Göteborg International Film Festival Fund - Internationell kulturpolitik och strategiskt utvecklingsarbete

Abstract

The aim of this research is to examine the Göteborg International Film Festival Fund (GIFFF, 1998–2011) as a part of the festival's overall operations, to provide answers to questions about if/how the Fund can be understood as an expression of the festival's fundamental values, and how the Fund can be recognized within the festival's strategic development. The GIFFF is also discussed in relation to contemporary academic studies that interpret Western film funds for the developing countries – such as Hubert Bals Fund and Fond Sud Cinéma – as an expression of Eurocentrism. The investigation is based on the contemporary film festival research, previous academic studies on Göteborg International Film Festival, the festival’s printed material – such as programs and press releases – as well as interviews with the former festival director Gunnar Bergdahl, who initiated the Fund, and festival editor Ulf Sigvardson, who ran the Fund during its final years of existence. The conclusions are: The Fund's objectives – such as to support filmmakers and film schools in the developing countries, and also to screen their films at the festival – can be seen as a broader interpretation of the vision that was determined by the festival founders, that the festival should be a platform for independent filmmaking and also help screen the films that otherwise would not reach the Swedish audience. Also, the Fund was a significant part of the festival's expansion strategies during the 1990s. The establishing of the Fund enabled more opportunities for cultural-political work on an international level. It also helped to spread the festival's reputation within the global film festival network, among global filmmakers, and to the countries without stable structures for film production. The Fund was also a strategy for an extended work according to the festival's fundamental values. Despite the obvious benefits the Fund had for the less fortunate filmmakers to make their voices heard, it also – though unintentionally – operated within a context that the contemporary film festival research argues can be recognized as an expression of Eurocentrism.