
found in the following description:
I think – yeah, this is quite personal really – when I was at the Arts
council they sent me across to the Council of Europe to speak and I...
Sitting in the Council of Europe with all these people who were doing a
similar job, sort of, arts officers from all over the world, and it was the
first time that I understood that I was European. And it was an amazing
feeling of pride, you know. Suddenly thinking, you know... And I think
that we‘re not, as a festival, paying attention, enough attention to the
possibilities that that world would open up to us in terms of thinking, you
know, and ideas. So I think it might slightly be off, just what shows
should be put on and shall we share it and, you know, could it come to
France and then to us? I think there‘s, there‘s... I mean, I just found it the
most incredibly mind-expanding experience. […] I mean I suppose it was
just, it was just a big mental breakthrough for me that there were people
thinking alike, people thinking differently, but we were all European.
And there are... Our job, Holland‘s job was to make people think
differently in this context. And I think in the course of the weekend I
hope we contributed a bit to changes in thought and certainly people gave
us pause for thought. And I think we‘re not sitting enough in that arena
but maybe we are and it‘s happening at Andrew [director] level. But it
would be good if it happened at the programmers‘. [BF Family
programmer]
From here, from the British Isles, ‗European‘ is still seen in terms of cultural
exchange, and this as we shall see impacts on how a more broadly, or globally,
conceived cultural exchange is commented on.
12.5
Cultural encounters
The first aspect to remark about the issue of cultural encounters or cultural exchange
and in general cosmopolitan attitudes and transnational identities, is that they nearly
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never emerged unprompted in interviews, or figure centre stage in documents.
However once the prompt (question) is introduced they tended to be represented as a
matter of fact, taken for granted, and this was also put forward as an explanation,
almost a justification for their not being voiced in the first place. In this case, it is a
good exercise to look at some of the more interesting answer to the direct question on
whether the interviewee thought Brighton festival to be important for cultural
exchange:
For sure and this, of course, was behind the very first ideas of
international festivals, even in the 19th Century, you know. If you want to
go back to imperial festivals or exhibitions, the idea that we would
somehow experience other cultures and know what it was to live on the
other side of the world. And I think that is important, it‘s differently
important today and I think what is important is how we live in a
globalised society and it‘s less… I suppose, in short, festivals in previous
decades, I suppose, have run the risk of being a freak show from other
exotic parts of the world. Exotic is probably a better word, if you know
what I mean. And I think that is a real danger that… Of course, cross
cultural exchange is really important but particularly in Britain we run
the risk of being very close to imperialism if we‘re not careful. And I say
this as an Australian so, I come from a colonial background but, yes, so
I‘m more interested in the problems of now that seem to present
themselves which is… We all know we‘re in a very much more
connected world and it‘s much easier to see and experience every one
else‘s current problems and situations. But, do we care anymore about
those by being able to see them or are we still immune by our
geography? […] Where‘s the connection that we make as human beings
and is culture a way of making a person to person connection that would
then created heightened awareness of someone‘s situation? So, if an
audience was to see an African piece of theatre, would they suddenly
become much more aware, caring, interested, fascinated about that
culture and those people from that culture and would we then see a
change in the way people choose their, not just news, but, you know,
their information and things? So, I‘m interested… Well, I don‘t know the
answer; I‘m interested in the role of the Festival in that sense and so, you
know…[BF director]
It just brings in a lot of people, opens up people‘s minds a bit more to do
artistic, different things. People go and see things that they wouldn‘t
necessarily go and see [BF sponsor]
Yes, definitely. [laughter] Going to a festival is much more like a cultural
event, like meeting people that are, that are engaged in, in cultural work
and, and from, from different countries and do exchange in the work that
we do. And this is a big part of it, and that‘s a very important part, I
think, going to a festival [Artist].
Even in the Fringe festival, that allegedly is more about grassroots and local
community once prompted this is presented as obviously the case. However it also
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introduces a critical point about the nature of Brighton as a city that I then found
repeated in quite a few other cases:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it‘s commented on a lot. I think, you know,
although we have a... still a relatively small proportion of people from
outside Brighton, the people that do come, come from Africa, America,
Australia, lots of other parts of Europe. And I think there is a cultural mix
there. […] Brighton‘s a funny place when it comes to multi-culturalism, I
find. I think it‘s a very white place. So there‘s not a huge amount of
people who live in Brighton from Africa, particularly, or the Caribbean.
But it is... there are a lot of people from Europe; a lot of people who
reside in Brighton, a lot of these people are proportionally higher than
you would expect to find in this size of city; from France, particularly, I
find. Italy, Scandinavia, etc. So you find that there‘s quite a cosmopolitan
feeling in Brighton but there‘s not a multi-cultural feeling so much. And I
think, in the fringe, there‘s an opportunity to maybe add a little bit more
multi-culturalism. [Fringe director]
So cosmopolitan, a notion that here emerged unprompted, is contrasted with multicultural, and as such, as the interviewee continued, is seen as ‗that kind of
metropolitan, sort of, Western Europe cosmopolitanism‘, that is what one finds in a
small city like Brighton as opposed to the big multicultural cities in the UK like
London or Birmingham with large populations from Bangladesh, West Africa, and so
on (but as we have seen similar comments were made also for the Venice Biennale).
This is a point made in similar way by the Family programmer in the main festival
I think people like to think of it [Brighton] as a cosmopolitan city. I think
that Brighton‘s main problem is it‘s so white. And I think it‘s a real... It
doesn‘t... I mean they‘re having, you know, spent many years working
West London I really miss, and certainly sending children to school in
Brighton I felt it was a real lack that it‘s such an incredibly white area.
You know, although we pretend that there‘s students at the university
that make it you know... I find it difficult to use the word cosmopolitan in
a completely white society, which if you look out the street we more or
less are. I think cosmopolitan means more of a world-mix actually.
Indeed, the people that accepted the definition of Brighton and the Festival as
cosmopolitan seemed to do so more on the basis of a quite superficial, life-style
cosmopolitanism (‗I mean, Brighton‘s cosmopolitan anyway. […] It‘s, it‘s, it‘s
trendy. It‘s, it‘s got a, a huge mix of people right across the spectrum. You know,
you, you‘ve got your professional work force, you‘ve got people at university, you
have artists - it‘s, it‘s quite a media. […] You could walk down the street naked and
no-one would bat an eyelid, no-one would care. […] You can go out and everyone is
just nice, polite, friendly and fun. Yeah, and it, it, that, that‘s to me what
cosmopolitan is, you know‘ [BF sponsor]. Another interviewee, from the fringe,
related being cosmopolitan to adopting ‗ that kind of European sort of streets and
café cultures‘). But also for those that have a more critical view of what
cosmopolitan may mean and therefore of Brighton‘s claim to it, to be cosmopolitan
is positive and one of the festival desirable contribution, even if maybe just
potentially or aspirationally so rather than in actual fact. Moreover, under the label of
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‗cultural differences and exchange‘ not only difference based on ethnically different
cultures, but also different ‗types‘ of culture as linked, for instance, to different
artistic genres: the festival‘s specificity as a festival is in fact seen as providing
‗exposure to all sorts of cultural currents that you don‘t, you know, you don‘t see
otherwise […] Things that they wouldn‘t normally see could mean work from other
cultures, work from other artists that are not usually…work from other disciplines,
cross-disciplinary work, all these elements adding together‘ [Local marketing
researcher].
Certainly, from the point of view of the programme, the majority of international
artists come from Europe (and some may be now resident in the UK). This has been
historically also the case and it is also confirmed by the researcher who does the
Marketing research for the festival (‗I think we‘d be safe saying, the majority of
artists came from within the EU‘). And although there have been moment in the
history of the festival when more emphasis was given to active collaboration
between ‗different‘‘ artist (culturally different in terms of origin, but also artistic
genre, status), this element is well present in recent editions too, with particularly so
in the 2009 Festival thanks to the introduction of Anish Kapoor as guest artistic
director and what that implied in terms of both interdisciplinarity (being a visual
artist curating a mainly performative arts festival) and interculturality – although
Kapoor is, obviously, a key figure in the UK and indeed global, art world. Still, it
was to him that many interviewees referred me as an example of cosmopolitan in the
festival, as somebody that has totally bypassed his national affiliations in all respects.
Breaking boundaries is, as we have seen, also the standpoint of the 2010 artistic
director Brian Eno. And many of the events that do use a discourse of cultural
exchange, if not cosmopolitanism explicitly, do so on the basis of forms of
collaboration as well as claiming to provide a certain type of experience for the
audience. So, a classical concert is transfigured by being twinned with the work of
Kapoor, so that ‗Rossini meets Anish Kapoor in a cross-cultural homage to Joan of
Arc‘ as we could read in the description of Rossini‘s Giovanna d‘Arco at the Old
Market. Or the way in which the City College explained its sponsoring of a festival
event: ‗It‘s a real coup to have Orquesta Aragón coming to Brighton and the College
is honoured to be associated with such a wonderful event. I always feel that Brighton
Festival perfectly encapsulates the cosmopolitan nature of the city which the College
is also proud to reflect in the friendly, multicultural community we have here.‘
We have seen already how, considering the audience, the festival is far from popular
or democratic in a literal sense of proportionally reflecting the population
composition, still its values are about reaching diversity and promoting an open
attitude, this is clearly something that is more easily and perceptibly achieved in the
free, outdoor events, fringe and main. At the same time, it was not only
uncomfortable for me as an observer to try and ‗measure‘ the cultural diversity of the
festival – what relevance could have had, for instance, me pettily counting members
of the audience according to whether ‗white‘ or ‗other‘ – but also pointed out by
more than one member of the audience accosted by me. As we were chatting about
festivals and cultural difference, a lady I was watching the Children parade with for a
while said that of course festivals promote cultural diversity, but then again ‗how to
you assess cultural diversity, apart from telling white and black. And Brighton is
very white‘. From both interviews and observation emerged the difficulty in finding
proper cultural indicators for these issues, that is indicators able to qualitatively
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account for experiences of artistic nature, that have thus an important non-cognitive,
aesthetic, affective and playful dimension. This difficulty was expressed clearly also
in the focus groups with members of the Brighton festival audience. The theme of
diversity and social encounter emerged spontaneously in the discussion; it was only
when prompted that this was also expressed in terms of intercultural encounter and
diversity of cultures. Here too, the comments were generally positive, however the
discussion brought to the fore the fact that Brighton‘s self presentation as a
cosmopolitan city is not really matched by the actual demographic composition of
the city. The fundamental idea at the basis seemed to be, that given that the festival is
a time for taking cultural risk, this also spilled over somehow to taking social risk:
‗you get people of all different ages mixing and I think that‘s fantastic, people who
again wouldn‘t normally talk to people, you end up talking to‘ said one participant,
and another joined in ‗Certainly lots of mingling there. We haven‘t talked about, one
of you talked about the food thing. You are cheek by jowl with people. You will talk
and interact and mingle […] in terms of strangers in queues or ticket lines or waiting
to buy ice creams or programmes, or anything and you see everybody‘s different
experiences. The networking is terrific‘.
12.6
Conclusion
The current phase of Brighton festival could be defined as one of Festivals d‘auteur,
taking this expression from the world of cinema: the festival itself becomes an
artform, with emphasis on the individual creator. This is the artistic director, and to a
lesser extent the single programmers. Although this means a claim of inspired
creativity as an integrating force that transcends constraints and has a strong
individual identity (often closely linked to the person of the Director as auteur), a
quite opposite trend is also at play. As creativity shifts to the curatorial component,
chains of collaboration and compromises among different agendas, priorities and
constraints become more explicitly recognized as integral part of an artistic process
(that is, more than in the classic image of the artist working in genial isolation). The
coherence of the programme, what holds it together as that element of ineffable unity
that is precisely what likens it to a work of art is also a product of a chain of
collaboration of which an important element is interpretation itself, that coherence is
not self evident, needs to be understood. This assigns a constitutive role to reception,
acknowledging that audience recreate it in their interpretations, and there is a
perception that the Festival is ‗owned‘ by festival goers.
Interestingly, coherence may still be sought through themes, but in a more
postmodern, fragmented way: unlike in earlier years (especially the late 1980s and
eraly 1990s) where themes where quite specific and informing a whole Festival,
today they are partial and allow for other themes to sit alongside. In particular, with
the new format of having a guest artistic director, the latter becomes the theme, more
like a possible interpretative thread that sometimes emerges more prominently
(especially fo course in the group of events that are effectively signed by him) and
sometimes is left in the background.
At the same time, because these guest artistic directors are fleeting figures that only
stay for one edition (and only for the actual festival time), they themselves have to
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adapt to the festival‘s identity, rather then the other way around. This strenghtens the
festival as brand, and as a brand that, in this case, is also a place brand: Festival and
city branding go hand in hand, practically and symbolically.
Appendix. List of interviewees
BF former director 1
BF former director 2
BF director
BF manager
BFF director
BFF manager
Artist 1
Artist 2
BF family programmer, BF children‘s literature programmer (collective
interview)
City council representative
Arts council representative
Local marketing researcher
BF former board member
BF sponsor
Danish festival organiser/ City council 1, 2, 3 (collective interview)
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13
Venice Biennale, Biennale’s Venice
Monica Sassatelli
La Biennale di Venezia, Venice Biennale: this is a name that everyone in the art
world knows, and many more outside it. The first of its kind in the visual arts, it
created a genre and exported the ‗Biennale‘ brand (that is fact often used in the
original Italian). As its 53rd edition of the Art exhibition was due to open in 2009, the
Sunday Times in an article in the culture supplement on summer cultural events home
(UK) and abroad listed the Biennale among the unmissable ones, being the
‗Olympics of art and its World Cup, with the Cannes festival thrown in. Anyone with
the tiniest interest in modern art has to see it‘ (Sunday Times 4/1/2009, p. 13).
Ironically, the Biennale actually pre-dates all the mega-events cited as model (and
Cannes in particular is the arch-rival of the older Venetian Mostra).
First of its kind, the Biennale was in many senses an obvious choice of case-study,
even if as an extreme, rather than ‗average‘ or typical case. Indeed, many of the
characters of mixed arts urban festivals are found in the Biennale in a particularly
explicit – sometimes particularly critical – form: the balance of the different genres
and creation of a coherent identity, the link with the city that hosts it, the progressive
institutionalisation, the multilayered structure of claims and agendas that use the
Biennale, the role among a particularly European festival field (the Biennale was
among the founders of the European Festival Association). From the beginning the
Biennale started as a much bigger event than many urban festivals, in line with
Venice‘s position in the cultural (and tourist) circuit, but still in its history one finds
as it is often the case the personal initiative of charismatic founders and then a rapid
institutionalisation (see D 2.1). Today the Biennale is a major festival institution,
even more so since 2009 when the historical headquarters on the Canal Grande at
Ca‘ Giustinian (a stone‘s throw from Piazza San Marco) have been reinstated after
restoration and include not only all offices but also exhibition spaces, a café and a
bookshop. Activities include the Art and Architecture Biennales, as well as the
Dance, Music, Theatre and Cinema festivals (most of which are yearly events) and
the Historical Archives.299
As a major cultural establishment, it is a key contentious object in national as well as
local policies; it is so however for different reasons and with different means at the
international level, where it remains above all an ‗unmissable event‘. But whilst the
historical primacy is granted, the Biennale has to strife continuously to maintain a
primacy in the contemporary art world, as many more contenders – some young ones
with strong reputation to be at the forefront of avant-garde – continue to pop up.
There is not only the several sectors contributing to a complex picture – and the
specific reputation and legitimacy of the Biennale is different in Dance, Theatre, Art,
etc. – but also the fact that each of these subworlds has become more and more
multifaceted and so is the relation with a wider cultural public sphere. As we have
299
Art was established in 1895 and will have in 2011 its 54th edition; Music was established in 1930 (in 2010 the
54 edition), Cinema in 1932 (67th edition in 2010), Theatre in 1934 (40th edition in 2009), Architecture in1980
(12th Biennale in 2010), Dance in 1999 (in 2010 is the 7th festival). The Historical Archives were established in
1928.
th
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seen in the historical overview (see D 2.1) from the beginning the Biennale fulfilled
different functions for different public spheres, at different times, however today that
plurality is increasingly true, recognized and even valued. More than in other cases
(but this is in some measure the case for all festivals, and cultural objects in general)
the perspectives are thus multiple and the research task is precisely to unveil the
leading one but also the spaces opened up by this multiplicity itself (without
assuming that this means an equally distributed access and participation).
This is what the multidimensional method adopted in the Euro-festival project aimed
to achieve. The results are presented in this chapter, structured in thematic sections
that look at organisation and finance (section 1), and role of directors and networks
(section 2) to start with. Local embeddedness, cultural policy and audience are
addressed together as they are interconnected at several levels (section 3), whereas
one section is devoted to the Biennale representation strategies and value
commitments in general (section 4) and one specifically to issues of cosmopolitan
orientations (section 5). The case study approach implies that for each area or theme,
several types of data are available, tapping into a diversity of perspectives in
different contexts. In particular data come from expert interviews, document analysis
and fieldwork observation. Interviews were carried between autumn 2008 and
autumn 2009: the 21 interviewees300 include current artistic directors (music, theatre
and dance), general director and a senior manager, artists, curators, policy makers
(regional council), local experts (variously involved with parts of the Biennale, but
from outside). It was not possible to interview sponsors, and representative of local
authorities (city council) and national authorities were not available either. The
observation was conducted at different moments reflecting the Biennale‘s own
complex calendar as well as its own management and presentation classification.301
In the late summer and autumn 2008 Architecture and ‗DMT‘ sectors (performing
arts: Dance, Music, Theatre) were covered, whilst Art was attended in summer 2009.
For visual arts, I have attended the main exhibitions several times in a few days or
going back after a few weeks; a sample of collateral free events were also attended.
For DMT I have attended shows and concerts (ticketed and free), workshops and
talks. This was used to collect fieldwork notes as well as for informal conversations
with a few more curators, artists (especially available during the press-preview days
in the visual arts) and members of the audience. Documents cover a wide typology,
from the festivals programmes and Biennales catalogues to the wealth of magazines,
leaflets and brochures distributes at the sites, from some of Biennale‘ own documents
(financial report, statute) to secondary literature (more or less ‗grey literature‘ or
published), from the official website and relevant links, to media clippings.
300
19 interviews have been conducted; one was collective (3 respondents). Except for one that was
conducted via email after several failed attempts in person, they were all face-to-face, tape recorded
and then transcribed. The majority were in Italian, but several were in English and one in French.
They lasted between 30 minutes and nearly two hours. See the list of interviewees in the Appendix.
301
The Venice Biennale‘s film festival (Mostra del Cinema) was not object of specific interviews or
observation as it is part of J. Segal‘s study of film festivals (see his chapter in this report).
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13.1
Organization and finance
The Biennale is a major cultural institution in Italy, still it is quite small, with 53
members of staff (in 2007; compared, within our case studies for example, to 75 of
the Brighton Dome and Festival). Organizationally it changed many times, or more
correctly it seems to be in a state of constant reform. The first major change was the
nationalisation in 1930, under Fascist rule, that cut the relationship with the local
institutions and society to exploit for national(istic) agendas in a way that was never
to be totally recovered. Then in 1973 a new statute was adopted, but it was only in
1998 that the Biennale became a private, non profit entity, and finally in 2004 a
‗Foundation‘. This is organized, like most non profit institutions, in a governing body
–the Board, presided by a full-time president and composed of representatives of
local and national institutions302 – and then a management structure. The latter is
divided in the sectors covered by the Biennale, and in particular in visual arts (Art
and Architecture), performing arts or DMT (Dance, Music, Theatre), Cinema and
Historical archives: for each there are managers and other personnel including press
officers. There are also some common services, among which administration ones.
Then, beside this permanent structure, there are the sectors artistic directors, who are
appointed for one or more years: in the visual arts, each Biennale tends to have a new
director, whilst in DMT and Cinema directors tend to cover longer periods and
several annual festivals. In DMT in particular this has in recent years been
instrumental in the development of permanent and research activities, with
workshops, conferences and other activities outside festival time.
Financially, the model to which the new Foundation takes inspiration is, as one can
read in its website (in 2008): ‗that of the US cultural sector, in which 30% of the
budget comes from private sponsorships and payments, 30% from its own earnings,
30% from public contributions and 10% from receipts from the increase in assets‘.
Considering that, up to the 1990s, public funding covered up to 90%303 it is not
surprising that this has been so far only partially achieved, and the Biennale remains
mainly funded by public institutions, notably national ones. Since becoming a private
entity the organisation‘s accounts have been healthy, with a deficit only in 2002. The
overall assets and liabilities are, from 2007 data, around 70 million Euro304, whilst the
income statement around 33 million. Of these about 20 million come from public
funding: most of these are ‗ordinary funds‘ from mainly national government and
Veneto Region granted yearly, but there are also one-off contributions, these can
come from different public bodies, Italian and otherwise for specific events 305.
Together ticket office, royalties and sponsorships income add up to 11.5 million
302
Currently the Board is so composed: President, Paolo Baratta; Vice-President, Giorgio Orsoni, Mayor of
Venice (since 2010); Representative of the Region Veneto Franco Miracco; representative of the Province of
Venice, Amerigo Restucci; representative of the national government, Giuliano da Empoli. There is also an
Auditors' Committee and a General Director, Andrea Del Mercato.
303
M. Vecco, La Biennale di Venezia, Documenta di Kassel, Milano, Angeli, 2002, pp. 82-113.
304
I have data for 2006 and 2007: the ‗stato patrimoniale‘ (assets and liabilities) are 69.6 million Euro for 2007
and 71.8 million Euro for 2006; the ‗conto economico‘ (income statement) for 2007 reported an income of 32.156
million Euro with a surplus against cost of 340.691 Euro. In the income statements some regular structural public
(national, regional and provincial) funding earmarked for the upkeep of the real estate is not included.
305
The 2007 and 2006 budget included small grants from the EU, Venice Chamber of Commerce, Venice City
Council, Australian Council, region Sicily and Region Campania.
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Euro. Here too the difference among the different sectors is clear, with Art and
Cinema having the Lion‘s share, in terms both of budget and audience (see also
section 3).
The relationship among the different sectors at the Biennale is not an anodyne topic.
Indeed I almost ruined the interview with the Director General by asking, as one of
the first questions, about this relationship, ‗given the external impression of
separation‘ was my phrasing. The reaction was immediate and strong, to deny any
‗separation‘: ‗we have a logo that does everything to demonstrate it, to the detriment
of the name to show the totality of our initiatives. Our square, in fact, if it does
something …if you put in on the vertical is the Biennale... precisely to recover unity.
I assure you that also in methodological terms, operative unity, in procedures exists‘
[VB General director]. Of course, the clue is in the word ‗recover‘, and the fact that
the perception persists of separate entities – as later in the interview the Director
himself noted that many people still do not see the Cinema festival as part of the
Biennale. Although distorted this perception has a root in an aspect that is there,
more so than in other mixed arts festivals: the fact that there are different audiences,
as the Director himself conceded ‗Obviously, each [sector] has to promote … each
has its own sectoral public, this is undeniable.‘ Others too have noted this, and artists
often showed to know little of the Biennale beyond their art form. As a result intersectoral exchange remains precisely this, exchanges among otherwise quite separate
parts:
there are more or less structured occasions, also because, there is a, how
to say… to the openings of events all the directors are invited and this is
already a real occasion to meet. Then we have other moments of
dialogue, of discussion, that are also linked to the presentation of events,
so the meetings we hold in venues, with different countires, with the
press. There are many ways. […] Then there is the common sector of the
accumulation of the historic memory of our activities, the Archives and
that therefore makes everyone reflect on the accumulation of knowledge
and history of the activities that have been held, and that typically sees
everyone sitting at one table [VB General director].
Interestingly, this aspect can be linked to the measure in which the Biennale
commissions works as opposed to presents works produced elsewhere – something
that would allow for more interdisciplinary work in the opinion of the (less
defensive) Director of the Historical Archives. For him this is the crux of the matter
and it is strictly linked to the financial situation as well as, as he calls it, to the
institutional instability, the continual turnover within the Biennale burocracy:
The frequent turnover at the top creates a series of problems of the
institute stability, for the creation of its, of an internal staff, of an internal
burocracy. Even with privatizaton we have witnessed a great
transformation of the organizative structure and of its modes of
expression, but also a pronounced weakness caused by this frequent
change. [VB Historical Archives director].
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Indeed, around the Biennale‘s centennial at the turn of the 21st century institutional
conferences and ‗working days‘ were organized to reflect on the history and future of
the Biennale. In the proceedings or the most recent held in 2007, involved authorities
are quite explicit about the fact that ‗today the Biennale is witnessing a true crisis‘,
seeing a sign of this in the fact that ‗it does not manage to conclude, with dignity, the
rite of passage from one presidency to another‘ (Veneto Region president306).
13.2
Directors and networks
So what has happened is that, whilst historically the Biennale had a very
cultivated internal staff, and thus a very efficient organization […]
progressively since the 1970s and 1980s in particular the cultural
presence inside the Biennale structure has impoverished […] Now, in the
last decade I really think this trend has been inverted, but not with a
renewal at the cultural level, but at the organizative level. That is, today
in Biennale there are structures, there are officers of great competence in
administration and management. A new burocracy is being formed, really
interesting and qualified, but totally devoid of cultural references. So,
there is an organizative structure, not a cultural one, the latter is totally
delegated to the directors of the art sectors, that are by necessity non
permanent features [VB Historical Archives director].
Although certainly this analysis would not go uncontested, it is a good insight into
why the institutional configuration of the Biennale, in Italy, is indeed a contested
topic – only a distant echo of which reaches the international debate. Instead, in Italy
debate around the Biennale always tend to gravitate around issues of nominations
and ‗poltrone‘ (chairs or posts), and how they are politically ‗lottizzate‘
(apportioned). Cultural questions too are often related and dependent on these,
something that is seem by some as an indication that ‗the level of the debate is very
low‘ (often blaming journalists for that) but that others, such as the interviewee just
quoted, see more as unavoidable reality. However some see this dual structure –
permanent staff with organizative excellence and ‗out-sourced‘ artistic/cultural
leadership – as a plus:
306
In Loading. Una nave pirata per immginare la Biennale di Venezia del terzo millennio, 1895-2007 (bilingual
texts, Italian and English), 2008, Venezia, Motta Architettura, p. 8
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It is an extraordinary institution that follows an extraordinary concept,
that of serving an idea. That is, as soon as the Biennale espouses a
curatorial text, there is a mini army of fifty people that, from the
President to the last of the employees, moves as one towards that idea.
And this, on its own, is experimental and it is quite extraordinary that it is
a public body doing it. Because it is a brave act; if the chosen person
makes a huge mistake, then everything is taken down… So I have to say
it is a very brave institution, experimental, on a whole unique, certainly
in Italy [Artist visual arts].
Although this is a position that is more likely held by people from outside the
Biennale (and that still perceive it as a ‗public body‘), the three artistic directors
interviewed (DMT) all declared total independence in artistic choices and support
from the Biennale, also in cases of open conflict – such as the recent episode of
attempted censorship from religious authorities against a dance event. These
attempts, however, are far from isolate cases, and are clearly felt from inside the
organization. A typical object of interference is on the issue of the ratio of local, and
in particular Italian, artists. An official of the Biennale stressed that it is a choice of
the artistic director, to consider or not national (or otherwise) origin in the selection
of artists. However, he also quoted a press release from the Ministry of culture of a
few days before our interview, that ‗hoped‘ that there would be ‗a lot of Italy‘ in the
next Cinema Festival: ‗So, instead of hoping that there will be important contents, he
hopes, in a totally acritical way, that there is a lot of Italy. One cannot certainly agree
with such an attitude. It is almost a menace. The Minister determines funding so…‘
[VB DMT manager]. Old themes, and old tactics, seem therefore to be still at play,
tracing a field where the role of directors is certainly not fulfilled in a vacuum.
Networks too are both a resource and a constraint, and they seem to be mainly
personal, rather than institutional ones, as a few quotations from different interviews
show:
[A festival] it‘s different things. So it‘s to show what you have done and,
just talking about the market, it‘s also that people from other countries,
for example, they can come here to see the festival and to think about
their own programme for the next year. So of course there is some
combination and the people are in contact with each other [Artist Music
4]
Apart of the case of the International Federation of Cinema Festivals,
which is international, I‘d say there are no other structured networks,
structured dialogues. Still, we have dialogues, sometimes bilateral
dialogues, with other Biennials, with other subjects that ask for
information, and we do the same with them. A more or less structured
form of comparative analysis. This happens, but not within institutional
networks, I‘d say. Apart from the cinema one, that after all doesn‘t really
have that as an objective, that of a constant comparison, but rather that of
a clearing house at an overall international level, in order to assure, or
better avoid, overlapping and so on. [VB General director].
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I sense it, I can feel it when it arrives [Biennale time], because it is easy,
you immediately realise, these threads are effectively there. There are
those people you find in airports, that speak, that you see, that you find
again in museums, in particular places in the world, in the various
Biennials, and they communicate. They read those books, those journals
and bring… and here [in Venice] there is a meeting point, because it is,
undoubtedly a city that was born for this [Veneto Region representative]
Whilst the idea of ‗global networks‘ suggests openness and plurality, or even an
equal coverage of the world, this seems hardly the case when looking at the actual
programmes: centres and peripheries can still be recognized (see section 4) and
networks, with their global yet personal reach, still function as gatekeepers:
Now, there is this African photographer that won the Golden Lion. What
they say is that this is somebody from deepest Africa, postcolonial
Africa, that photography has been one of the most used mediums, as
shown by a series of recent exibitions, that also show how he has been
extremely active in increasing the importance of photography in the
continent etc. His career mainly took place in a small studio in one of the
busiest streets of Bamako, capital of Mali, he has been the portrait artist
of his city and nation etc. Now, he wins the prize and makes a thank you
speech. And thanks a lady that gave him her personal jet to come from
Africa to Venice. Now, how come there is a lady that lends her jet to the
artist photographer? I think this is a signal, unmistakeable, of the fact that
the this little black man was actually at the centre of a system of social
and commercial relationships that made him emerge somehow, isn‘t it?
[VB Historical archives director].
According to the interviewee, that is also a sign that critiques of commercialization
are somewhat misplaced as nothing escapes the market. It certainly seems to confirm
the conclusion of a recent critique of the global art system and its Biennalization, that
‗for the majority outside the magic circle, real barriers still remain. The biennial […]
has, despite its decolonizing and democratic claims, proved still to embody the
traditional power structures of the contemporary Western art world; the only
difference being that ‗Western‘ has quietly been replaced by a new buzzword,
‗global‘.307 The role of place specificity, in its dimension of both audience experience
and cultural policies, is therefore another important factor to consider.
13.3
Local embeddedness, audience and cultural policies
Some of the definitions people involved use for the Biennale indicate a rather
difficult relationship with Venice: ‗object that moves detached from its
surroundings‘, ‗wonderful enclave‘ or even ‗spaceship landing on Venice‘ were
among the expressions used. ‗There is very little involvement of the local population,
that tendentially rather considers it more a nuisance than a real cultural opportunity‘
[Local university professor 1], even when place specificity is considered this seems
307
Chin Tao Wu Biennials without borders?, New Left Review 57: 107-115, 2009.
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to be more in the sense of exploiting ‗Venice as a backdrop rather than for its sociocultural fabric‘ [Local university professor 2]. In terms of audience, data provided by
the Biennale only refers to overall attendance and not to place of residence, although
it is commonly assumed that, especially for Visual arts, a majority would be tourists
from the rest of Europe rather than locals. In the latest annual report, the Art
Biennale 2009 scored its ‗historical record‘ of 375.702 paying visitors, an increase of
17,65% on the previous Biennale of 2007; similarly the 66th Mostra del Cinema sold
55.232 tickets (32% more than 2008).308
If not much can be inferred from these very general visitors data on the
relationship between the Biennale and Venice, this is a topic that
involved people are eager to discuss. Not surprisingly, the official
version tends to stress the positive elements, and in particular many of
the recent changes (activities outside the main festivals, expansion of the
Biennale in the city, reopening of the historical headquarters in the heart
of the centre) are said to aim at a more stable and integrated presence of
the cultural institution. In a way, the relationship of Venice with the
Biennale mirrors that among the different sectors: different people will
have very different ideas of how connected or separated they are. The
organisers stress continuity and synergies, whilst from outside, and for
some artists, is far more problematic, especially because even activities
introduced with the intention to involve the local community can succeed
only to a point, being felt as top-down initiatives. But, regardless of what
each thinks of the actual situation, all agree that Venice and the Biennale
are necessarily linked, almost by a common destiny, in a circular
relationship difficult to disentangle: ‗to be in Venice gives to the
Biennale a strong energy charge. The fact that the Biennale is in Venice
also gives a strong charge to Venice. That is makes Venice even more
communicable, attractive internationally‘ [VB Historical Archives
director].
‗Local embeddedness‘ would seem to convey and it is mostly intended as
correspondence between festival and location, a mutual reinforcement and
celebration. However more subtle or conflictual forms are also at play, that one could
thus miss if looking for celebration or ‗correspondence‘ only. In Venice this emerged
in different forms confirming the love-hate relationship between the city and the
mega-event. Talking in particular of the theatre festival on the theme of the
Mediterranean, one of the artists/curators stressed that the connection with place
should be interpreted not only as continuity with the past and celebration of the
present, but as active critique of the latter and search for innovation, precisely as a
role for a cultural festival: ‗I believe that these moment are the occasion to manifest a
break with traditional artistic logics. Offering new angles and perspectives... in short
anchoring in the past but at the same time always experimenting and innovating. This
is what I think the festival Mediterranean in Venice has achieved: an element of
conjunction but also of denunciation of the current political and cultural structure in
308
These data are less impressive though, when one considers that the very first Art Biennale, in 1895, had
224.327 visitors, and that in the historical trend (with exceptional highs or lows in single years, such as the
historical low in 1942 during the Second World War), attendance has been in average around the 300.000 mark.
See M. Vecco, Cit., pp. 68-71.
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the Mediterranean area.‘ [Artist Theatre 2]. This passage is interesting because it
links place, artistic innovation in art and political engagement, giving much more
depth to the marketing idea of ‗theming‘ that generally surrounds the idea of place
specificity of festivals, and bringing back to the issue of the spaces that festivals
create for debate. Indeed the interview continued saying that he thought this festival
had displayed ‗great modernity and courage, civic and cultural, a moment of
reflection and divulgation, denunciation and critique – that is an artistic work but
also educational‘ (ibid.)
If the public self-presentation of the Biennale is that of a quintessentially cultural
enterprise, the fact that from its very origin it stemmed from an approach of local
cultural policy aiming to instrumentalise culture to the city‘s ‗riqualificazione‘ (or
renegeration) is no secret, most people acknowledge this, although many criticise the
actual outcomes, often on the grounds of the still problematic relationship with the
city and also with the national art world. The international component was from the
beginning part of this strategy, so that the balance between local, national and
international artists has provided issues for debate over the years, as partly already
seen. If information on the place of origin or residence of visitors is not available, it
is instead religiously recorded for participating artists and even journalists. We can
thus tell that the number of press accreditations of foreign journalists have been
substantial from the beginning and recent data shows that if in 1980 the Art Biennale
had 52% of the press being foreign, in 2001 that has risen to 68%.309
Certainly though the most relevant, and most contested data is that about the
participation of foreign artists. In particular in the Art (and Cinema) Biennales this
has been recorded by the Biennale and commented on by scholars. We thus know
that the very first edition, in 1895, 55% or the artists and 64% of the works were
from abroad. Italian presence has since decreased – with the exception of some years,
especially during the Fascist period that favoured national art as propaganda for the
regime – so that, in 2001, those percentage are 91% and 89% respectively. In
general, this progressive scaling down of national artists seems to be a common trend
in other major events of this kind. To take a comparable case in the Visual arts, in
Kassel‘s Documenta the presence of German artists has also become more marginal
in similar measure.310 As we have seen in the historical overview, also in terms of
official national participations (either with a Pavilion in the Giardini or with an
exhibition as collateral event), in the first eleven Biennales an average or 15
countries participated (ranging from 12 to 19), followed by a lower average of 13 in
the Fascist era (ranging from 10 to 23) and to a much higher average of 30 since the
1950s. Each latest edition seems to reach a new record, with, in 2009, 77 Nations
participating (including first-time participations of Montenegro, Principality of
Monaco, Republic of Gabon, Union of Comoros, and United Arab Emirates) – this
not counting the pavilions of entities such as Catalonia, Scotland or Palestina that,
although they perceive themselves as ‗national‘ are ranked with the other ‗collateral
events‘, and not as ‗participating countries‘.
309
310
M. Vecco, Cit., p. 190.
M. Vecco, Cit., pp. 183-4.
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We will come back to the issue of whether this can still be seen as ‗clear evidence of
the existence of a new, solid, cosmopolitan art world‘311 (section 5), but it is
interesting here to look at this from the point of view of cultural policies, audience
and local embeddedness as connected in the so called global age of world-wide
communication technologies. Not only the relationship of cultural policy (and
politics) and local embeddedness is more complex than normally assumed, but also
that between audience (and audience experience) and local embeddedness. Festivals
are about ‗live performances‘, about ‗being there‘ at the right time in the right place.
Even for the visual arts, that stage season-long exhibition (see Box 1), there is an
heightened sense of the importance of the ‗event‘, stressed in Venice by the absolute
fracture between the several days of the opening – with its famous parties,
vernissages, VIP boats floating around the Biennale sites – and the rest of the
exhibition, to the final excitement of the final day when the Biennale is free for the
Venetians, on the day of city‘s fest of the Madonna della Salute (a very much felt,
and one of the less touristy, of Venice‘s celebrations). It is not however because this
experience is live rather than mediated by technologies of reproduction or
transmission, that the development of the latter has not had an impact. As the
Director of the Music sector stressed, the development of means of communication
and transport, and the dramatic transformation that the digital age has created in the
last ten years or so, has impacted heavily on the meaning of the participatory
experience. This has pushed to search for its specificity on the one hand, whilst
giving the possibility to participate in a global public sphere on the other: ‗people
have at least the illusion or perception of being able to have things arriving on their
desk. So, I know that in Berlin there has been that work, that the reviews on all
German newspapers have been great but mediocre on the French ones and the
English ones have torn it apart. I can go on Youtube and probably already see some
bits of that work and have a sense of where the language is going, in what direction‘
[VB Music director]. This empties of meaning the idea of ‗new‘, because everything
is available instantly, so that ‗it is events that go to people and not the other way
around‘. The function of the festival is thus changed – according to both the Music
and the Theatre director – not any more a showcase of novelties it should aim now at
two interrelated objectives: ‗take art back into a wider cultural debate‘ and ‗do
research‘ ‗be a motor of creation and research‘ [VB Music director]. The first one in
particular is elaborated in the sense of impaginare (lay out, paginate), that is
contextualise events in an artistic trajectory and from ‗aesthetic, anthropological,
philosophical, economic, sociological but also ethological an ethical point of view‘.
A key role in this is seen, but more potentially than in practice, in critics and
journalists, that should be able to guide the public into understanding new work in
the context of a genre trajectory – something believed to be particularly important for
contemporary ‗art‘ music ‗that is an UFO for people‘. Instead of simply listing what
is good and what is bad, that would reflect the idea of the festival as a shop list of
events, critics should address the ‗fundamental idea‘ that drives the festival, and
discuss that. We find here the recurrent idea of the programme as a whole that need
to have a coherent core, which is what gives meaning to every single event. These –
given the festival second driving force of experimentation and research – should all
be ‗number zero‘: first of their kind and generating new trends. We find here again a
311
Alloway, L. The Venice Biennale: 1895- 1968, From Salon to Goldfish Bowl, Greenwich: New York Graphic
Society, 1968, p.139. See also D 2.1, chapter on Venice Biennale.
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theme that emerged elsewhere (in particular in Brighton festival), the idea of festivals
as the place for a risk taking audience:
I think the festivals are extremely important for the audience because
often people who don‘t deal with the topic, for example, here the
architecture of the Arsenale, so I think many people don‘t deal really
with architecture. But if they see a festival like this, an architecture
festival, they go inside and they really understand things which are not
just for the experts, but it‘s for everybody. And it‘s the same with the
contemporary music. I think it‘s the only place where people who
normally have a bit of fear to go inside some concerts where they don‘t
know what they have to expect, they will go there. I think that‘s my
experience with the festival. [Artist Music 4]
It is probably in this focus on experimentation and risk-taking (and therefore, refusal
of consolidated traditions), that lies the source of the complex relationship with place
identity (that from those traditions derives at least part of its specificity). What can
make this difficult and unstable equilibrium between local and global, tradition and
innovation work are representations and self-representations that would neutralise the
potential contradiction and find, in discourse and/or practice, a working solution.
Box 1. From my fieldwork notes:
the first day of the Architecture Biennale, on the waterbus. My fieldwork starts on the
vaporetto (waterbus) from the station. It is quite crowded, in front of me using a vaporetto
shelf as table there is a lady speaking quite loudly, to overcome the surrounding noise, on the
mobile. It is pretty clear that she is going to the Biennale and that she is one of the exhibiting
architects. Given that it‘s my first outing for the research, I think it‘s a good omen and that I
should not waste the occasion, so as soon as she hungs up, I start a conversation with her.
She is indeed an architect and is one of those involved in the Exhibition on Rome at the
Arsenale (Uneternal city, one of those much discussed in the media). She will be here a few
days. She thinks the Arsenale is always more interesting (than the Giardini), more avantgarde. At Giardini it depends, also because the director cannot do so much, there are the
curators of the national Pavilions. The director, she thinks, would meet them, but in the
Arsenale he also meets all the architects. She met several times Betsky, that moved to Venice
for a while and went several times in Rome too. The indications he gave to them were: not to
be too theoretical and try and attract attention, be spectacular, understandable. He wants to
go beyond the idea of the exclusive object of the great artist. She will be here a while and
will come back several times. To be here in Venice is fundamental: ―here there is all the
world‖. Indeed, this is my impression too, confirmed by this chance encounter, and the
general buzz: the installation in front of the Station, the several huge banners on the palazzi
facing the Canal Grande as we pass with the vaporetto. She continues, here we all meet up.
‗And then, everybody has copied the Biennale. They should have created the brand
Biennale‘.
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13.4
Representations
According to the Biennale statute, its mission is to ‗promote scholarship, research
and documentation nationally and internationally in the field of contemporary arts,
through permanent activities, events, experimentations, projects. The Foundation
guaranties freedom of ideas and forms of expression, favours the participation of all
those interested in the artistic and cultural life‘. Despite this claim of accessibility, if
words still mean anything, the Venice Biennale is not ‗popular‘. As the (until
recently) city mayor and philosopher Massimo Cacciari (that did not want to be
interviewed on the grounds that the municipality only assured venues and logistics)
said at the recent brainstorming session on the future of the institution: ‗The Biennale
must not compete with events ‗for the masses‘, but emerge naturally because of the
quality and degree of the in-depth nature of what it proposes‘, stressing also that ‗the
Biennale ought to finally valorise its original set-up, that is to say, its
interdisciplinarity. This is the characteristic that distinguishes it from any other
event‘.312 Many perspectives as we have seen contribute to the Biennale‘s public
image, however there seem to be a substantial convergence over the idea that the
ultimate rationale is still the same of a century ago, that of the legitimate culture
judge; in the General director‘s words, to be the ‗reference point at global level of
artistic research‘. Or ‗a project of mapping of the evolution in the arts‘, according to
the Historical Archives director. So much so that one of the intentions in the creation
of the Film section was to bestow – on the basis of the legitimacy of the Art Biennale
then already thirty years experience – the status of ‗art‘ in the relatively recent
cinematographic form (which is the reason why, still today it is called ‗mostra‘,
exhibition, like in fine arts, as again stressed by the director of the Historical
Archives).
This canon setting function is however somewhat undermined by the format of the
Biennale itself, or maybe we could say that this is a format that reveals the desire for
a canon (or ‗master narrative‘) in an age in which these have lost their authority
precisely because of competing narratives and canons. As many have noticed of the
Biennale in particular and of big events in general, not only in the last few years but
as a trend sparked by the very genre of the Great exhibition at the turn of the 20th
century, here one can find a plurality of voices, objects, interpretations, juxtaposed
more that combined sometimes. In the historical overview, we have seen in fact how
earlier commentators have tended to see the contemporary phase as characterized by
loss of control on the part of the curatorial hand. More recently, others have started to
see in this a new possible role for an active audience and a platform for debate rather
than for legitimate culture in its narrow and exclusive sense. Indeed both these trends
seem to be at work. Not only as we have seen, the role of festivals is seen as
increasingly focused on research, experimentation and discussion, but this sometimes
means a challenge of the format from the inside. The Director of the Dance festival
declared ‗I create a festival not only as a performance art festivals, but a podium of
discussion‘ [VB Dance artistic director] and the theatre one, condemning the
‗proliferation of festivals‘, stressed the importance to use the biennial period to
alternate reflection one year and events the following ‗to study then make, then again
312
In Loading- Una nave pirata per immginare la Biennale di Venezia del terzo millennio, 1895-2007 (bilingual
texts, italian and english), 2008, Venezia, Motta Architettura, pp. 12 and 10.
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to study and then make‘ [VB Theatre artistic director]. In the visual arts in particular
this challenge goes at the heart of the format. Allegedly the Biennial format itself is a
function of an encyclopaedic mission and the mainstream idea still seems to be that
the Biennale – all Biennales as an aspiration, but in particular the Venice biennale
and a few others of its competitors that have gained enough legitimacy in the
meantime: Kassel, Istanbul, Sao Paolo, Sydney – is there to establish the ‗state of the
art‘ and ‗stamp‘ new trends. The very biennalization of the art world however has
prompted critical or ironic (or both) stances even from within. As in the exceedingly
reflexive manifesto of the first ever pavilion of the United Arab Emirates ever in the
2009 Art Biennale:
The challenges are simple. 1 A tremendous Arsenale hallway, at the tail
end of a Biennial marathon. 2 The eccentricity of national showcasing in
an arts context. 3 An artworld nagging about exhibition routine and
ideological exhaustion, but faced with a Venice audience of 900,000. 4
Qualms about the UAE. The answers are just as simple, or almost. 1.
Resisting the temptations of space. 2 Highlighting the World Fair subtext
of the Venice Biennial. 3 A reasonable measure of self-reflexivity. 4 No
apologetics. […] In sum, what we have here is a pavilion on exhibition
making. On the very act of artistic showcasing, national documentation
and curatorial testimony in a setting like Venice.
It is in particular the newcomers that seem to have adopted this extreme reflexivity,
even in the first Palestinian pavilion (officially a collateral event and not a ‗national
participation‘) one of the artists aimed, according to the curator ‗at deconstructing the
Biennale. The idea of festivals. The idea of these international fairs that are now
becoming more and more happening, and more and more commercial, and they're
losing connections with their base, with their communities as well. Well, of course,
Venice has always been floating in many ways [laughing]. So maybe the Biennale
was never meant to be anchored exactly with the people of Venice, I'm not sure.‘
[Palestinian pavilion curator]. The theme of the connection with place in a global art
world re-emerges, as does the issue of how open that world actually is, how centres
are or not really challenged. The structure of the art world is now polycentric,
however the culture being ‗circulated‘ (or maybe precisely because of the needs of
circulation) is global and cohesive, rather than fragmentary and plural. Surely this is
a (art) world that tolerates much more and stronger ‗deviance‘ and internal critique,
but that is a sign of strength rather than weakness. As well as a structural reliance of
continuous innovation and novelty, so that it is useful to have – to use an old but
always useful sociological classification – naïve, maverick and folk artists available
when looking for expanding the global but highly codified field of the ‗integrated
professional‘ ones.313 And indeed, the trend in the last few years or even decades has
been to look at the geographical margins of the global (Western) contemporary art
world. Still, one should not be too blasé about this, or at least the people involved
still seem to value the type of encounter that festivals and biennales favour: ‗the most
interesting aspect is that in a Biennale we find next to each other artists that come
from very different artistic scenes, some of which rarely are in contact with each
other. Today there isn‘t any more a centrality of art as it could be at the beginning of
1900s when there was one or maybe two cities representing somehow the centre of
313
H.S. Becker Art worlds, University of California Press, 1984.
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convergence of art and all the rest is simply periphery that aspires to be centre.
Today the art system is much more polycentric [Local university professor 1]. Still
whilst the general public may have the impression that anything goes because the
criteria of judgement partially or totally escape them, these criteria are certainly there
and, judging by the degree of recurrent names, they are quite stringent as well, so
much so that even in this so called polycentric system, convergence may be the final
result. The same interviewee also admits that there is ‗a certain overlapping, in the
sense that in the major Biennials very often the invited artists are always the same,
this is because nowadays even in art there are star system mechanisms, similar to
those of other cultural spheres. There are Biennials where curators make an effort to
give different points of view and showcase artists that aren‘t necessarily the most
known and renowned, but effectively as a trend, there is today a trend towards
overlapping and convergence, rather than divergence‘ [ibid.]. Within this, ‗diversity‘
and the juxtaposition of totally different events and exhibitions is accepted,
according to some because met by reciprocal indifference in the different subworlds
and therefore empty of any further significance, or according to others because
inspired by the tolerance that characterises Venice as a city historically.
As in the case of Brighton festival, these internal issues of art and creativity are never
far removed from political ones. Here however what emerges – probably also
because of the national classification that dominates the visual arts Biennales – is
also the potentially dark dimension of the link between art and politics, a dimension
that in a way is a founding one: if today art is one of the possible means to critique
power, that it is also because patronage of the arts has long been a political
instruments. Both aspects are found in the biennale:
I don‘t think the artists follow the script [in representing their country].
And it‘s almost a badge of honour I think. I mean, if you had an artist
that did follow the script then actually you would begin to think, well,
this is a bit like the ex-Soviet Union, you know, a bit like the kind of art
very definitely being directed by political forces, for example. I mean,
it‘s not as sinister as Stalinism but, you know, the concept is not a million
miles away from that in the sense that if an artist was commissioned to
do something and then produced a work which was somehow very
critical of the country that they were supposed to be representing, then
maybe that would be an interesting tension. And I don‘t know that that‘s
ever happened – certainly I wouldn‘t know, it‘d be behind closed doors
anyway – but I think, for me, that just shows that the idea of a national
approach fits uneasily with the idea of art, particularly in a globalised
world. [British council representative]
Look at Armenia. Armenia challenges a great deal in their exhibitions
over the years about the massacre and the issue of all that happened in
Armenia at the turn of last century. Now, we look at any country you
choose, there is always a political or a human issue that is being
approached by the artists, and equally that's the same here [Palestinian
pavilion curator].
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As we shall see, the prism of the national approach dominating the Biennale (at least
in the visual art sections, but by reflection also the others) is a good one to address
not only political aspects but also the connected themes of cultural exchange, and
Europe. Old-fashioned as it may seem, and as invidious it may seem to count
national presences and compare on a national basis, that remains a benchmark to
evaluate also attempts to go beyond it.
13.5
Cultural encounters, in Europe and beyond
The national approach of the pavilions which the Biennale is famous for, and that
makes it, as one interviewee said, ‗like a UN of art‘ in a way brings issues of cultural
diplomacy to the fore, an institutional element that especially some artists find
problematic. Especially the press uses national affiliation as an anchor point, also to
the detriment of what artists consider to be the real issues: ‗people are approaching
you as if you are a consulate, or people are approaching you as if you have to
represent your country and there‘s no way out and we are all aware of it [Turkish
pavilion curator]. This is probably why, more than in other cases, when asking about
Europe, answers tend to refer more to the institutional Europe of the EU, as well as
underlining the difference with a wider ‗cultural‘ Europe. Here are two positions
that, whilst diametrically opposed in their judgement, both illustrate this point:
European cultural policy – from Schengen onwards – has favoured
economic and financial synergies, perfecting models of border control
and management of repression, Scaparro‘s Biennale went in the opposite
direction. Luckily it is possible to display autonomy and independence;
in this sense the Biennale is part of an advanced cultural policy that
Europe and some of its institutions display. […] I don‘t agree with the
common view that politics mirrors art and vice versa (or politics mirrors
people and vice versa). There are always interstices, frictions, jumps
forwards or backwards, asymmetries: on these gaps you have to build
with patience and depth your proposal‘ [Artist Theatre 2].
Still people already got over their fear of losing their identity inside of
the [European] community, do they feel that they are forced to be bound
by other laws in the community? […] Then people have the possibility to
break up barriers. So, and there you can not only, you are not replacing
one culture to the other, you are communicating culture through the art.
You are binding them to different values. […] I think this is very
important, and I think inside of the idea of Europe, the European
community, it is very important to find the cultural – how you say –
links, cultural cooperation. […] So what you are doing here? You are
taking dancers from different European nationalities to dance? No. You
are taking these young people to start to communicate to each other to a
dance. So, it‘s learning by cultural exchange. So you cannot force, you
cannot just in the right moment say go to the people, go to the polls and
vote. No, you have to go from the grassroots, from the young people and
start to give them the feeling that they belong to this community. They
have their nationalities and they belong. They are part of the community.
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So that I think the art itself serves a lot in this [background music] sort of
unity purpose. [VB Dance artistic director]
Interestingly, both the first, more critical vision and the second more optimistic one,
see festivals as possible spaces, or al least ‗gaps‘, for alternative notions of Europe. A
recurrent theme is in fact that at an institutional level Europe is promoted through
formal cultural exchanges, so that curators in their projects as well as administrators
feel compelled to use a certain language of multiculturality and European identity, or
that sometimes ‗there is a requirement to enter in a network that simply isn‘t there‘.
At the same time, this is criticised not because multiculturality, exchange and
European identity are not there, but rather because they are there beyond those
formal requirements, and as an already established, matter of fact reality that does
not require explicit focus. Some do stress the specific and symbolic role of Venice as
a gate between East and West but there isn‘t a particular emphasis on this in terms of
a specific cultural content. And this is true of Europe, but at is not limited to Europe.
The latter is just a stepping stone to a wider, more international or global outlook,
where again exchange and interculturality is not under the spotlight for the simple
reason that it is taken as a matter of fact.
Depending on the type of festival, of the objectives a festival has, this
[cultural exchange] can happen to a greater or lesser extent. It‘s obvious
that where many artists from different places meet, there can be cultural
exchanges, between different cultures, but nowadays cultural difference
is not something that can be really perceived, given the phenomena of
diffusion of information. So, at the moment, either a festival has as
explicit objective to take very different cultures and make them dialogue,
or this still happens, but it happens in a way..., in a natural, obvious way
[VB DMT manager].
Again, once we move beyond Europe, some mention the natural, historical role of
Venice as a cosmopolitan city, sometimes explicitly contrasting globalization and
cosmopolitanism, in the sense of two faces, respectively bad (‗homologation and
standardization‘) and good (‗sovranational relationship‘, in the words of an artist of
the Theatre festival) of the same coin. Here too the conclusion is that festivals
tendentially ‗represent in most cases the constructive and emancipated dimensions‘,
not so much in terms of a thematic focus on cultural exchanges, but more of the
effect of working together that festival require. Many seem quite critical of the
superficial acquaintance that an ‗event‘ can provide of another culture, but stress the
opportunities, around the shows, to discuss and exchange and, in the case of
residential workshops, learn and live together. Real relationship versus mere
‗contact‘ is stressed by most, noting how juxtaposition is not enough, one needs
interaction. Here are some examples:
We have to distinguish between diversity and just plurality, several
things don‘t make diversity. Diversity is when, when the relationship
among things is active. [Artist Theatre 1]
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I mean the festivals are kind of the intersection point for people to just,
like a first impression, first touch, first, you know, yeah, the first
connection, and then if it fits, then it continues.[…] in the festivals, in the
exhibitions as well, but especially in the festivals, you are producing
together, and producing together really gives a lot of information about
each other. [Turkish pavilion curator]
it is only working together that you really understand differences and
have to find trade offs to understand where you can meet […] the crucial
point is that also western culture is ethnic; if we are able to relativise our
culture, that‘s one thing. If instead we situate ourselves, with respect to
other cultures, still in a Eurocentric, Western-centric manner we run the
risk of understanding just nothing. [VB Music artistic director]
Still, as the first interviewee concluded, it is only to be expected that artists would be
‗civilised‘ with each other even across cultural differences, and elites in general as
well; that kind of exchange ‗is not sufficient‘, one needs ways of reaching a ‗popular
level‘ – and that seems difficult with festivals, because the point is that ‗that has to
translate into action‘. Moreover, also at the level of the cultural institutions what
lacks is equilibrium: talking of the Mediterranean again, the initiatives and means
seem to stem always out of the ‗European‘ side, whilst ‗Arab countries are not
interested in the Mediterranean‘, that makes the exchange unbalanced, and real
exchange should be balanced. There are issues of equality in what we call ‗exchange‘
that can be easily uncovered if we focus for instance on the linguistic aspect, as so
called cultural exchanges always seem to happen in a Western language, mainly
English, so that those exchanges are not balanced, which undermines their
cosmopolitan, and possibly also their European, credentials. His conclusion is that
‗cosmopolitanism is a luxury, a luxury that we cannot yet afford‘ [Artist Theatre 1].
Whilst the reach of forms of cosmopolitanism within festival remain an open issue
(that ultimately is the wider issue of the relationship between intellectual and people,
as one interviewees stressed), that artists should always find exchange across barriers
easy is not so straightforward: for instance, the very existence of an Israel pavilion
(and its strategic position next to the US pavilion) is still an offence to many in the
Arab world, and the Palestinian pavilion curator clearly and tensely stated that she
would find collaborating with the Israel pavilion or even just drinking wine together
at a reception not proper.
Once again in the Biennale forms of cultural encounters and a critical cosmopolitan
view are obviously confronted/stimulated by the national pavilions approach. This
has revealed to elicit diametrically opposite positions, as some see it as a promotion
of communication between different countries and also a clear, concrete
demonstration of the current global dimension, others criticise the national attribution
as dated, non-representative, too political. The structural role still given to the
organization in national pavilion can be seen as revelatory of the Biennale dated
origin in the World expositions of nations and their diplomatic function; the fact that
more and more ‗national participations‘ extend into the city (both for Art and
Architecture) seems to indicate a re-nationalisation. But whilst this may be following
a general political trend, this is not necessarily so in the world of culture (and
commerce) so that some see in this a sign of the Biennale retreating into its past
rather than looking ahead. One of the (not many) international speakers at the already
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mentioned 2007 conference observed: ‗Of course, despite the relentless globalisation
now in course, at the moment, political tendencies aimed at re-nationalisation are
very widespread, therefore the first step ought to be to force integration in the
European Union. It seems inadmissible to me that politics should show, in the desire
for integration more freedom than the arts themselves. It also seems incredible that in
this, the market also precedes politics and the arts as a consequence, since art fairs
are not organized according to nationalist or ethnic tendencies, but rather often go
beyond these limits‘314. Although it is difficult to synthesise what remain different
positions in one voice, what emerges is that the national approach – adopted in the
visual arts, but spilling over to the other sectors, especially where competition is
central, such as in Cinema – is today, rather than taken for granted, one of the main
issues of discussion, one that typically brings to the table issues of Europe and
global, or cosmopolitan, attitudes. The national pavilions are seen as old-fashioned
and often somewhat schematic (‗I think I would see the concept of the Biennale with
all these Pavilions, that just seems to me a bit old-fashioned because really to
combine the people with the country, where they‘re coming from, so I think most of
the people, for example, in Berlin where I come from, there are artists from all over
the world‘ [Artist Music 4]) but at the same time they have become one classification
among others, and a useful one especially when the competitive element is there. It is
not unheard now that artists exhibited in a certain pavilion are not from that country
(as is the case of a British artist representing Germany in 2009, and often the big
Italian pavilion hosting international artists); so whilst they reaffirm the importance
of national culture, this is reconceived as not bounded and intrinsic, but in itself part
of wider, European and cosmopolitan, flows.
13.6
Conclusion
The current phase of Venice Biennale is one of exponential growth, in number of
events, venues, national participations, as well as ramifications in the city and
increasing focus on extra-festival activities (workshops, conferences, etc.). The
Biennale‘s focus as an organization is to develop links among its several parts and
with the city, links that in fact are often missed or judged insufficient outside the
Biennale HQ. Overwhelming for everybody (‗that‘s it. I‘m going shopping/to eat icecream/to the beach‘ could be equally heard from school groups of teen-agers to
smaller, less loud, better dressed groups of art critics towards the end of the day by
the Biennale entrances), the Biennale becomes an individual exercise in meaning
making. Whether empowering or discomforting it depends certainly on the position
vis à vis the art world, but not exclusively.
In this, an anchor point for the audience and public culture in general for the
identification of and with the festival is the role of artistic directors, who are
increasingly diva-like figures in a sort of star-system. Indeed, in the Biennale too,
like in the Brighton festival, the role of directors is, if anything, increasing especially
in providing the overall identity: creativity has shifted to curators, so that now
314
Peter Weibel, president of ZKM – Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, in Loading- Una nave pirata per
immginare la Biennale di Venezia del terzo millennio, 1895-2007 (bilingual texts, italian and english), 2008,
Venezia, Motta Architettura, p.368.
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directors ‗sign‘ their specific editions. Themes remain a key way to do so – but they
are quite capacious and used more as verbal logos (or brand slogans), immediate
stimuli of recognition and connection. The brand being promoted holds together the
Biennale and Venice itself, in a complex but ultimately synergic relationship.
Although many still see the Biennale as not properly rooted in Venice‘s sociocultural fabric, and although the Biennale is certainly on the high culture, highbrow
side of the spectrum, the trend of considering art as an element of culture in an
anthropological sense and to declassify art genres can be seen also here in the
attempts (in discourse and practice) to avoid the production of unrelated objects d‘art
but rather to start off long-lasting, transformative relationships, also building on the
circular relationship between city and festival.
At the level of value commitment and symbolic representations, research,
experimentation and debate are at the core of the Biennale self-representation. That
means also that the relation with place identity is a dynamic one, it cannot be just in
terms of total adherence to that identity as derived by dominant traditions, that are
questioned by experimentation. This unstable equilibrium works with value
commitments that are able to contain this paradox, as well as with formats that
favour the practical juxtaposition of different and divergent narratives and agendas.
Venice‘s self-understanding as historically a site of tolerance and freedom is
important in that sense.
Needless to say many cities could find traces of that in their traditions, but it is
significant this narrative, of the many possible others, is connected to the Biennale
and thus reinforced by it. Whether or not the involved actors use the word
cosmopolitan, and some do, their attitudes are well described by that concept, and
can in turn help substantiate this still quite theoretical notion hooking it in an
empirical context.
Appendix. List of interviewees
VB General director
VB Theatre Artistic director
VB Music Artistic director
VB Dance Artistic director
VB DMT manager
VB Historical Archives director
Veneto Region representative (VB board member) Guggenheim gallery (USA
pavilion) representative Palestinian pavilion curator Turkish pavilion curator British
Council representative Artists Music 1, 2, 3 (collective interview), 4 Artist Theatre 1,
2 (email interview) Artist Visual arts Local university professor 1 Sacco, 2 Bassi
Semiologist
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14
The Vienna Festival – ‘Wiener Festwochen’
Elias Berner
14.1
14.1.1
Background – Organization
A festival of and for the City of Vienna – a historical overview
The ‗Wiener Festwochen‘ or the Vienna Festival is the festival of the City Council of
Vienna, and the Council is keen to reiterate this fact every now and then. The
response to our official request for an interview, sent to the festival office in 2009,
was symptomatic of this. The inquiry was answered by the City Council with several
months‘ delay—and this was at a time when we had already had interviews with the
festival director and other festival staff. A representative called to express
disagreement with the wording of our questionnaire, which had refererred to the City
of Vienna as a public sponsor of the festival and not its initiator and ‗owner‘!
The original date of the Vienna Festival is contested. Officially, the Vienna Festival
began in 1951, i.e. in the aftermath of the Second World War, and represented an
attempt by the City of Vienna to re-claim its position on the European cultural scene.
Conceptually, however, the festival builds on the ideas propagated and partly
realized by David Josef Bach in the mid-1920s during the legendary days of ‗Red
Vienna‘, when Vienna was the only city and region in Austria to be governed by
Social Democrats.315
In the post-Second World War era, the beginning of the Vienna Festival is dated with
1951 and noted as the invention of the City Councillor for Culture, Hans Mandl.
Mandl was motivated by the desire to place Vienna on the European cultural map
following the decision by the Allied Forces to allow the re-launching of the Salzburg
Festival despite the latter being tainted by Nazi collaboration. Mandl directed the
festival over the period 1951-1958.
As the festival expanded, the need for a full-time professional artistic director
became apparent. In the 1960s and 1970s, the festival was curated first by Egon
Hilbert (1959-1964) and then Ulrich Baumgartner (1965-1978). The contract with
Baumgartner was terminated in 1978. The official reason was the budget overspend,
but there were also differences with the City Council concerning the festival‘s artistic
direction and, specifically, the Baumgartner‘s support for fringe festival activities
organized around the ‗Arena‘ youth cultural centre.
His successor, Helmut Zilk, was a journalist with close contacts to the Social
Democratic Party. For Zilk, as for his follower, Ursula Pasterk, the Vienna Festival
was a springboard to higher political positions. Zilk was City Councillor for Culture
(1979); Minister of Education and the Arts (1983) and City Mayor (1984-1994).
Ursula Pasterk became City Councillor for Culture in 1985, only two years after
taking over the festival‘s artistic organization. For a while both of them ran the
315
See Giorgi 2009 in Euro-Festival Deliverable 2.
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festival parallel to their political mandates. Zilk even went as far as to abolish the
function of the festival‘s artistic director. His argument was that a festival like the
Vienna Festival, which was ultimately the festival of the City Council, could be
managed according to the model of the ‗social partnership‘, i.e. through close cooperation and co-ordination between the local cultural institutions.316
Ursula Pasterk, who succeded Zilk when he became mayor of Vienna in 1984, had
been his close colleague as a member on the programme board of the festival for
some years. She continued in the same vein and expanded the festival‘s
internationalization, as initiated by Zilk, placing a strong emphasis on Eastern
Europe and on innovative forms of artistic production. Pasterk was also well
integrated and a darling of the local artistic scene. This was also what probably made
it possible for her to continue to run the festival as its official artistic director after
taking over the political function of arts councillor within the City of Vienna.
Normally, such an overlap would provoke protests from artists as representing undue
political influence on the arts, but in Pasterk‘s case—and Zilk‘s previously —it was
accepted and almost welcomed. Pasterk‘s successor, Klaus Bachler, came from this
local scene and pursued her agenda in faithful manner.
The situation changed somewhat following the Bachler‘s decision to take up the
directorship of the second Viennese opera house, i.e. the Vienna ‗Volksoper‘, in
1996. Bachler‘s departure coincided with the accession to the city government of the
Christian Democratic Party in coalition with the Social Democrats. 317 The festival‘s
artistic management has since been divided according to genre: theatre, opera, dance
and alternative projects, and even though Luc Bondy has had overall curatorial
responsibility since 2001, the genre distinction and respective curatorial
responsibilities have remained.318 Since 2005, the festival‘s music director has been
Stephane Lissner, who is also director of the La Scala Opera in Milan. Stefanie Carp
has been responsible for the festival‘s theatre programme since 2006. The
programme‘e financial management resides with Wolfgang Wais.
14.1.2
Organization and finances
According to information gathered by the festival‘s management team 319 and public
documentation made available by the festival and the City Council, 320 the festival‘s
budget was estimated at 15 million Euros. This includes 10 million of public
subsidies from the City Council; a total of 1.5 million from the three main private
sponsors (Casino Austria, Mobilkom and the Raiffeisen Bank), an estimated 1.5
316
See Cerny, Karin (2001), p.32. The term ‗social partnership‘ is a political (science) term used to describe
policy planning in accordance with both labour and capital interests as represented by the trade unions and
industrial interest representatives respectively. This policy model has a long tradition in Austria and also
underpins the ‗big‘ coalition governments between Social Democrats and the conservative Peoples‘ Party for
most of the post-war period.
317
A politician of the conservative Peoples Party, Peter Marboe, was City Councillor for Culture between 1996
and 2001.
318
Interview with Cerny, March 8, 2010.
319
It was not possible to talk to the festival‘s financial manager Wolfgang Weiss; budgetary information was
provided by Stephanie Carp (interview February 2, 2010).
320
This concerns previous years and specifically 2005 and 2006. Financial reports have not yet been released on
the recent years of the Vienna Festival.
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million from ticket sales and 2 million in ‗other‘ income. The latter covers cofunding accruing to international co-productions. The Federal Government supported
the festival with a small subsidy from the Ministry of Culture until 2000. This was
abolished by the ‗black-blue‘ coalition government between the Conservative
Peoples‘ Party and the extreme right-wing Freedom Party, a cancellation that was
attributed to the festival director, Luc Bondy‘s participation in anti-government
demonstrations in the context of the antagonistic relationship at the time between the
Social Democratic government of the City of Vienna and the right-wing Federal
Government.
The City Council‘s contribution is mainly used to cover the infrastructure,
administrative and personnel costs of the festival. The festival team includes a few
employees besides its four directors and absorbs around half of the City Council‘s
subsidy. According to Stephanie Carp, the theatre festival director, this share is far
too large or, indeed, ‗astonishing‘.321 Specific festival productions absorb around five
million, excluding the costs for theatre stages and general infrastructure. As the
festival‘s main supporter, the City Council expects the festival-specific costs to be
co-financed through ticket sales, also as a sign of public acceptability. This, in turn,
must be taken into account in the programme design.322
14.1.3
Venues
In its early years in the 1950s, the Vienna Festival was located at the ‗Theater an der
Wien‘ which had no regular programme. When that changed, the festival began to
spread to different locations. Under Baumgartner‘s curatorial responsibility in the
1970s, an alternative arts scene emerged with the festival‘s support and sited at the
‗Arena‘, which also attracted a lot of youth culture at the time. Today, the ‗Arena‘ is
an important venue for alternative popular music.
In the 1980s, Ursula Pasterk created a new type of festival centre by using a huge
container for main festival events and as a meeting point (with a tent and palms) for
artists and between artists and the public.323 This came to be known as the
‗Messepalast‘, or ‗Exhibition Palace‘, and was also used for hosting international art
exhibitions around the year. Cerny, who has written extensively on the Vienna
Festival, has referred to this as an ‗island in the city‘.324
Today, the festival makes use of different locations. The opening ceremony takes
place at the town square in front of the City Hall; the music programme is
concentrated in the Vienna ‘Konzerthaus‘ and ‗Musikverein‘; theatrical and music
theatrical productions can be seen at the ‗Burgtheater‘, the ‗Brut im Künstlerhaus‘
theatre as well as on the various stages of the new Museum Quarter or MQ. The MQ
is the festival‘s main venue at present.
The MQ brings together several theatrical stages as well as some of Vienna‘s new
museums like the Leopold Museum of the Arts and the Museum for Contemporary
321
Interview with Stephanie Carp, 2 February, 2010.
Stephanie Carp specifically noted that this is ‗politically desired‘.
323
Pasterk was keen to see the festival move out of ‗the holy temples of art‘, Cerny (2001) p.34.
324
Op. cit.
322
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Art. Unlike the older museum quarter across the street, which includes the Museum
of Art History and the Museum of Natural History and is separated by a garden, the
MQ extends over an expansive public space with restaurants, a childrens‘ playing
ground and innovative forms of chaises longues. The MQ has thus gained a
reputation for constituting Vienna‘s summertime urban living-room. Many Vienna
Festival afficiados, including several journalists and also the theatre director,
nevertheless bemoan the lack of a ‗‗separate‘ central location for the festival to bring
together audience and artists the way the ‗Messepalast‘ did in the 1980s and early
1990s.325
14.1.4
The festival programme
On average, the theatrical and musical sections of the festival programme are
assigned equal portions of the budget.326 At first sight, this is suprising considering
that there are quantitatively far more theatrical productions than musical ones.
Year
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
Musical productions
8 (2 operas, 5 concerts, 1 discussion)
3 (2 operas, 1 music theatre)
4 (3 operas and 1 musical narration)
6 (4 concerts, 1 opera, 1 installation.)
5 (4 operas, 1 music theatre)
Theatrical productions
30 + 8 Forum Festwochen
22 + 8 Forum Festwochen
36
29
25
What the above table obscures, of course, is that musical productions and opera
productions especially are significantly more expensive than theatrical ones.
According to Aurelie Tanret, an assistant to music director Stephane Lissner, the
budget required for an opera production is ten times higher than that of a theatrical
production.327 This is especially true of international productions and the festival
team is keen to promote high-level events of international standing.328 Nor does the
above table include the around 30 events organized independently and taking place at
the ‗Musikverein‘ and the ‗Konzerthaus‘, albeit with the financial support of the
Vienna Festival.329
Lissner has come under heavy criticism from the Austrian press for marginalizing the
music programme of the Vienna Festival. It is indeed a fact that, if the concerts at the
‗Musikverein‘ are excluded, which run on an almost independent track and are only
loosely linked to the Vienna Festival, today musical productions tend to be the
minority programme of the festival—ranging from a low of three to a high of fifteen
out of a total of 30 to 52 productions. On average, musical productions make up
around a quarter of all productions shown at the Vienna Festival.
325
Interviews with Carp (theatre director), Philip and Cerny (journalists) and Kamerun (artist).
Interview with Carp (theatre director) and Tanret (assistant to Lissner).
327
Interview with Tanret, 16 February, 2010.
328
Tanret referred specifically to international productions as a means of parrying the sobriquet of provinciality.
329
Op. cit.
326
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There is, however, no evident link between the number of musical productions and
the uptake of the festival programme in terms of tickets sold. More generally, the
festival appears to have reached a level of saturation as regards its audience, as
shown by Figure 1, which compares the number of productions with capacity
utilization in the years 2000 to 2010. Figure 1 shows that the Vienna Festival runs at
a capacity utilization of between 85 and 95 percent, whereby the variation within the
narrow segment is not a function of the total number of productions.
Figure 1. Vienna Festival 2000-2010
No. Productions
87
87
1
2
3
4
52
37
5
94
91
89
85
53
33
30
92
82
46
37
95
90
86
Capacity in %
6
41
44
8
9
39
31
7
10
11
Year 2000 (1) - 2010 (11)
The perceived under-representation or marginalization of the musical component of
the festival programme is partly the result of the different organization of the other
festival sections. Before Bondy became head director in 2001, the programme was
divided into the three sections music, theatre and performing arts. At the time, the
section ‗theatre‘ subsumed only the more traditional mainstream theatrical
productions, whilst the more experimental and interdisciplinary productions were
classified under ‗performance dance‘. Bondy merged these two sections under
‗theatre‘, and this contributed to the latter‘s increased prominence in terms of the
number of productions. Besides, the criticism of Lissner not only concerns the
number of productions, but also their symbolic significance: very few are premiered
in Vienna or represent the festival‘s own or main productions. Furthermore, Lissner‘s
absence from the Viennese cultural and media circuit for most of the year is
perceived as denoting a lack of interest.
A third, new section of the programme, launched by Lissner in 2006 and entitled
‗Into the City‘ is crucial for understanding the structure and balance of power of the
festival organization. It is directed by Wolfgang Schlag, who, also with reference to
the festival‘s political history, describes its raison-d‘etre as being an attempt to bring
culture and the arts closer to the wider public and specifically those segments of the
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population which are either not targeted by cultural production or not interested in it.
The ‗Into the City‘ festival programme is held predominantly in the outer districts of
Vienna and represents an attempt to link high-brow art, popular music and social
work. All of its events are free. ‗Into the City‘ has attracted a lot of attention from
both public and private sponsors. It is the only festival programme currently to
receive a federal subsidy and it has attracted a lot of attention from private sponsors
like Telekom A1, who also consider it a good opportunity for product placement
within a youth market.
The above overview of the festival programme poses several interesting questions
and problems, which will be discussed in the following sections of this chapter,i.e.:
to what extent does the classification urban mixed-arts festival fit the Vienna Festival
and its media and public perception? What is the relationship between the two
traditional genre sections ‗music‘ and ‗theatre‘ and ‗Into the City‘? What do the
different festival components say about the festival‘s artistic and political legacy in
general, but also with respect to Vienna or Europe?
The next section will examine the role of directors and elaborate the expectations,
motivations, restrictions and conflicts they face working for the Vienna Festival.
14.2
14.2.1
The role of directors
Luc Bondy
The festival director, Luc Bondy, is well-known on the European theatre and opera
scene. He began his career in Germany in the 1970s and rapidly became famous. His
productions have been staged in some of the most known theatres around the world:
the Metropolitan Opera New York, Young Vic Theatre London, La Scala Milan,
Staatsoper Vienna, Schaubühne Berlin, Theatre du Chatlet Paris, Burgtheater Vienna,
Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe and many others. Bondy‘s theatrical repertoire ranges
from Shakespeare, over French and Austrian dramatists of the classical modern
period, like Schnitzler, Gombrowiz and Horvath, to contemporary artists of the 1968
generation such as Botho Strauss or Peter Handke. He has also staged Classical and
Romantic operas by the most famous classical composers like Mozart, Puccini or
Verdi as well as contemporary works of the international avantgarde scene, such as
those by Phillip Glass or Pierre Boulez. Bondy‘s work is said to be ‗very sensitive,
not effect-snatching and committed to the original text.‘330 Bondy was also a jury
member at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997.
In his function as head director of the festival and previously in charge of theatrical
productions, Bondy has used the Vienna Festival as a platform for featuring his
repertoire and that of artists he likes to work with like Peter Stein, Peter Sellars and
Klaus Maria Brandauer. His style can be described as a restrained modern
interpretation of the classical canon. Bondy has also used the festival to re-circulate
productions of his staged in other internationally renowned houses. 331 Undoubtedly,
330
331
http://www.goethe.de/kue/the/reg/reg/ag/bon/por/deindex.htm retrieved on 31 March 2010.
See, for instance, Liebelei, 2009 Young Vic Theatre London, also staged during the 2010 Vienna Festival.
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Bondy‘s own productions and those of his network are the most prominent ones and
those receiving the widest acclaim among cultural critics and also the highest
publicity in the local media. Critical voices blame Bondy for being too conservative
and for following an artistic style which is more intent on form (and representation)
than content. His double mandate as both the festival director and its main
performing artist is sometimes viewed negatively as biasing the festival towards a
specific art canon. This criticism is shared by his co-director Stephanie Carp, who is
now in charge of theatrical productions.332 On the other hand, the designation of
Stephanie Carp as theatre curator was Bondy‘s decision. Stephanie Carp has an
entirely different approach to theatre and the arts.333 This aspect will be reviewed
below.
14.2.2
Stefanie Carp
Stefanie Carp is a theatre critic and dramatic adviser. Her doctoral thesis (completed
at the Free University of Berlin) was about about the writer and filmmaker Alexander
Kluge, a protégé of Adorno and earlier collaborator with Fritz Lang. After working
for several theatres in Germany and Switzerland, Carp became head dramatic adviser
at the ‗Schauspielhaus‘ in Hamburg in the mid-1990s. There she worked with
directors like Johan Simons, Christoph Schlingensief, Christoph Marthaler and Frank
Castorff on modern, experimental stagings of classical works from Shakespeare over
Georg Büchner to Thomas Bernhard as well as on contemporary pieces.
Carp is interested in linking theatre to other artistic forms. she has worked, for
instance, with punk musician Schorsch Kamerun, first in Hamburg and later in
Vienna. In her own words, her motivation for doing this was to ‗tone down the work
of a very strict avantgarde director‘, whom she ‗undoubtly admired‘.334 According
to Carp, Kamerun does not work as a classical theatre director, but, on the contrary,
he should ‗keep to himself and develop his own form.‘‖ Kamerun himself describes
Carp as a mentor.335 Another close colleague of Carp‘s is Christoph Marthaler, whom
she followed to Zürich as his associate when he left Hamburg in 2000 to become
director of the ‗Schauspielhaus‘ Zürich.336
Carp first worked for the the Vienna Festival in 2004, standing in for former theatre
director Marie Zimmermann. Between 2005 and 2007 she was active at the
‗Volksbühne Berlin‘. She returned to Vienna as theatre director of the Vienna
Festival in 2007.
Carp‘s understanding of theatre is more modern and experimental than Bondy‘s. She
describes her approach to theatre and the arts as ‗complicated, not easy, unsettling
and inspiring thought.‘337 This approach can be traced back theoretically to
philosophers of the Frankfurt School, like Theodor W. Adorno or Walter Benjamin.
Basing their premises on Marxism, they claimed that art should emancipate the
332
Interview Carp, 17 February, 2010.
The same applied to Marie Zimmermann, Carp‘s predecessor as theatre director.
334
From the interview with Carp, 17 February, 2010.
335
Interview with Kamerun, 4 February, 2010.
336
Marthaler also got a job for stage designer Anna Viebrock to work with him in Zürich. The three of them
received the prestigious critics‘ prize twice in 2000 and 2004.
337
Interview with Carp, 17 February, 2010.
333
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people, stir the subconscious and bring the hidden to the surface. Accordingly, they
blamed entertainment for befuddling the masses, keeping the audience passive and
supporting the social status quo. At the same time, they considered the production
and consumption of high-brow culture within the so-called culture industries as pure
acts of representation. This ideology can be observed in Carp‘s disinterest in
representation and entertainment and in her conflicts with financial manager
Wolfgang Weiss and director Luc Bondy.338 Carp‘s disinterest in staging according
to audience expectations has earned her the reputation of being elitist in Weiss‘
opinion339 despite her readiness to support experimental forms of theatre in terms of
installations or locations.
Like Bondy, Carp is well connected within the theatrical field and around the world.
She spends much of the non-festival time travelling to attend theatrical productions
abroad and keep up with the latest international developments. Her inner circle of
friends and collaborators like Marthaler, Kamerum and the Rimini Group are
frequent participants in the festival. In her approach to networking, she is actually not
very different to Bondy, but just moves in different circles. This probably also
explains their continuing collaboration despite their differences in thematic and
stylistic approach. She tends to think that his programme is old-fashioned, whilst
hers is innovative.340 But she is principally free to do whatever she likes on condition
that she accepts Bondy‘s more ‗niche‘ programme. In fact, hers is as much of a
‗niche‘ programme as it also targets specific segments of the population. This clear
demarcation of programmes and audiences ensures that both can co-exist despite
their differences.
Carp is also keen to see the festival acquire its own central venue, as in the days of
Pasterk‘s ‗Messepalast.‘ There she would like to hold big parties with entrance free
of charge as an opportunity and incentive for artists and audiences to meet and
exchange their experiences. This is something artists like Kamerun and art critics and
journalists like Cerny and Phillip would also welcome.341 Philipp would like to see
some of the money absorbed by the high fees paid to star producers re-directed
towards establishing such a centre.342 The festival management rejects this either/or
approach and continues to favour star producers as they are also those who attract the
large audiences and festival publicity.
14.2.3
Stephane Lissner
The question of popularity and elitism also arises when a look is taken at Stephane
Lissner and the music section. Lissner became the musical director of the festival in
2005. The same year, he also became director of the famous La Scala Opera House
in Milan. This twin position has been heavily criticized by the Austrian print media,
who think that Lissner is doing at best a half-time job for the Vienna Festival. They
argue that Lissner has constantly marginalized the festival music programme. Like
Bondy, Lissner defends himself in interviews by stressing that he has always
338
Op. cit.
Op. Cit.
340
Op. cit.
341
Interview with Kamerun, 4 February, 2010; and with Claus, 22 February, 2010.
342
Op. cit.
339
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prioritized quality over quantity and that quality just happens to be expensive.343
According to Lissner‘s assistant, Aurelie Tanret, the Vienna Festival tries to acquire
internationally acclaimed productions which would otherwise not be staged in
Vienna. Therefore, they mainly concentrate on contemporary music of the 20th
century, from Leos Janacek to Olga Neuwirth or Heiner Goebbels. Judging from the
repertoire of the Vienna State Opera, it is true that contemporary music is not very
popular in Vienna.344 Lissner is himself tied to a more classical repertoire at La Scala,
which is why he is keen on his function at the Vienna Festival, as this is the only
opportunity he has to pursue his preference for modern, avant-garde and
contemporary music, as evinced in his early career and his work at the Festival of
Aix en Provence. By virtue of his long international experience in the field of opera,
like Bondy, he maintainsexcellent contacts to the elite of international conductors
and opera directors. His assistant Tanret alluded that the selection of the works are
often the result of collaboration with these artists. So, it happens quite frequently that
Lissner chooses a conductor or director he wants to work with and then they discuss
what they are going to stage.345
Although quite well received by the press and the audience in the first years of the
festival, especially in a city aware of its long-standing musical tradition, modern
opera is - admittedly - not (yet) the most popular type of music. It requires a more
cognitive and conceptual approach to arts and arts‘ appreciation, which is not
everyone‘s cup of tea. Lissner‘s programme has often been criticized in recent years.
The worst reception was given to the staging of ‗I went to the house but did not
enter‘, a co-production with the Edinburgh Festival, a musical drama composed by
Heiner Goebbels. According to Aurelie Tanret and our own field report,346 the play
caused a ‗veritable scandal‘.347 People left the theatre banging the doors and many
expressed their aversion very harshly during and after the performance. With one
exception, the press response was utterly negative. Tanret mentioned that for her and
all other persons involved, this was suprising because the production was very well
received internationally beforehand and afterwards.
Lissner was also the person to initiate the new ‗Into the City‘ programme component
together with Wolfgang Schlag. The idea came from Peter Sellars, one of Luc
Bondy‘s friends and collaborators, on the occasion of his festival ‗New Crowned
Hope‘ during Mozart‘s 250th anniversary year in 2006. This part of the music
programme includes popular music, as well as fine arts, performances and
exhibitions. Besides using the public space of the city as a stage, Schlag tries to work
very closely with Viennese artists and musicians. There is also a special focus on
migrant communities. Schlag has also sought to integrate the suburbian art festival
‗Soho‘348 into his programme. He sees his programme in the tradition of Viennese
343
Der Standard, interview with Luc Bondy, 26.06.2009; Der Standard, interview with Stephane Lissner,
09.07.2009.
344
There were just five debut performances of contemporary works at the Vienna State Opera between 1970 and
2010 .
345
Interview with Tanret, 15 February, 2010.
346
Fieldwork report, 20 May, 2009.
347
Interview with Tanret, 16 February, 2010.
348
Soho is an art and district festival taking place in the ‗Brunnenviertel‘ (36% inhabitants with migratory
backgrounds) in Vienna‘s 16th district in May every year since 1999.
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Actionism and the art scene of the 1960s.349 As was mentioned earlier in this chatper,
‗Into the City‘ has been very successful in attracting both public and private
sponsors, although it has received scant attention from the Austrian print media.
14.3
14.3.1
Networking structures
International networking
As pointed out in the previous section, a lot of the organizational work of the festival
relies on networking through its directors. Bondy, Carp and Lissner all maintain
close contacts to artists all around the world. Each of them has established a closer
circle of artists, each belonging to identifiable artworlds, who are frequently invited
to the festival. Besides such contacts to individual artists, the festival maintains close
institutional relations with theatres, theatrical groups and other festivals. Such
institutional forms of collaboration are essential for the programming of the festival,
but also for its financing. This is not a specialty of the Vienna Festival, but a
development that is part of globalization and detectable in all kinds of art disciplines
and event organizations. Seen from this perspective, Lissner‘s twin function as music
director of La Scala and the Vienna Festival as well as Bondy‘s contracts with music
and opera houses around the world might have to be relativized as ‗necessary evils‘
to enable the Vienna Festival to obtain a share in new productions. Today, it is
almost impossible for any music theatre or festival to stage ambitious productions
alone. In 2009, of a total of 39 productions, seven were the festival‘s primary
productions, ten were co-productions and the rest were guest performances. Most of
the festival‘s primary productions are themselves partnerships, albeit with the Vienna
Festival as the leading producer. The Vienna Festival‘s partners include theatres like
the Opera National in Paris, the Theatre of Nations in Moscow, the Theatre Basel as
well as other famous European Art Festivals such as the ‗Berliner Festspiele‘, the
Avignon Theatre Festival, and the Edinburgh Festival. Apart from these classical
partners, the Vienna Festival also co-operates with cultural institutions like the
Istanbul ‗Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur‘, as was the case with the ‗Turkey Focus‘ of
the ‗Forum Festwochen‘ in 2009.350 Such institutional co-operations are useful in
terms of co-financing, but also to enable arts productions to outlast one season in
‗their‘ theatre or ‗their‘ festival and travel around the world. This is even more
relevant for those festival productions that are not staged more than three times
during the festival.351
The intensity of co-operation across national borders also contributes to the
internationalization of national cultural public spheres as more and more people get
to see the same productions irrespective of where they live. This development of a
European art elite, somehow comparable to the aristocratic artistic scene of the 18th
and 19th centuries, could be critizised for marginalizing and alienating local cultural
formsfor reasons of the ideology of an antiglobalization movement. This is only
marginally true in the case of Vienna, since the Viennese theatre and arts scene is
349
Interview with Schlag, 25 March, 2010.
Interview with Wagner Almut, 10 February 2010.
351
Interview with Aurelie Tanret, 16 February 2010.
350
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very international, hence well integrated into the festival programme. The counterargument is, of course, that for this very reason, the Vienna Festival is increasingly
risking losing its competitive edge, like the mediators of international trends in
Vienna and Austria more generally.352 This is perhaps why seeking enlargement
towards new audience segments has grown in importance over the last several years.
14.3.2
Networking with other Viennese cultural institutions
The Vienna Festival has to work with the cultural institutions of the City of Vienna
because it uses ‗their‘ locations. The classical representative houses like the
‗Burgtheater‘, ‗Volkstheater‘ or the ‗Theater an der Wien‘ as well as alternative
stages like ‗Brut im Künstlerhaus‘ or the ‗Tanzquartier‘ host several festival events.
Officially, the Vienna Festival rents these venues, thus retaining full programme
responsibility. But as each of these stages is associated with different genres and
audiences, a process of inter-change takes place with the festival adapting its
programme to the Vienna stages and vice versa. This does not always happen
without tension.353 Lots of Viennese institutions want their programmes to be
integrated in the festival, but are not willing to abandon their curatorial power. The
regular music/ opera programme, for instance, has difficulties staging its productions
in locations other than the ‗Theater an der Wien‘ because contemporary opera does
not really fit in with the regular programmes of other houses . The exception is the
concert music programme which takes place at the ‗Konzerthaus‘ and the
‗Musikverein‘ under the responsibility of the latter and on condition that priority is
given to 20th-century music and contemporary musical compositions and artists.
The director of ‗Into the City‘, Wolfgang Schlag, is highly networked with the City
environment on different levels. He maintains good contacts to the City Council and
the Social Democratic Party and is well networked with social workers, multicultural
projects and youth centres as well as the Vienna alternative arts scene. Schlag‘s
intention is to link various stakeholders to one another, thus creating a network that
lasts beyond the duration of the festival.354
14.4
Symbolic representation strategies
At the time of its inception in the 1950s, the Vienna Festival had two political goals:
first, integrating the arts in society through education and by targeting low-status
segments of the population; second, helping reclaim Vienna‘s position in the
European cultural scene following the end of the Second World War. Both goals
were explicit concerns of the city‘s Social Democratic government.
At the beginning, priority was given to the second of these objectives, so the
emphasis was placed on classical music, considering that Vienna had already been
known as the ‗Capital of Music‘before the Second World War. The Vienna Festival
thus also became an instrument for rehabilitating cultural institutions such as the
352
Interview withCarp, Phillip, Cerny.
Interview with Carp.
354
Interview with Schlag.
353
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‗Musikverein‘ and the ‗Konzerthaus‘ that had fallen into disrepute during the Nazi
period. At the time, international productions were rare.355
During the 1960s, the programme focus shifted towards contemporary art forms,
such as modern opera and experimental theatre, and the organizers began to try out
popular music and public performances, also in an explicit attempt—quite popular
during the 1970s—to challenge the distinction between high- and low-brow culture.
In the 1980s, and especially during the Pasterk era, the festival became much more
international. Ever since, international artists have no longer been the festival‘s
highlights, but rather elements of its standard repertoire. Pasterk also challenged the
festival‘s strong focus on music, especially opera, by inviting international theatrical
productions and fine arts exhibitions. The theatre section grew stronger throughout
the 1990s and during the first decade of the 21st century. All the festival directors
since Pasterk have come from the theatre scene.
Today, the Vienna Festival is a mixed bag of events. It has gradually appropriated
different art forms and genres while preserving its earlier programme components. It
has thus managed to cater to different segments of the population. In what follows, a
closer look will be taken at the way in which the Vienna Festival continues to meet
its original overarching goals, i.e. to educate and reach out to low-status classes, on
the one hand, and reflect Vienna‘s cultural heritage, on the other.
14.4.1
Low-threshold programmes and education
Back in the 1950s, the Social Democratic cultural ideal was to open up the city‘s
cultural institutions and the music of the 18th and 19th centuries to the working
classes. Today, the festival‘s objective is rather to present the world‘s more diverse
cultural repertoire of music, but also theatre and the performing arts, to the city‘s
equally more diverse, but also more middle-class population. This outreaching
element is also thought of as the main defining distinction between the Vienna and
Salzburg Festivals.
Q: What are generally the objectives of art festivals?
Wolfgang Schlag: Well, the objectives can differ. Let me express it somewhat ironically: the
Salzburg Festival serves a wealthy audience with highly expensive tickets.
Q: Similar to Bayreuth?
Wolfgang Schlag: Of course. The low-threshold parts of the programme in
Salzburg are non-existent. The objectives of the Vienna Festival are different. We strongly
emphasize low-threshold programmes and also promote educational programmes for school
children. We also co-operate intensively with schools.356
As used by Schlag, the term ‗low-threshold‘ implies different meanings. First, there
is the issue of ticket prices. In Salzburg, ticket prices usually start well above the
€100 mark, ranging from €95 to €350; this is hardly the case in Vienna. The average
ticket price for attending a Vienna Festival event is €15, and the festival prices range
between €10 and €80. Unemployed persons can get tickets for free. Only very few
events—primarily opera or concerts with famous conductors—involve ticket prices
above €100 and cheap tickets are available even in these cases. Admittedly, this is a
355
356
Interview with Carp, 2 February, 2010.
Interview with Schlag, 25 March, 2010.
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more general characteristic of Viennese cultural institutions, where it is usually
possible to obtain so-called ‗standing places‘ for €10-15even at the State Opera .
‗Low-threshold‘ is also used to refer to contents. The festival‘s opening night is
typical in this respect. It is staged at the town hall square, attracting several
thousands of Viennese, and entrance is free. The programme is presented by Austrian
celebrities, used by the City‘s Mayor and Councillor of Culture for welcome
speeches and is broadcast live by the public TV station, the ORF. The musical
programme usually centres on well-known performers across musical genres. The
2009 festival, for instance, hosted Juliette Gréco (French chansons), Lynne Kieran
(jazz) and Wolfgang Ambros (Austrian pop). In 2010, the festival‘s opening night
was used for the Eurovision final of young musicians in classical music.
A different type of ‗low-threshold‘ programming is conceptualized and presented by
the ‗Into the City‘ festival section. Events held under this category are also free.
They take place in the outskirts, often in the form of street theatre, and seek to
stimulate the interest of a young audience. Accordingly, these events are also
‗alternative‘. This non-mainstream character is underscored by the private sponsors
of ‗Into the City‘, FM4, which prides itself on representing the ‗high-brow‘ end of
popular music. The ‗Into the City‘ section presents alternative bands and also
collaborates with the Soho district art festival. Alternative programming also
includes outreaching activities for schools and also migrant communities. This was a
central element in the opening speech by the Councillor for Culture in Vienna City
Council, Mailath-Pokorny, at the opening event of ‗Into the City.‘357
Reaching out to new audiences is also an objective of Carp‘s. She is always looking
to ‗open new doors‘358 and to break through to new audiences. In this respect, she
concedes that the festival is not always successful in reacing this objective.
‗The more questionable thing about it is that there a lot of people who
would be an audience of greater importance for lots of our productions,
but who are not reached by our programme. They do not even look at the
programme, because they think: ‗that‘s not our cup of tea; it is just the
Vienna Festival‘. It is elitist and it is expensive, though it is not
particularly expensive. And that is always my question: How can we
reach them? Specific productions should reach the right audience. I think
we haven`t solved this problem yet.‘359
14.4.2
Representation
As discussed in the introduction to this section, in the 1950s the Vienna Festival was
part of a larger strategy to place Vienna on the European cultural scene by valorizing
its glorious cultural past. This cultural policy is still being actively pursued by
Viennese and Austrian cultural institutions. In this context, important events are the
New Year‘s Concert and the State Opera Ball. Both events are publicly broadcast
and the New Year‘s Concert reaches an international audience. A similar strategy is
357
Fieldwork report, 15 May, 2010.
Interview with Carp, 2 February, 2010.
359
Op. cit.
358
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followed with respect to the celebration and commemoration of the round
anniversaries of famous composers—Mozart, Haydn, etc.
Against this background, the Vienna Festival has found a different niche, also with
respect to representation. It is the niche of internationalization and Europeanization
especially. Today, the Vienna Festival is not only a festival aiming at familiarizing a
Viennese audience with international trends in theatre and music; it is also a festival
to present contemporary European trends in both of these genres. This profile is
shared with the ‗Steirischer Herbst‘ Festival, which takes place in Graz and which
combines theatre, dance, literature, film and music; and the ‗Ars Electronica‘
Festival in Linz which concentrates on electronic music. This is well illustrated in
Table 1 which compares the 2009 and 2010 Vienna Festival programmes in terms of
the main country of origin of its productions. 360
Table 1. The 2009 and 2010 Vienna Festival programmes in comparison
2009
9
Domestic productions (Austrian)
EU-15
11
Joint EU
3
New Members States
3
Associated Countries
6
Mediterranean / Middle East
2
North America
2
South America
2
Africa
1
Asia
0
2010
19
11
1
4
8
1
3
2
2
1
Note: Associated Countries include Switzerland, Norway, Israel, Turkey, and former Yugoslavia.
The first point to note about Table 1 is the significant increase in ‗domestic‘
productions between 2009 and 2010. This mainly reflects the growth of the ‗Into the
City‘ and ‗Forum‘ programme components. Otherwise, Table 1 highlights the
European character of the festival, with two-thirds of all productions in 2009
originating from the EU and 87 percent from the enlarged European area (including
Associated Countries and the Mediterranean). The figures for 2010 are similar, with
67 percent of all productions coming from the EU and 84 percent from the enlarged
Europe. The re-orientation of the festival towards the enlarged Europe is also shown
by the featuring of Turkey and former Yugoslavia (Balkan region) in festival specials
in 2009 and 2010 respectively. This orientation of the Vienna Festival towards
Eastern Europe is in line with Vienna‘s self-constructed location at the crossroads
between East and West, but it also reflects the multi-ethnic composition of the
Viennese population with a large and representative share from Eastern European
neighbouring countries.
The festival‘s emphasis on topicality and contemporaneity is also evinced by the way
it seeks to relate to past legacies and traditions. Thus, when Bondy stages an ‗oldercanon‘ theatre play or opera, he seeks to do this with modern devices or by seeking a
modern interpretation. Another example is the fringe festival ‗New Crowned Hope‘
organized within the framework of the Vienna Festival in 2006 on the occasion of
360
Art and Culture Report 2009.
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Mozart‘s 250th anniversary, which otherwise dominated Austria‘s cultural scene that
year. ‗New Crowned Hope‘ was curated by Bondy‘s colleague Peter Sellars. It
featured not one piece by Mozart, but rather focused on presenting modern
international artists across disciplines and genres whose work drew inspiration from
Mozart.
The festival‘s European focus and its renewed interest in inter-disciplinarity at the
same time represent reactions to the ‗mainstreaming‘ of internationalization in
culture in Vienna, as in any other major European capital. Today, culture and the arts
are international by default—whether we talk about classical or modern music,
canon- or experimental theatre, or indeed, high- or low-brow culture. According to
Cerny, given the globalization of culture, the main premise and label of the Vienna
Festival as being mainly and primarily international has become obsolete.361 Philip
pointed out that the type of ‗modern‘ theatrical productions featured by the Vienna
Festival has meanwhile become part of regular Viennese theatre life.362 Carp also
holds the view that it will no longer suffice to ‗sell‘ the Vienna Festival as
‗international‘, as everyone else is international, too. This is why interdisciplinary art
is gaining in significance and why new forms of ‗European‘ collaboration might be
becoming more important.
14.5
Role of the media
The Vienna Festival enjoys wide national and international media coverage. In 2009,
there were 450 accredited journalists from 26 countries: 307 came from Austria, and
143 from abroad. The international media reporting on the festival include The
Financial Times, The New York Times, Le Nouvel Observateur, Frankfurter
Allgemeine etc. and broadcasters like ZDF, BBC, 3sat and arte. All together, national
and international media presented 3,500 features on the festival. The following will
concentrate on the festival‘s media presence in Austria.
14.5.1
Public broadcasters
There is a close collaboration between the festival and the Austrian public radio and
TV station, the ORF, which broadcasts the opening event. In 2010, the opening night
was broadcast together with Eurovision, thus reaching a European audience.
Otherwise, individual productions are covered in the ‗Culture‘ section of the
Austrian news or in the weekly cultural magazine ‗Kultur Montag‘. Besides
interviews and reports, direct broadcasting from performances is limited to three
minutes, as this is the longest broadcasting time permitted to non-rights‘ holders.363
The ORF fringe radio station FM4 is very important to ‗Into the City‘ as the main
sponsor and publicity channel. The stars of the station, Christoph Grissemann and
Dirk Stermann, acted as presenters for the big ‗Into the City‘ opening concert.
Grissemann and Stermann have also interviewed Luc Bondy on their ORF late night
show.
361
Interview with Cerny, 8 March, 2010.
Interview with Claus, 27 February, 2010.
363
Interview with Tanret, 16 February, 2010.
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14.5.2
The print media
Vienna Festival events are regularly featured in ‗Der Standard‘, ‗Die Presse‘ and
‗Kurier‘. ‗Der Standard‘ and ‗Die Presse‘ are both quality newspapers, liberal in
orientation, whereby ‗Der Standard‘ is more to the left, ‗Die Presse‘ more to the
right. The ‗Kurier‘ is a medium-brow newspaper which favours short features and
has more pictures; but it also publishes daily articles on culture and is well known as
a sponsor of cultural events. The ‗Kurier‘ is also the Vienna Festival‘s official press
sponsor. A few weeks before the festival begins, it publishes the whole festival
programme with commentaries and interviews; and during the festival it often
presents special supplements on specific events. These are then also distributed
separately before or after performances. Towards the end of the festival, the ‗Kurier‘
and also other print media typically publish interviews with the festival directors
reflecting on the festival highlights and its critics.364 A press conference at the
beginning of the festival is widely covered by all major newspapers.365 With regard to
the emotional reception, Stefanie Carp in general tends to be praised for her
ambitious programming and Luc Bondy is treated neutrally, whilst Stephane Lissner
is heavily criticized.
As a journalistic genre, the interview is also quite important during the festival. Most
newspapers try to get interviews with the big stars like Klaus Maria Brandauer, Peter
Sellars, Philip Boesman or Schorsch Kamerun. This again can be termed a symbiotic
promotional use, attracting both visitors of the festival and readers of the newspaper.
In the case of Schorsch Kamerun, all three newpapers mentioned published a detailed
interview with him, concentrating more on his person, his career and his political
views than on his work presented at the Vienna Festival.366 There is often no relation
between interest in the ‗producer‘, ‗author‘ or ‗actor‘ and the reception of the
event.367
Otherwise, there is a remarkable consistency in the selection of pieces and directors
or actors to write about. As far as interviews are concerned, priority is given to
established and upcoming star directors or actors from Europe and the United States.
In terms of content, musical events tend to get more attention than either
performance or theatrical productions. As regards the latter, priority appears to be
given to those productions with a multicultural focus.
14.5.3
Internet
Besides the traditional programme booklet sent free to a core audience of the festival
, the internet has increasingly become an important source of information and
instrument of promotion for the festival. Pagehits on the festival‘s website doubled
from five million in 2001 to ten million in 2007. Similarly, ticket bookings via the
internet increased from 3,000 in the year 2000 to 7,500 in 2005. Tickets sold via the
364
Die Presse, interview with Stefanie Carp, 16 October 2009; Der Standard, interview with Stephane Lissner 9
July 2009; Der Standard, interview with Luc Bondy, 26 September 2010.
365
E.g. Die Presse, 24 September 2009.
366
Die Presse, 20 May 2009; Der Standard, 20/21 May 2009.
367
Die Presse, 22 May 2009.
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internet in 2005 were about 15 percent of total sales. 58 percent of the site‘s visits
were by Austrian users, the rest came from abroad or could not be specified. 368
Apart from providing information for festival visitors, the internet is also used
extensively by the festival staff when researching for the new programme. They
often use platforms like youtube or myspace to gain an initial impression of a
particular piece or artist. The internet is also important as a means of getting in
contact with the artists.369
14.6
Audiences
The Vienna Festival serves different clienteles and thus has a diverse audience.
Stefanie Carp and Almut Wagner, the curator of the subsection ‗Forum Festwochen‘,
consider that Vienna has a significant niche audience which is ‗passionate about
theatre,‘370 informed about international trends and eager to see them staged in
Vienna. They are the core audience which legitimizes the Vienna Festival year after
year. This core audience is middle-aged and older according to Carp. Part of it is
quite conservative in orientation and interested in mainstream productions; another is
open and curious. The festival serves both clienteles.
‗At the Vienna Fesitival it is always quite funny. Overall, the audience is
rarely as old as that of the Burgtheater (…) The Vienna Festival is not
that homogeneous. The Vienna Festival displays a more mixed audience
also in the more conservative productions. And we have a very
international series in the Brut (…) we are mostly talking about small
productions (…) They are attended also by few of the classical theatre
audience, because they are still part of the Vienna Festival. Therefore
there is a mixture, which I consider very nice.‘371
The critic and regular festival attendant Cerny has the impression that the Vienna
Festival attracts an audience which would otherwise, i.e. during the rest of the year,
go to the cinema. Nevertheless, she identifies the theatre—and also the Vienna
Festival— audience as ‗elitist and middleclass‘.372 Former critic and long-standing
aficionado Phillip argues that he always meets the same people at the Vienna
Festival, but this only goes to show that the festival has a core audience.373 Migrants
or members of ethnic minorities living in Vienna are under-represented—especially
those from the traditional countries of origin such as Turkey:
‗For example, when we have a thematic focus on Turkey, or a Hungarian
production, or a Russian one, we always try to reach these communities.
368
Festival Reports 2001-2007; there was no internet data in the reports of 2008 and 2009.
Interview with Tanret, February 15, 2010.
370
Interview with Wagner, February 10, 2010.
371
Interview with Carp, February 10, 2010.
372
Interview with Cerny, March 8, 2010.
373
Interview with Claus, February 22, 2010.
369
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[But we do not always succeed.] This shows that even when the themes
are relevant, specific social classes will not come to the theatre.‘374
In Vienna, it is also the case that specific locations are associated with specific types
of performances and audience—and this in turn acts as a barrier to attracting new
publics. Hence, the ‗Musikverein‘ and ‗Konzerthaus‘ are associated with high-brow
classical music where you can only go if you are a member375 and if dressed formally
in a suit and tie. In fact, these distinctions have long ceased to be important and it is
likely today to come across people at the ‗Konzerthaus‘ dressed semi-formally, yet
the branding continues and acts as a gatekeeper. Smaller productions or productions
staged at alternative locations such as the ‗Brut‘ are therefore much more likely to
attract a younger or more diverse audience.376 The productions of ‗Forum
Festwochen‘ which focused on Turkey were hardly attended by Turkish audiences.
In a discussion after the play, this was criticized by a Turkish participant (visiting
from Turkey), who raised the question of targeted advertising for Turkish migrants.377
This worked better in ‗Into the City‘, which attracted many migrants of Balkan origin
by featuring a band from the region.378
14.7
Conclusion
The Vienna Festival began as a festival of classical music reaching out to the
working classes, while being part of a cultural public relations strategy aimed at
rectifying Vienna‘s artistic image following the horrors of the Second World War
and Austria‘s infamous role in them. But, like many other artistic festivals,
sustaining a long-term existence has involved adaptation to new trends and
audiences. In that, the Vienna Festival has been quite distinct and different from
other Viennese cultural institutions, whose existence has always centred on
continuity.
Discontinuity, re-invention and innovation are rather what guide the Vienna Festival.
Thus, the festival gradually moved away from music towards theatre. Opening up
new forms of artistic performance has also meant that the festival has been able to
attract new audiences. This is what happened first with theatre, then with
internationalization and today with mixed-arts and interdisciplinarity.
But changing has not meant removing the previous, older or more traditional genres.
Instead, the development has been towards expansion and diversity, even if in a
segmented manner. Thus, the Vienna Festival today consists of different programmes
each targeting different audiences—the common thread running through all of them
being an emphasis on ‗modernity‘. However, modernity, too, is increasingly being
374
Interview with Carp. ‗I have experienced this with Iranians. There were two Iranian productions in 2010
which were hardly attended by any Iranian people. One of the artists then told me that in Vienna there were very
few Iraninas who went to the theatre.‘
375
E.g. Fieldwork report 25 May 2009__concerts_Quatuor.
376
Interview with Carp, February 10, 2010; see also Fieldwork report_31 May 2009. Black tie: ‗Students or
people in their 20s-30s dominate the audience (around 50%)‘.
377
Fieldwork report 25 May 2009Theatre_hässliches entlein.
378
Fieldwork report 15 May 2010_into the city_openingevent.
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interpreted flexibly to refer to a historical era rather than contemporary
developments.
The Vienna Festival appears to be responding as much to pressures arising from the
democratization of culture as it does to those relating to commercialization, whereby
in both cases it still tends to position itself on the high-brow side of the different
genres it presents and represents. Thus, it focuses on education or youth culture when
it comes to supporting more popular forms of art like street theatre or popular music;
and it accepts commercialization, but mainly for its well-known and established
stars.
A new era of the Vienna Festival is expected to emerge in the next couple of years
when the contracts with the present directors expire and given that it is likely that
they will all be replaced. According to Bondy, 12 years is a long time and reform is
called for.379 To the extent that the Vienna Festival is not just the festival of the City
of Vienna, but also the festival of the City Council, the decision as to who will head
the festival in the next decade will also determine how it is conceptualized and
implemented. At the same time, it appears unlikely that the trends which have been
successfully established over the last years will be abandoned. A big challenge will
remain that of overcoming the segmentation of publics currently observed and
programmatically supported if the emphasis towards inter-disciplinarity and the
mixture of genres is to continue.
Appendix. List of interviewees
Stephanie Carp, Director Wiener Festwochen
Karin Cerny, journalist and reporter on cultural events
Schorsch Kamerum, artist
Klaus Philipp, journalist
Wolfgang Schlagg, Curator ‗Into the City‘
Amelie Tanret, assistant to music director
Almust Wagner, Curator Forum
379
TV Interview with C. Grissemann and Dirk Stermann at ‗Willkommen Österreich‘. 20 May 2010.
http://www.willkommen-tv.at/player.php?sid=F108#F108 visited 25.06 2010.
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