The Film Festival As Social “Field”

The Film Festival as Social "Field"

Beyond the film industry, the figure of the film festival has an undeniable social meaning. It is within the festival where certain social relations converge which are transformed into a network formed by objective relations and positions. This social field model, originally developed by Pierre Bourdieu, is one of the foundations of contemporary sociology.

Fields has also been applied in film contexts. For example, Heise & Tudor use Bourdieu’s approach to legitimize cinema as art, drawing a map of cinematographic art fields in Britain and Brazil.

The notion of fields includes four elements: social relations;power and policies;identities and meanings;change mechanisms. First we have social relations. Within the social field theory it is impossible to consider essentialist notions. This means that individual and organizational actors do not have essential characteristics isolated from social relations, where these are found. The second element is the notions of power and policies. This element takes into account the fight between the actors within the field and the structure of the latter as a result of political struggles. Third are the meaning and identities. Here are taken into account how actors build their social world through identities, shared meanings and rules. Fourth, the notion of the social field seeks to explain the change mechanisms that occur within a specific social field.

Like prize ceremonies, film festivals are within a social context.

Each festival justifies its existence by positioning with other festivals. In general, film festivals focus on international products. However, not everyone shares the same relational references, that is, some may focus on presenting European cinema or can only present Hollywood productions. Also, festivals can also focus on geographical regions such as Latin America.

In film festivals, the element of power and politics includes different logical patterns. According to the concept of the various forms of capital of Bourdieu, it could be said that three logical patterns are observed: the logical pattern of government, which is based on political capital;The logical pattern of the audience that is based on the economic capital and the professional pattern that is based on cultural capital.