Theorizing transnational cinema, part 2 Production, distribution and consumption modes of transnatio

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Theorizing transnational cinema, part 2
Production, distribution and consumption modes
of transnational cinema

• Mari Maasilta
• 8.2.2006

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• Production
• finance public and private sources
• role of the filmmaker, producer, other crew
• coproductions
• Distribution
• by which means cinemas, television, video
• local, global distribution
• commercial/non-commercial distribution

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• Consumption
• mass audiencies/specified audiencies
• local/national/global audiences
• immigrant audiences

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Production, distribution and consumption modes of
transnational cinema

• Independent
• Interstitial
• Collective

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Independent production

• counterpoint for commercial film industry
• centralized control of production
• horizontal and vertical concentration
• mass production
• division and hierarchy of labour
• filmmaker has a responsability of artistic
  decisions
• cf. art cinema

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Interstitial production

• Interstitiality of accented filmmakers means that
  they are not only working in the margins of the
  society and film and media institutions but also
  inside them. To be interstitial is to operate
  both within and astride the cracks of the system,
  benefiting from its contradictions, anomalies,
  and heterogenyity. (Naficy 2001)

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Interstitial production in practise

• filmmakers work simultaneously in several fields
  of the media television, video, film
• multisource funding
• multifunctional and integrated role of the
  filmmakers, participation in every stage of the
  filmmaking process as fund-raisers, producers,
  directors, screenplay writers, editors etc.

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• multilinguality and multiculturality
• need for dubbing, subtitling and translation
• exists both behind and in front of the camera
• artisanal conditions and political constraints
  related to the process
• rights to shoot a film, technical conditions,
  material conditions, problems with visas and
  passports
• timeconsuming process
• meager output of many transnational filmmakers

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Financing transnational films

• public sources
• national foundations and funding agencies
• EU foundations
• private sources
• private foundations
• own money
• television channels, cable televisions (30-75
  of the financing for feature films)

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Coproductions

• public and private-sector coproductions in a
  given country
• public and private-sector coproductions of
  different countries
• private capital from different countries
• treaty coproductions

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Sources of funding for Joseph Ramakas Karmen
(2001)

• Producers
• Euripide Productions France
• Les Productions Mataranka inc. Canada
• Zagarianka France
• Les Ateliers de lArche - Senegal
• Participation of
• Canal
• Arte France
• Télefilm Canada

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• Public organisations
• French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• French Ministry of Culture
• Ministry of Cooperation and Francophony
• National Film Centre - France
• Senegalese Ministry of Communication and Culture
• Senegalese Ministry of Finance

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• Private organisations
• Stanley Johnson Foundation
• SOFICA (Société de financement du cinéma et de
  láudiovisuel)
• EU organisations
• EU Media Program
• European Commission (Fonds Européen de
  Développement

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Distribution

• Non-commercial sites of exhibition
• museums
• film archives
• repertory theatres
• university cinemas and film classes
• film festivals
• touring programs
• webcasting

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• Independent or microdistributors
• California Newsreel - USA
• African Video Centre - UK
• Mediathèque de trois mondes - France
• Women Make Movies USA
• Global television channels, cable television
• Channel Four (UK)
• ZDF (Germany)
• Canal Plus (France)
• Arte (Germany, France)

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Distribution of Joseph Ramakas Karmen (2001)

• première in the Cannes Film Festival in May 2001
  in the series Un certain regard
• a limited release in five theatres in the Paris
  region
• in Senegal, the film premiered in Bel Arte July
  22, 2001
• in the United States the première in New York in
  April 2002, distribution in five cities

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• In Canada the film premiered in the festival Vue
  d'Afrique in Montreal April 18 and in ordinary
  cinemas in April 19, 2002. In Toronto and
  Vancouver the film opened in May 2002
• the general African release in the Ivory Coast in
  August 2002

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• The film has also toured a variety of festivals
  from 2001, most of them African or
  Gay-and-Lesbian festivals
• in 2001 at Sundance, Toronto, Turin
• in 2002, Chicago, Hong Kong, Karala, Los Angeles,
  Milan, Montreal, Moscow, Philadelphia,
  Pittsburgh, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle,
  Washington DC, Yaoundé
• in 2003 Athens, London, Miami, Michigan, Newport,
  New York, Sarasota, Tampa

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• several American university screenings during
  2002-2003
• video and DVD are distributed by the California
  Newsreel

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Collective production

• includes both collaborative production and
  collective reception
• ethnic film collectives
• the purpose is to counter negative stereotypes of
  these ethnic groups
• Visual Communications, Asian CineVision, National
  Asian-American Telecommunication Association in
  the U.S.

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Case of British Black Collectives

• Black workshops and collectives were born as a
  consequence of social unrestlessness and riots
  against police harassment, racism, and
  unemployment in the late 1970s and early 1980s
• Finance from Greater London Council and Channel
  Four Television
• Purpose to train minority artists to produce
  their own self-representational films and videos

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• ethnic collectives
• Black Audio Film Collective, Ceddo Film and Video
  Workshop, Sankofa Film and Video Collective (West
  Indies)
• Retake Film and Video Workshop (India and
  Pakistan)
• common features
• challenge conventional forms of representation
  length requirements, collage techniques,
  collective directing
• trained several ethnic and identity filmmakers
  operating nowadays as individual filmmakers