ORGANIZING AN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL IN THE PANDEMIC ERA

(1)

ORGANIZING AN

INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL IN THE PANDEMIC ERA

A Case Study on VOID International Animation Film Festival

submitted by Irene Galletti

(133048)

supervised by

Professor Christian De Cock

MSc in Social Sciences in Management of Creative Business Processes Master Thesis

Total Pages: 72

Total Characters: 158573

Copenhagen Business School May 15^th, 2021

(2)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my supervisor Christian De Cock for supporting my idea since the very first stages, and for always taking the time to guide me through this whole process with

precious insights. I would also like to thank all the faculty of Management of Creative Business Processes at Copenhagen Business School for enriching my knowledge in these past two years.

I would like to thank the team behind VOID International Animation Film Festival, for making this past year so full and exciting. Thanks to every one of you, and also to Chonie, Daniella and Nacho, for contributing without hesitations to this research.

This thesis is especially for my parents. For a thousand reasons, but especially for always believing in me and helping me become the person I am today.

For my brother Federico, what I miss most about living in Milan.

For my grandmas and all my family in Bologna, too.

Thanks to my great friend Bianca, for always being there to support me, through tears and laughs, from the same desk in high school to kms away.

And thanks to each one of my friends, now in every corner of Europe.

Especially to Clara, Chloé, Giada and Fede R., because if I love Copenhagen, you really are the main reason for that.

(3)

ABSTRACT

This thesis aims at understanding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on international film festivals. To analyze this phenomenon, I conducted a case study on VOID International Animation Film Festival, which takes place annually in Copenhagen, Denmark. The qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the organizers of VOID International Animation Film Festival; three field professionals collaborating with this edition of the festival were also interviewed to support the analysis. Theories on the film festivals industry, the experience economy, the cultural industries and crisis management were used as a theoretical framework for my study. The research focuses on the organizational aspects of festivals, with a particular emphasis on how their traditional physical format had to evolve to face the multiple challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the analysis of the gathered data, I discovered that the main response of festivals’ organizers was to change their format by turning the festival into digital. This new configuration affected both the organizational activities and the relationships with the manifold stakeholder; in the specific, I analyzed how the activities of programming, networking and audience development were altered. The adoption of digital formats radically displaced the unique physical experience which has always characterized film festivals. As a consequence, various innovative activities were implemented to attempt to recreate this aspect. Furthermore, I discovered that the hybrid format is emerging as a diffuse response to the challenges of the pandemic, allowing festivals’

organizers to merge aspects of the digital and the physical formats to keep delivering compelling experiences to their audiences.

(4)

1. INTRODUCTION

The etymology of the word “festival” traces its origins to the Latin festum, literally “public day of joy and jubilee” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2021). It is innate in their meaning how festivals are deeply connected to celebrations and community gathering. Thus, it is no surprise that they have always been conceived as physical events.

The novel coronavirus Covid-19 has provoked a significant pandemic, and the restrictive measures implemented to contain the virus are hitting various sectors, including arts and culture. Within this field, cultural events are probably the less suited ones for this problematic situation, and film festivals are no exception. By definition, film festivals are physical and collective events that gather together in one location thousands of people from all over the world. They revolve around the main cultural product that is the screening of movies, but they also go far beyond it, usually including side activities such as talks, parties or masterclasses.

This comprehensively entertaining experience is unique in the sense that it never repeats itself and it is perceived differently from each individual. It is also often connected to one specific territory and based on a continuous dialogue between the different stakeholders, audiences and communities involved.

As governments worldwide closed cultural institutions and events as part of the health measures to prevent a further spread of the virus, film festivals had to face an unexpected and previously unseen situation. They had to change their configuration for the first time in history.

For the workers in the film festivals industry, this crisis posed urgent challenges to face, together with opportunities to rethink the whole festival ecosystem. The renowned Cannes Film Festival was delayed and then cancelled: according to the director Thierry Frémaux, they would not accept any other forms because firmly convinced of the collective nature of the festival. Some others, such as the Hawaii International Film Festival, went hybrid, merging online and offline activities. Finally, some decided to move entirely online and substitute the physical experience with digital interactions, as it happened with the Locarno Film Festival.

(7)

1.1. Problem Identification

When writing a research project, it is vital to have a genuine interest in the topic that will be examined (Saunders et al., 2019). I have always been very passionate about the cultural world in its entirety, filling my leisure time with cinema, music and literature since I can recall. In particular, I have always been deeply fascinated by cinema. This passion, which began as a child experiencing the magic of the cinema venue, evolved over the years, as I started to be intrigued by more practical and economic aspects of this field. For instance, I concluded my Bachelor in Business Administration with a final thesis about alternative distribution channels in Italian art-house cinemas. This strong interest was also the reason why I decided to merge my academic background with my passion for the cultural industries by applying to the Master in Management of Creative Business Processes. These two years at Copenhagen Business School have provided me with relevant theoretical insights on the cultural sectors, with a particular focus on the Danish scene. On a more practical side, I had the chance to get closer to the Danish cinema industry and gain some expertise on it during this Master. Firstly, through an exciting university project with a feature film production house in Copenhagen, and then during my work experience of seven months at VOID International Animation Film Festival.

Undeniably, a topic that often emerged in my conversations with the field’s professionals was the significant effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the film festivals’ formats and organizational practices. Since I joined this field when the Covid-19 pandemic was already shaping this industry in unexpected ways, I was driven by the curiosity of how festivals could reinvent themselves in this context. I must highlight that, being the production assistant at VOID International Animation Film Festival for seven months, I was a privileged observant of this phenomenon and its broader implications. Working in such a context provided me with the possibility of getting relevant insights on the topic through informal conversations and my daily tasks in the Festival’s organization.

(8)

1.2. Problem Formulation

After identifying a potential topic of interest, it is essential to develop a research question that will delineate the central issue and what the research will try to explain or answer (Saunders et al., 2019). It is indeed important to define a research question because it will guide every step of the research process, from the literature’s choice to the analysis method, through the choice of the research approach and data collection techniques (ibid.). My research question undoubtedly evolved over time, and its precise definition was an ongoing process during my research. I never drastically changed my research question; however, the more information I was gathering from my data, the more I could shape it in the exact direction to guide me over the process.

Thus, the research question that this research aims to answer and that guided me throughout the whole research process is the following:

1.3. Choice of Methods and Theory

I chose to conduct a case study for answering my research question because, with this method, I could investigate the topic within a real-life context. I focused on a single organization, VOID International Animation Film Festival, to deeply analyze how they managed to tackle the Covid- 19 pandemic (hereinafter referred to as “pandemic”). I believe that more generic data collected from many different festivals would not have allowed me to truly understand how this phenomenon impacted every aspect of a festival’s organization. Moreover, I also had the chance of being a privileged observant in this specific festival; this was another reason why I chose to conduct an individual case study on VOID. The research follows a cross-sectional design, since it is related to the current moment characterized by the pandemic affecting the whole world.

How does an international film festival adapt its format in response to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic?

(9)

Thus, it is circumscribed to a precise fragment of time that began in the early spring of 2020 with the announcements of the first Covid-19 restrictions. The gathered data were qualitative because I wanted to understand the phenomenon of film festivals during the pandemic from the perspective of the field professionals. The other aspects of my methodological choices, such as the preferred research philosophy, research approach and data collection procedures, will be explained in detail in the Methodology chapter.

My choice of theory was helpful to investigate the existing literature on the research topic.

Moreover, I used it as a foundation for developing the interview guides for my qualitative data collection. Before and during the interviews, I always kept in mind the leading theories on the relevant topics I was investigating. During the course of my research, I often redefined my exact research question. While I was getting a clearer vision of the direction that I wanted to give to my inquiry, I could identify the most pertinent theories and those who were less appliable to my case. In the Theoretical Framework chapter, I will outline the relevant studies that shaped my research. In the Methodology section, I will explain in detail how I used the chosen literature according to my guiding research philosophy. Finally, in the Discussion, I will explain how I made sense of these relevant studies in relation to my empirical findings.

1.4. VOID International Animation Film Festival

VOID International Animation Film Festival is a ten-day event that has been active since 2015 in Copenhagen. Since then, it has taken place annually at Cinemateket, the well-known cinema of the Danish Film Institute, and 2021 marks its sixth edition. The core team at VOID is a small, international group of professionals in the Danish film industry, driven by a shared passion for animation and festivals, who have an extensive network in the film industry and cultural enterprises. VOID is also well connected with many partners and collaborators in the fields of cinema and animation, both in Denmark and abroad.

VOID’s cultural offer is focused on animation films for adults, differentiating itself from the traditional animation intended for children. With its engaging and experimental contents, VOID indeed aims at celebrating the full potential of animation. This translates into the screening of independent titles that would otherwise have a slight possibility to be enjoyed by loyal

(10)

animation fans, mixed with some evergreen classics to reach more neophytes audiences. Their purpose is to enhance diversity in the animation field through their screenings and, in this edition, through other branches embraced by animation, such as VR or AR technologies. Besides the ten days in which the actual VOID takes place, the festival team fosters animation’s knowledge during the whole year. In fact, they usually carry out various side activities before and after the main event, such as masterclasses, talks with professionals or special screenings.

In 2021, for the first time in its history, VOID found itself in the unexpected situation of having to change its traditional physical format. After the initial uncertainty, due to the pandemic restrictions in Denmark, the festival took place virtually from February 25^th to March 25^th, 2021. In the end, due to the positive evolution of the situation in Denmark, the festival could also maintain some physical screenings at Cinemateket in May. How this organizational process was ideated and carried out will be described in detail in the Analysis section.

1.5. Academic and Societal Relevance

Academic studies have widely explored the topic of film festivals and their organizational features, which nowadays constitute a widely acknowledged field in itself (Strandgaard Pedersen & Mazza, 2011). However, this subject has rarely been addressed in a situation so extraordinary as the one we are currently living in. Academic studies on the topic are still limited and have begun to emerge just in these past months. In addition, studies in the field of experience economy have proliferated in the last years, highlighting the importance in today’s society of delivering unique experiences to the consumer, who is increasingly looking for them in place of mere functional products. These concepts of experience economy have been applied to the cultural industries, whose products present the attributes of “experience goods” (Caves, 2000). However, the pandemic has also posed questions regarding how to still offer experience in a world where social interaction has been so drastically reduced, and academic studies on this topic are still in their emergent phase.

Thus, the latest months have shown a growing interest in the various innovative strategies undertaken by artistic and cultural fields during the pandemic. Like many other sectors, these realities had to rethink themselves continuously to keep delivering their cultural outcomes. The

(11)

topic chosen focuses on one segment in particular of these cultural industries: film festivals. It is thus a very current issue, because it enhances in practical terms how film festivals can still deliver culture to their audience in a different but still enriching way, through the possible formats they have at their disposal. Indeed, it is complicated to predict how long this unprecedented situation will last, and film festivals need to find an alternative way to keep pursuing their mission. Shaping their formats in a way that would have been unthinkable a few years ago seems, at the moment, the only possible tool. Thus, it is worth investigating how they are doing it in the best way possible and how they could improve it to respond to this new normality.

1.6. Thesis Structure

In order to explore the research topic illustrated above, the thesis is structured as follows.

Chapter 2 presents an overview of the theoretical framework used, outlining the most relevant existing studies examined to build the framework for this analysis. Subsequently, chapter 3 presents an explanation about the methodological approach used to write the thesis, including the research philosophy, approach and design, as well as the preferred techniques of data collection and analysis. In chapter 4, the gathered data are outlined and analyzed, by presenting my empirical findings along four different macro-sections. Afterwards, chapter 5 is the discussion, where I further explain and relate my empirical results within the previously described theoretical framework. Finally, chapter 6 summarizes the whole research and presents the concluding remarks, together with limitations and proposals for further research.

(12)

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This section presents the most relevant existing literature that has supported this research’s development. The following topics were selected before the data collection process and represented its theoretical foundation. The chapter is structured in four different parts. In subchapter 2.1, an overview of film festivals is presented to highlight the distinctive features of these events within the cinema industry. Afterwards, subchapter 2.2. focuses on the broader sector of the cultural industries, and the typical aspects that characterize them. Subchapter 2.3 focuses on the experience economy, a necessary subject to understand the differences between physical, digital and hybrid festivals. Finally, subchapter 2.4 focuses on crisis management, to present an overview of the main strategies organizations dispose to deal with crisis such as the pandemic.

2.1. Film Festivals

Film festivals have experienced a growing academic interest in the last two decades, due to their fast proliferation worldwide (Papadimitriou & Ruoff, 2016). Thus, nowadays they are considered a widely acknowledged field (Strandgaard Pedersen & Mazza, 2011). However, as Iordanova & Rhyne (2009) argue, it is indeed an interdisciplinary field: research on the topic has been conducted, for instance, in the humanities but also the social sciences, in business schools but also, and especially, in media studies. Thus, although the topic is gaining more attention, it remains fragmented and would benefit from a more structured approach. To better understand what this complex field refers to, it is useful to delimit the topic. Interpreting the guidelines provided by the International Federation of Film Producers Association (FIAPF), Strandgaard Pedersen and Mazza (2011) define international film festivals as events that screen international films in front of diverse audiences, constituted by general public but also professionals, press and media. These events occur annually or biannually in a predetermined city for a specific number of days (ibid.).

(13)

2.1.1. Film Festivals Within the Cinema Industry

In her extensive work about film festivals, De Valck (2007) provides a helpful historical perspective on the topic:

1. The first phase starts in 1932 with the first periodic film festival (Venice) and lasts until the early 70s. The events are mainly intended to expose domestic cinema.

2. In the 70s – 80s, the second phase sees the rise of independent festivals, which have a double mission: supporting this artistic field and assisting the film industries.

3. The third phase starts in the 80s. Film festivals begin to expand globally, forming a wide international circuit, and they gradually become more institutionalized entities.

Thus, the international film festival was, from the beginning, a “very European institution”

(Elsaesser, 2005, p. 84). Scholars have discording opinions, however, regarding the role of Hollywood in the evolution of film festivals. De Valck (2007) has an inclusive approach: surely Hollywood has always influenced European cinema, but she sees the network as open to Hollywood rather than in constant opposition. On the other hand, Caves (2000) relates the development of film festivals to the dichotomy between the fragmentation of the European film industry and the highly-integrated studio system in the United States. From his perspective, film festivals arose as events for cultural exchange for film professionals, while Hollywood monopolized the distribution scene in the United States. Elsaesser (2005) too describes this relationship as complex. Film festivals resemble Hollywood for their global nature. However, they differ from Hollywood because for having many more facets: they display and market arts and culture, and they have an undeniable competitive nature. Moreover, the peculiar historical moment when the first European festivals were born, links their creation to the willingness of a post-war rebirth. This phenomenon had two main driving forces: rebuilding Europe through culture, and an opposition, in more aesthetical terms, of the film product itself from the Hollywood-like productions (Harbord, 2002).

Thus, film festivals gradually became a real alternative to the classic distribution channels (Elsaesser, 2005). One of the main purposes of festival circuits is to provide the audiences with films that otherwise would not be seen beyond their national environment (Iordanova & Rhyne, 2009). In her work, De Valck (2007) seeks to understand the festival circuit as the nodal point

(14)

in a prosperous cinema network that originated in Europe and expanded worldwide: it is a global network and, for this reason, open to Hollywood and other entities. Elsaesser (2005) agrees with defining film festivals as a network, that is a “cluster of consecutive international venues” (p. 87). Consequences of this network nature can appear contradictory. Festivals compete on many levels, such as premieres for their screenings, or on the most coveted locations or periods of the year. On the other hand, these same elements of competition have positive sides too, because this comparison incites to improve the quality standards and the attractiveness of the screenings (ibid.).

2.1.2. Organizational Aspects of Film Festivals

Iordanova & Rhyne (2009) examine film festivals along different axes. For this research, it is fruitful to focus on the axe of “festivals as institutions”. Film festivals can be studied as organizations with their own “business plan”, dealing with manifold stakeholders (e.g., film professionals, sponsors) who hold different interests and expectations. This perspective considers a wide array of factors, such as the variety of organizational formats, funding strategies and political backgrounds that festivals as organizations present (ibid). In the same years, Strandgaard Pedersen and Rüling (2010) stress the importance of studying the organizational aspects of film festivals, presenting three possible approaches: observing them as “arenas of emergence”; studying their role in the global cinema industry; observing specifically their organizational peculiarities.

Besides their role in facilitating distribution, film festivals provide a place for implementing institutional arrangements in the field. Because they serve this function, they have been described as field-configuring events (Strandgaard Pedersen & Moeran, 2009). Field- configuring events are those “temporary social organizations (...) that encapsulate and shape the development of professions, technologies, market and industries” (Lampel & Meyer, 2008, p. 1025). Strandgaard Pedersen and Moeran (2009) further observe how these field- configuring events provide a set for discussing and affirming different values. They argue that values (material, social, symbolic and creative) are introduced and promoted in these contexts.

Only by considering the plurality of these values, it can be understood how the economic value in these creative industries is generated (ibid). Rüling (2008) agrees in defining film festivals

(15)

as field-configuring events. He describes how the Annecy Film Festival has contributed to configure the field of animated film, by filling the gap for those artistic filmmakers who were not fitting in Disney nor in the live-action film industry.

Film festivals indeed present a temporary attribute. According to Lundin and Söderholm (1995, p. 440), “temporary organizations provide a highly organized way of dealing with time problems and acting according to perceptions of time as scarce”. However, boundaries between temporary and permanent can be blurred: temporary organizations are often formed within a permanent organizational setting and enclosed in wider structures (Schüßler, 2017). For instance, VOID is perceived only as a temporary event but is coordinated by a permanent organization, “VOID Copenhagen IVS”. Film festivals' temporality leads to peculiar interaction dynamics, and it is used in these organizations to complete specific tasks. In such a context, the possibility for the field actors to gather together physically is vital for coordinating processes and form new alliances (ibid.). Hence, time is the essence in such temporary organizations.

Commonly, film festivals are considered indivisible from their physical location; time, on the other hand, has usually earned less consideration (Harbord, 2009). Film festivals generate an experience of temporality, where the sense of "the event running live" (p. 43) gives great relevance to the contingent side of the festival. The result is a unique experience consisting of a performance that is not reproducible because it requires a constant interaction between the accidental and the structure. (ibid). Thus, both time and space seem to play a critical role in demarcating the festival event from the outside world.

2.1.3. Producing Value for the Community

It is hard to imagine some cities apart from their festivals. Since they are so inextricably bound to their territory, film festivals undoubtedly have an impact on their surrounding communities.

They have a decisive role in attracting the local and population and visitors and in developing accurate facilities and opportunities for sociability (Elsaesser, 2005). These features are particularly appreciated by the so-called creative class (Florida, 2002), or what Elsaesser (2005, p. 102) calls "experience-hungry ecosystems”. Hence, film festivals’ popularity seems to be related to our society's growing interest in experiences. Film festivals are, by definition, events, thus extremely valued in today's "event-driven culture" (Peranson, 2009, p.24). The wide

(16)

category of international film festivals can be divided into business-oriented festivals and audience-oriented film festivals (ibid.). The formers are those who possess a marketplace (e.g., Cannes), while the latter are all the other ones, that represent the large majority. Different festivals will give different stakeholders more or less importance: for instance, business festivals will hold distributors/buyers as a priority, while audience ones will have the audience as a major concern (ibid).

Moreover, film festivals can have another vital role in the community, that is shaping collective identity. According to Gamson (1996), the willingness to make visible what the festival stands for in terms of its identity is something intrinsic to the processes of organizing and programming cultural festivals. Elsaesser (2005) too talks about identity-making, especially for those festivals open to the general public (e.g., Berlin). These festivals will take advantage of their audience, which will examine the films according to their personal criteria, and this will contribute to create the identity of the films in the audience’s minds. It goes without saying that

“identity” in this conversation has various shapes, depending on the festival: surely national, as it was in the first phase, but growingly representing diverse groups and cultures (e.g., Lesbian and Gay Films in New York, as studied by Gamson, 1996).

2.1.4. Film Festivals in The Pandemic Era

The devastating effects of Covid-19 on the film industry, and in this case on film festivals, are naturally at the earliest stage of academic research. Because of this phenomenon's total novelty and recentness, most reflections on it come from articles rather than academic sources. Since the beginning of the epidemic, journalists have been documenting the various development of film festivals worldwide, and scholars are just now starting to reflect on the phenomenon.

A relevant contribution on the subject has been made by Zielinksi (2020). Being potential sites of disease transmissions, festivals worldwide had to announce their cancellation or their online/hybrid version, an action which surely impacted what he calls their "festivality" aspect.

Festivality, which includes all those subjective experiences that go beyond the films' screening, was suddenly taken away by the exclusively online experience (ibid.). The engagement with the audience became more complicated with networking going completely online and the strange

(17)

feeling of attending the festival from one's home. All these elements undeniably comported some severe difficulties in replicating the so-called "festival bubble" (p. 4). Zielinski also makes an interesting point on inclusivity. On the one hand, these new configurations have opened up possibilities for wider audiences, for instance with free screenings or reduced tickets. However, it is also true that the digital format can exclude all those who stand below a certain technological and economic level (ibid.).

On a broader level, Akser (2020) reflects on the devastating effects of Covid-19 on the film industry, especially on distribution. He notices how in this period many films were realized and released through platforms (e.g., Netflix, Amazon Prime) that are increasingly gaining reach and marketplaces. Film festivals usually are important networks of distribution (Elsaesser, 2005);

thus, studies in this fields should take these distribution trends into serious consideration.

Otherwise, contributions on the subject are more descriptive, namely reports on specific film festivals worldwide and how they manage the current situation; the festival review NECSUS Centre conducted relevant research in this regard. "Now is the time of/for crisis", De Valck &

Damiens (2020, p. 300) argue in the editorial of this review. Crises as the ongoing pandemic must be examined by media studies as productive hubs, too: undeniably the pandemic is making everything uncertain, but it can also bring new opportunities for festivals and new ways of engaging with cinema in general (ibid.).

2.2. The Cultural Industries

To better comprehend film festivals, it is helpful to step back to the broader concept of cultural industries. The cultural industries are hard to define and delimit; they are often referred to in other terms, such as media industries, entertainment industries, or (most of the time) creative industries. By definition, cultural industries are those organizations that deal with cultural goods, defined as “non-material goods, directed to a public of consumers for whom they generally serve an aesthetic and expressive, rather than clearly utilitarian function” (Hirsch, 1972, p. 127). UNESCO has provided a helpful framework for these sectors, where film festivals pertain to the “cultural industries” domain, specifically to the performance and celebration sector (Figure 1).

(18)

Figure 1 – (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, p. 24)

Cultural goods are the outcomes of symbolic creativity, that is “the manipulation of symbols for purposes of entertainment, information and perhaps even enlightenment” (Hesmondhalgh, 2019, p. 9). Besides being symbolic, cultural goods have also been described as experience goods (Caves, 2000), meaning that the consumers will not assess the value before consuming the cultural good. As Florida (2002) argues when describing the rise of the creative class, nowadays culture and leisure time are becoming increasingly appreciated. This tendency translates into going beyond the utilitarian aspect of a good, with a growing need for its intangible and experiential features. Experience (and memories of it) plays a decisive role in cultural consumption, mainly because cultural goods are often consumed in a social context (Caves, 2000). Thus, sociality and conversation are crucial in shaping the whole cultural experience because people like to talk about common cultural interests. Experience affects cultural consumption through the rational addiction effect, too: people consume more of a creative good because they assume that this will increase their future capacity of enjoying its consumption (Caves, 2000; Stigler & Becker, 1977). Thus, the interest in the cultural good rises according to their possibility of consuming it, which is often related to their income and education (ibid.). In short, the quality of the cultural offer is vital, but other elements are

(19)

essential too, such as the overall servicescape, the interaction with the consumers and all the complementary services of the cultural offer.

Cultural products are different concerning the degree of quality that cultural consumers see in them. The cultural creators hold diverse sets of skills and proficiency, a phenomenon that has been called the A list / B list property (Caves, 2000). This “ranking of talents” is not rare in the cultural domains: film festivals are ranked too, with the primary quality’s evaluation being FIAPF’s official accreditation. Nevertheless, success does not depend merely on quality.

Ultimately, consumers’ tastes play a crucial role, so cultural consumption should be addressed with attention. Because of cultural goods’ social features, “buzzes” and word-of-mouth are vital factors (ibid.): thus, creative businesses need to consider these aspects when creating or innovating the cultural product.

Another distinguishing feature of cultural industries the riskiness of their business (Hesmondhalgh, 2019). Audiences consume culture in very erratic ways (Garnham, 1990);

moreover, it is hard for audiences to predict in advance which satisfaction they will receive from cultural consumption because of the abovementioned experiential nature of these goods (Hesmondhalgh, 2019). This phenomenon relates to the nobody knows property: there is always high uncertainty about how consumers will perceive a new cultural good (Caves, 2000).

This feature is indeed relevant to the scope of this research. In fact, Caves chose this definition quoting William Goldman’s observation about the cinema industry, “Nobody knows anything”:

it means that producers know a lot about what past successes in the industry, but their ability to predict the future exits of a new film are almost absent (Goldman, 1984).

For the scope of this research, it is also fruitful to underline how cultural industries pursue innovation. According to Caves (2000), innovation plays a crucial role in cultural and creative industries, acting as a “lucky or insightful break into a new realm of creative problem-solving”

(p. 203). Thus, constant innovation is necessary to keep pace with the fast evolution of technology, society and consumers’ tastes. Innovation can concern creative products and processes, but goes way beyond their aesthetic or content features. According to Miles and Green (2008), the constant problem-solving typical of cultural industries is connected to a series of slight innovations that will determine the final creative outcome. In particular, they

(20)

identify four main dimensions where to find this “hidden innovation”: cultural product, cultural concept, delivery and user interface (ibid.).

A final feature, typical of the media industries and especially suited for the cinema industry, is the Long Tail model (Anderson, 2006; Afuah, 2009). This model consists of selling fewer units of many niche products: the aim here is to generate aggregate sales of these niche products, thus still getting high revenues. Studies by Anderson (2006) and Afuah (2009) testify how, thanks to globalization and technology improvements, the long tail of the demand curve is now gaining attention, compared to the past when hits and blockbusters were vital for film industries to succeed. Today, the continuous importance of digital (e.g., streaming services) is helping the personalization of the cultural offer and the iper-segmentation of both the offer and the audiences. Thus, players in the film industry can now take advantage of the continuous technology improvements by marketing niche films via the internet. These lower costs and expanded digital spaces are indeed helpful to reach the niches of customers and enhance the interaction with them (Anderson, 2006; Afuah, 2009).

2.3. The Experience Economy

The concept of experience economy was first introduced by Pine & Gilmore (1998; 1999), who argued that the concept of economic value has changed together with society. Economic activity was initially based on agrarian economy, to turn into a goods-based industrial economy, and then to a service economy. Thus, they describe experience economy as the fourth stage emerging within the progression of economic value (ibid).

Experiences happen when an organization uses its service and goods “to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event” (Pine & Gilmore, 1998, p. 3). Thus, the main characteristic of experiences would be their memorability. Another distinctive feature is their high level of subjectivity: while a good or service is something external and objective, experiences are characterized by subjective and strictly personal nature (ibid.). For this reason, the authors’ use of the theatrical stage (ibid.) as an example is particularly suited. Each experience arises thanks to the interaction between the event (e.g., the theatrical play) and the

(21)

individual’s perception. It follows that each experience is unique in the sense that two individuals will never live the exact same experience (ibid.).

Because of their growing relevance in our society and economy, experiences are essential in defining a business: thus, companies should always meditate about which specific experience they want to offer. One major contribution in this sense is their classification of “The Four Realms of an Experience” (ibid.). Here, they consider experiences along two dimensions:

A. Customer participation, ranging from passive participation to active participation.

B. Connection between customers and event/performance, ranging from absorption to immersion.

Figure 2 – (Pine & Gilmore, 1998, p. 11)

This scheme is particularly relevant because it allows to classify experiences into four broad categories, depending on their level along the two continua. According to the authors, the most memorable experiences will include aspects of all the four realms, forming what they described as the “sweet spot” (ibid).

(22)

In the following years, many scholars have followed Pine & Gilmore’s approach. The European Centre for the Experience and Transformation Economy, in particular, has conducted relevant research in this perspective. In this context, Boswijk et al. (2007) highlighted the importance for an experience to be “meaningful”, by describing the necessary attributes that an experience must satisfy to be considered such. Besides the intrinsic characteristics of experience, another feature highlighted is the importance of the locations to which the physical experience will be bounded. Thus, organizations will need to choose their environments carefully (ibid.). In this regard, they argue that besides the physical setting, also the virtual one is growing in importance, because people are increasingly communicating with each other via the Internet (ibid.). Scandinavian studies have also been relevant in the field of experience economy. The first Danish contribution on the subject was given by Lund et al. ’s book “Følesesfabrikken”

(2005), which described the experience economy as a “mega-trend”. This definition meant that experience economy, already in the days, was seen as a societal tendency showing a growing interest in the population’s demand for experiences (Lund et al., 2005). Another interesting take on experience economy is the one by Bille (2010, 2012), also together with Lorenzen (2008), that studied what they describe as the Nordic (or Scandinavian) approach. Their perspective is based on three main trends: the abovementioned Pine and Gilmore’s approach on experience economy (1999), Florida’s theory on the creative class (2002), and the growing academic focus on creative industries. Bille and Lorenzen (2008) stand by a broader Scandinavian trend, highlighting the close connection between experience economy and cultural activities, and the potential for economic growth of the latter.

Moreover, sometimes organizations offer experiences in a digital way. Korn and Pine (2011) developed the “Typology of Human Capability” framework to study how the interaction between human experience and digital technology can increase the customer value:

(23)

Figure 3 – (Korn & Pine, 2011, p. 36)

The framework shows how individuals and groups use digital technology for two main reasons:

to connect and to do. They connect with the world or to others either by sensing or linking; they undertake actions by performing and organizing (ibid.). The framework outlines digital technology’s utility across these four different human dimensions. Thus, organizations can use it to understand how to enhance or create new customer value with the help of digital technology. According to the authors, the specifics of digital technology make it “the technology of experiences (p. 38): it enables countless possibilities to offer experiences, and it does so by using a wide range of techniques that engage human senses in unprecedented ways (ibid.).

Narrowing the focus to the cinema industry, the experience would certainly differ depending on the different viewing “frames” (e.g., cinema theatre, TV, tablet), whose number today is increasingly growing. Every frame represents a diverse way of interacting with the movie. For instance, watching a film in a movie theatre is undoubtedly a deeply experiential activity, a collective ritual facilitating the psychological identification of the audience (Morin, 1956). In this regard, it is fruitful to mention Fanchi’s (2007) distinction between immersive and performative frames. The first ones (e.g., movie theatres) are characterized by a deep emotional involvement of the audience, through mechanisms such as projection and identification; the latter allow the individual to intervene more freely on the text and times of the movie (e.g., pausing a movie on a mobile device or on TV).

(24)

Narrowing the scope to this research, Park et al. (2010) conducted an interesting study regarding the tourist experience in the context of film festivals. They draw on a previous study by Oh and Fiore (2007), where the authors had developed an experience economy scale based on Pine and Gilmore’s Framework (1999) and tested it within the touristic sector. By applying this scale specifically to film festivals, Park et al. observed how they can be considered as a destination to both obtain satisfaction and evade the routine. Other scholars drew on Pine &

Gilmore to study the connection between experience and festivals. For instance, Manthiou et al.

(2014) observed the positive effect of the four abovementioned dimensions on the attendees’

vividity of memory and loyalty. Also De Valck (2007) relates the popularity of these cultural events to the rise of the experience economy and the creative class. According to her, nowadays festivals offer “commodified experiences” (p. 195) through magnificent exhibitions and unique atmospheres, where social intercourse plays a key role in making the experience worthwhile.

2.4. Crisis Management

The pandemic has deeply affected organizations worldwide, forcing them to introduce crisis management strategies to deal with the pandemic’s effects. Crisis management is an organizational function conceived to deal with organizational crises. Organizational crisis can be defined as a "specific, unexpected and non-routine event or series of events that create high levels of uncertainty and threaten" (Seeger, Sellnow & Ulmer, 1998, p. 233). Several scholars have described crises as natural events, "bifurcation points" (Murphy, 1996, p. 106) that permanently redefine the organization's life. As mentioned above, when talking about film festivals, De Valck & Damiens (2020, p. 300) argue that "now is the time of/for crisis", pointing out that they should also be considered productive centers. In this regard, Meyers & Holusha (1986) distinguish several positive outcomes of crises, such as accelerating change, facing latent problems or evolving new strategies.

Within this context, three main elements have been widely used to examine organizational crises: threat, short response time and surprise. The perception of threat is a common feature of crises. It arises from a divergence between desired and present condition: a triggering fact, that can have manifold causes, would be the starting point for the threat’s perception (Billings

(25)

et al., 1980). Usually, there must be an agreement about the existence of a crisis before crisis management actions start to take place (ibid). A short response time is also a common feature related to crises, since quick responses from organizations are crucial to reduce and control the damage (ibid.). However, this time pressure often makes the decision-makers take actions with incomplete resources and information (Seeger, Sellnow & Ulmer, 1998).

Finally, surprise happens when organizations suddenly have to face circumstances that are improbable and discordant with their usual activities (ibid.). When a crisis happens, it challenges the routine, and decision-makers have to decide to maintain or leave their cardinal assumptions (Pauchant & Mitroff, 1992).

An organizational crisis is undoubtedly a threat to the organization’s goals and can deeply affect its stakeholders. Thus, it is fruitful to consider both the internal dynamics of a crisis and the external relationships with the stakeholders. A crisis condition must be managed in three subsequent stages: before, during and after the crisis (Institute for Public Relationship, 2007).

The pre-crisis phase tackles prevention and preparation: it is about reducing the predictable risks that could lead to a crisis and is thus part of the wider function of “risk management”

(ibid). Positive relationships with the stakeholders and the act of including them in the prevention phase can help to reduce the likelihood of a crisis (Bundy et al., 2017).

The crisis response happens when the actual crisis hits. In this regard, the Situational Crisis Communication Theory argues that the stakeholders’ negative perceptions are higher the more responsibility they attribute to the organization for the crisis (Coombs, 1995; Coombs &

Holladay, 2002). By evaluating the level of perceived crisis responsibility, this theory classifies crises into three categories: victim crises, accidental crises and preventable crises. For these reasons, an organization’s response strategy will play a fundamental role in managing the crisis (ibid.). Moreover, crisis management scholars have often described responses’ strategies along a continuum between defensive and accommodative response strategies. As highlighted by Bundy & Pfarrer (2015), defensive strategies accept less responsibility and try to reduce the organization’s perceived link with the crisis (e.g., denial, scapegoating). On the other hand, accommodative strategies (e.g., apologies, sympathy) accept the organization’s responsibility and recognize its role in the crisis (ibid.). Moreover, another factor that is often influencing

(26)

stakeholders is their level of identification with the organization: the higher the identification, the lower the organization will be blamed, and vice-versa (Zavyalova et al., 2016).

Finally, the post-crisis phase sees the organization trying to go back to its usual business. This will involve best practices such as reputation’s repair, follow-up communication to stakeholders, and analysis of how the crisis was managed (Institute for Public Relationship, 2007). According to Bundy et al. (2017), the evaluations from the organization’s stakeholders (e.g., perceived reputation or legitimacy) will be the key outcomes of crises. The organization’s overall response strategy will be crucial for managing these social evaluations, that tend certainly tend to worsen when organizational crises take place.

This field of study is insightful for the purposes of this research. Organizations in almost every cultural and creative field had somewhat to change their fruition’s models during this last year:

these forced changes were a necessary consequence of having to manage the organizational crises provoked by the pandemic. This moment of crisis has also turned into an opportunity for experimenting with new languages that would not have seen the light otherwise. Plenty of innovative activities are being undertaken during the pandemic by the whole cultural sector.

These include, for instance, virtual tours via websites or specific apps (e.g., Google Arts &

Culture). Online exhibitions prospered too: an example is the National Museum Thyssen- Bornemisza in Madrid and its online exhibition “Rembrandt and Amsterdam Portraiture 1590- 1670”, which brought a +56% visits to the website between 13 March – 13 April 2020. Online learning activities were also proposed by cultural institutions, such as the “Corona Creative Classes” offered via live streaming by the MuDa – Museum of Digital Art in Zurich (NEMO COVID-19 Report, 2020). As abovementioned, film festivals were no exception, and the purpose of this research is exactly to observe and understand how they were able to manage this crisis.

2.5. My Take on Literature

This last section intends to show how the literature presented in this theoretical framework played a crucial role in my research's development and for the reader's understanding. Since my research focuses on film festivals, one of my objectives was to define these cultural

(27)

organizations and their main activities. After a brief historical excursus, I focused my attention on film festivals' organizational features, with particular attention to their temporary and field- configuring nature. I also wanted to observe them inside their context, namely their impact on the surrounding communities. Because of their nature of "festivality", another priority for this stage of research was to give an overview of the concept of the experience economy. This has emerged as a necessary topic to understand the cultural outcomes of festivals, and how/if the pandemic has displaced their experiential side. Afterwards, I provided a generic background on the cultural industries' field, to highlight some features, such as riskiness and symbolism, relevant to understanding film festivals. Finally, I thought it was relevant to provide an overview of the main practices of crisis management, to observe how fundamental this function is when dealing with contexts such as the pandemic.

While developing my theoretical framework, some tensions emerged. First of all, experience appears to be a crucial element in today's society: we live in an "experience-hungry ecosystem"

(Elsaesser, 2005, p. 102), constantly seeking the symbolic/experiential side of goods and services, and this applies especially to the cultural consumption (Caves, 2000; Hesmondhalgh, 2019). The pandemic posed some issues in our seeking for cultural consumption experiences:

narrowing to the institution of the film festival, its "festivality" (Zielinski, 2020) has been radically jeopardized. Thus, the main issue here would be if and how it is still possible to create memorable experiences in this unprecedented context of digital/hybrid film festivals, where the physical and social contexts are lacking. The second tension relates to the Long Tail Theory and its concept of selling fewer of many niche products (Anderson, 2006; Afuah, 2009). Scholars agree that the digital era helps this phenomenon. A question here could thus be how and if this applies to the phenomenon of digital film festivals, if these institutions are pursuing this strategy, and how this choice of contents impacts their inclusivity. These tensions will be further developed in the course of the research, and justified in the Discussion Chapter, where I will also interpret my results in connection to this theoretical framework.

(28)

3. METHODOLOGY

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the methodology applied to the research, outlining the approaches, methods and techniques used throughout the whole process. The first part of the section illustrates the philosophy that has guided me in this research, as well as the research approach and the research design. Afterwards, the second part of the section describes the methods of data gathering and analysis. For each section, I will also provide the logic behind my methodological choices and the different techniques applied.

3.1. Research Philosophy

When illustrating the research methodology, it is helpful to begin with the research philosophy.

Research philosophy is the “system of beliefs and assumptions about the development of knowledge” (Saunders et al., 2019, p. 130). Thus, it is a broad concept referring to how the researcher views the worlds and creates her own knowledge on a particular topic. In social research, these assumptions and beliefs defining the worldview of the researchers have also been referred to as “paradigms”. It is fundamental for the researcher to explain their guiding paradigm, also to further define how she conducted the more practical aspects of the research process.

Having reflected on the beliefs that shaped my approach to this research and how I developed my knowledge throughout it, I identified the philosophy guiding my research with the pragmatism approach. This philosophical approach traces its origins in the early 1870s and sees the American philosopher John Dewey as one of its main precursors. Dewey and his followers believed in the uncertainty characterizing our world, thus stating that reality can never be totally determined. Reality is complex and always changing, and actions are decisive in defining these dynamisms (Kaushik & Walsh, 2019). Another relevant take by Dewey is the importance of formulating the proper inquiry. This inquiry will be an investigation meant to understand an aspect of reality and create knowledge and improvements to that part of reality (ibid.). During the course of my research, I constantly worked on identifying what the actual

(29)

problematic phenomenon was, always with a practical perspective on how this was socially situated. The formulation of my inquiry was also often redefined to bring real improvements to the primary investigation.

Moreover, the focus of pragmatisms’ epistemology is that what constitutes adequate knowledge has to be “practical”. This means that, if the knowledge produced is successful in interpreting the phenomena of interest, pragmatism would consider it valid (Saunders et al., 2019). These beliefs at the core of pragmatism sum up that this research philosophy does not consider the world in an abstract way. Instead, it considers theories and ideas as instruments for action and change, with their practical consequences in specific contexts (ibid.). In short, pragmatism as a research paradigm tends towards solving practical, real-life issues. Action is the central idea of pragmatism, as it can also be observed by its etymology deriving from the ancient Greek πράγμα - fact, action (Oxford English Dictionary, 2021). Thus, the pragmatic reflection insists on the nature of the problems and their possible solutions and likely actions to undertake (Kaushik & Walsh, 2019). I believe that this philosophy of science was what mostly guided my research. Understanding an absolute truth would not be possible in my research, as I cannot predict how future film festivals will be during or after the pandemic. What I can do through this research, on the other hand, is to study the phenomenon and measure its potential evolution in the future: however, I can only base it on the present by investigating my interviewees’ practical knowledge.

3.2. Research Approach

Another essential methodological aspect is the approach used to integrate the theory with the collected data. Pragmatism typically starts from abductive reasoning, which was the approach I used throughout my research. The term “abduction” was coined by another pragmatist philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce, and researchers in the following years have widely used this approach. The main feature of abductive reasoning is that it moves back and forth between data and theory: it takes place at every stage of the research process and is based on the

“continuous interplay between concepts and data” (Van Maanen et al., 2007, p. 1149). Using this approach allowed me to merge deduction and induction to study a pretty unknown subject, by analyzing both the theory and my empirical research. In this way, I could provide what

(30)

Peirce (1932) describes as “qualified guesses”: I formed my prior knowledge from the field, trying to discover new knowledge but without the aim of proving its universal truth. In fact, a relevant feature of abductive reasoning is that it often results in explanations that are not always possible to prove, but that can still be seen as probable (ibid.).

Abduction usually begins with detecting a surprising phenomenon, whose patterns will be explored through the data collection (Saunders et al., 2019). Abductive reasoning can be very advisable when there is much information on the research’s topic in one context, but less into the situation she is researching (ibid.). For this reason, abductive reasoning was particularly suited for my research, which aims at observing a widely studied phenomenon (film festivals) in an unprecedented context (the pandemic). Thus, this was the method I used throughout my whole research process, often going back and forth to redesign the project, reformulating my questions and reconsidering my choices.

One of the reasons researchers use abduction so widely is that the other two approaches (deduction and induction) can appear incomplete if used independently. Deduction means drawing logical consequences from premises, so that if those premises are true, the conclusion will also be true (Saunders et al., 2019). This approach works from the general to the specific and will result in the falsification or verification of the existing theory (ibid.). A critical limitation of deductive reasoning is that it does not generate new knowledge; instead, it verifies or falsifies existing theories (Yu, 1994). Induction works the other way around, generalizing from the specific case to the generic: this approach means generating untested conclusions from known assumptions (Saunders et al., 2019). Inductive reasoning can be helpful to observe a phenomenon, discover its themes and patterns and build a theoretical framework after having reached a universal conclusion (ibid.). However, it has its limitations too: for instance, it leads to empirical conclusions, but not theoretical ones (Yu, 1994). In addition to that, induction has been criticized for being inconclusive in infinite time; this means that there will always be new cases and new evidence, making it inconceivable to take all of them into consideration when creating new theory (ibid.).

To conclude, the nature of a research project can also be defined in relation to its purpose. What guided me most during my research process was an exploratory purpose, as my primary goal