Curating a Counter-Archive : a historical examination of South African film festivals

Abstract

Film festivals globally are at the nexus of cinema, academic discourse and the cinema-viewing public. The structural framework of a festival allows multiple forms of engagement and development to take place, using discussion forums, curated film programmes and audience participation to drive this experience. The history of South African film festivals is an under-researched area of historical scholarship lacking a comparative historical analysis of the major festivals that were shaped and influenced by South African society from the late 1970s to the early 2000s. This study therefore aims to apply the established research on film festival frameworks to a South African context to examine how South African film festivals facilitated the shaping and evolution of the South African film canon. Film festivals such as the Durban International Film Festival, the Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival, the former Weekly Mail Film Festival and the Sithengi Film and Television Market and by extension the Cape Town World Cinema Festival provide a new visual repository for scholarly research. These events in a South African context act as alternative spaces and document a history of changing cinema culture, narrative, political agendas, and audience demographics. Subversion, resistance, representation and development are focal elements in evaluating how South African film festivals function as alternative or counter-archives, providing information that adds to and fills the lacunae in traditional archives. This study proposes that, to understand the current operational practices of South African film festivals, an understanding of the history of restrictions regionally and nationally regarding films and public spaces is necessary.