Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how Chilean film industry is developed through transnational exchanges. It explores the circulation of films and the articulation of overlapping social meanings at the international film festival circuit, following the journeys of Chilean films and films professionals across European festivals.

Paper long abstract:

Contemporary Chilean film industry, like other peripheral cinemas, depends

to a certain extent on its circulation through the international film

festival circuit, which is an active system that incorporates the

relationships between peoples and films, and peoples through films. By

travelling within the circuit, peripheral films accumulate symbolic

and economic value. At the same time, film professionals gain increasing

prestige through the fluid process of film circulation.

This paper is based on a multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork within the

Chilean cinematographic network, a group of film industry professionals

who exchange and promote Chilean cinema in the markets and screenings held

by film festivals. Following the journeys of Chilean filmmakers, producers

and sales agents through the circuit, the research addresses how these

professionals negotiate their creative practices in those

contexts; and how they deal with the conflictive double status of business

and art of peripheral cinemas.

Films circulation also contributes to reconfigure the image of a national

cinematographic industry. Transnational trajectories of film professionals

are entwined with an overlapping set of cultural meanings. Films do not

only express artistic value but also carry out ideas of a certain Chilean

aesthetic that are drawn on by film agents at the festivals,situating this

peripheral film industry in the world system.-

The paper upholds that the development of Chilean film industry is

fundamentally related to all the global interactions in which the film

professionals are involved. The meaning of national films is therefore

enacted through transnational practices of reception and exchange,

articulating glocal trends.