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Accepted Paper:
Against but within capitalism. The paradoxes of independent film culture in the wake of neoliberal conditioning
Tomasz Raczkowski
(University of Wrocław)
This paper will discuss the entanglement of local cultural initiatives in global capitalism from the grassroots perspective of local film communities. Using multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, the issues of economic uncertainty and how it affects social impact of cinema will be explored.
Paper long abstract:
Well seated within capitalist hierarchies of global entertainment, cinema in general is a huge industry dominated by corporate entities. At the same time however, it is substantially fueled by a broad network of local communities, significantly set around independent (or semi-independent) movie theaters and film festivals that create the ground level of film consumption and importantly influence audience’s tastes. While often labelling themselves ‘alternative’ to corporate film circles, politically leaning towards liberal/leftist attitudes and progressive social agendas, such organizations must operate in a predatory capitalist environment and play its rules. That means not only engaging in the rivalries with big-capital counterparts and monopolists, but also succumbing to the use neoliberal framework of economic profitability, with its optimalization logic and labor (self)exploitation. Constantly navigating between resisting the stresses of global capitalism and collaborating with its agents in order to survive, influence not only those film communities, but the discourse of what is ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ within the cinema. Using grassroots perspectives of local film communities and my own personal experiences gained throughout multi-sited ethnographic research conducted since 2019 with such film communities in Opole, Wrocław and Berlin, I will discuss this issue of acting ‘against but within capitalism’ and strategies undertaken in this field by particular organizations and their workers. Using this empirical insight, I will reflect on fundamental uncertainty and temporalities of every day practice of local cultural initiatives, and how they should be seen in broader context of neoliberal conditioning of in contemporary postindustrial societies.