The cultural impacts of film festivals in multicultural cities: the case of Barcelona Asian Film Festival

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The cultural impacts of film festivals in
multicultural cities the case of Barcelona
Asian Film Festival

• Alba Colombo
• Open University of Catalonia
• acolombo_at_uoc.edu
• European Festival Research Project
• Urban impact of artistic festivals
• Helsinki Workshop 11-12 April, 2008

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Some preliminary ideas

• Under the influence of/in response to a
  globalised world some European cities are
  undergoing change in their societies and their
  identities, and thus becoming a part of the
  worldwide Network Society (Castells 2001)?
• Cultural dialogue is a critical issue for
  multicultural cities in Europe
• Cultural events such as film festivals may play a
  role as catalysts of cultural communication
  (developing intercultural dialogue and
  competence).
• They may have specific/unique cultural impacts on
  European multicultural cities

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Research objectives, to

• Collect information about the cultural impacts of
  film festivals within the framework of a
  multicultural society and through the
  presentation of a specific case study.
• Establish a research methodology with both
  qualitative and quantitative dimensions that
  allows for the exploration and analysis of the
  topic.

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Focus of the study Film Festival

• Typologies
• Festivals
• Competitive programmes
• Première films
• Muestras (festival)?
• Generally non competitive programmes
• Recent films
• Cycles (Film weeks)?
• Non-competitive programmes
• Thematic related films, premières, recent and old
  films
• Content delimitation
• Genre (comedy, horror, gender, science
  fictionetc.)?
• Culture (Arabic, Jewish, Kurdish, France,
  Italianetc.)?
• Geographic preference (African, Asian,
  Latin-American..etc.)?

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Focus of the study Cultural Impact

• This research aims to analyse the cultural
  impacts of the cultural activity.
• The direct and indirect cultural impacts include
  cultural event, press, communication etc.
• The cultural impact of an activity includes their
  social impacts which should be analysed as a part
  of this structure.

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Social contextBarcelona as a multicultural city
Barcelona nationalities of foreign population
1986-2007

• Some general information for
• Barcelona 2007
• 1,603,178 Population
• 259,760 Foreign population
• (16.2 of the total population)?
• 41,441 Asian population
• (16 of the foreign population)?

Source Catalonia National Institute of
Statistics (www.idesact.net)?
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Some considerations

• Casa Asia is the only institution that has a
  relationship with the Asian community/geographic
  origin of the films.
• The festival itself has no direct relationship
  with the BCN Asian communities.
• The festival has no direct contact with the Asian
  population in Barcelona.
• The festival is financed by the Spanish
  government, the Catalan government and the city
  council.

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Methodological approach

• Hypothesis
• Through attending the festival the audience
  increases its contact with/ understanding of
  Asian cultures.
• The audience of the festival is predominantly
  drawn from Catalan/Spanish people but the
  percentage drawn from the Asian population is
  relatively low.
• If the festival were to have a stronger
  relationship with Barcelonas Asian communities
  the cultural impact would be higher.
• Whilst the festival has connecting and
  communicative elements it is not really
  developing the dialogue between the Asian
  cultures and the Catalan/Spanish
  community/culture.
• Research instruments
• Surveys festival audience
• Interviews BAFF directors, film distributors,
  Asian communities in Barcelona
• Documental analysis, catalogues, publications,
  press etc

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Preliminary recommendations

• In order to help in the development of this
  cultural communication (developing intercultural
  dialogue and competence) it would be a good idea
  to include/encourage some co production
  programmes between Spanish and Asian producers
  during the festival.
• The festival should offer parallel activities
  that specifically link the festival with Asian
  cultural associations, institutions and
  enterprises.
• The festival should seek to link with other Asian
  cultural activities that take place in the city
  at other times in the year.
• That the festival should aim to develop its
  audience platform through a festival friends
  scheme

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Thanks for your attentionComments and
suggestions are very welcomeAlba
Colomboacolombo_at_uoc.edu