FESTWAR FM
Film Festivals and War: a Fe-Male Perspective (1939-today)

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Overview Research Objectives News and events Contacts

Overview

FESTWAR FM investigates film festivals’ evolution as places of memory in conflict situations with a specific focus on women’s position within this process. The project centres on three armed conflicts that have occurred in Europe since the creation of the first film festivals: WWII (1939-1945), Yugoslavia (1991-1999), and Ukraine (2014-present). The influence of other major conflicts on the global film festival scene and vice versa is also taken into account, most notably the war in Palestine (since 2023).

By including global and local, historical and contemporary perspectives, FESTWAR FM will provide new knowledge on the way film festivals have been producing contested memories of war, through the first comprehensive, gender-oriented study of film festivals’ responses to armed conflicts. In doing so, the project aims to, for the first time in scholarship, historicise and theorise women’s role in film festivals action in response to war.

Keywords: film festivals, war, women, conflict, oral history.

Actress Cate Blanchett at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024 dressed in the colors of the Palestinian flag. Photo: Neilson Barnard / Getty Images.
Actress Tilda Swinton at the Venice Film Festival in 2022 dressed in the colors the Ukrainian flag. Photo: Marco Piovanotto, Abacapress / Imago.
Filmmaker Asmae El Moudir wearing a glove with the Palestinian flag at the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival, May 25, 2024. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire / Imago.
Actress Manal Issa at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. Photo: Ammar Abd Rabbo, Abacapress / Imago.

Since the creation of Venice Film Festival in 1932 as a cinematic showcase for Mussolini’s propaganda, film festivals have both influenced the development of war and been influenced by it: Cannes film festival’s first edition in 1939 was cancelled due to the outbreak of WWII, Sarajevo film festival was created in 1995 in response to war in Bosnia, while, more recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has addressed the opening ceremonies of Berlin, Cannes and Venice. Film festivals and war machines are male-dominated endeavours; however, women have had more than cameo roles: from Leni Riefenstahl’s controversial 1938 award in Venice for her film Olympia, to actress Tilda Swinton’s red-carpet appearance, dressed in Ukraine’s national colours, in the same festival in 2022. Yet, despite numerous examples of women’s involvement in film festivals during conflict, no global study has yet analysed their roles in film festivals as places of social action in the context of ongoing wars, nor theorised what we might learn from it. FESTWAR FM will break new ground as the first comprehensive study that deals with film festivals and war from a gender perspective.

Research

FESTWAR FM focuses on three case studies connected to three armed conflicts that have occurred in Europe since the creation of the first film festivals:

  1. WWII (1939-1945)
  2. Yugoslavia (1991-1999)
  3. Ukraine (since 2014)

The research compares global responses to these wars through analysis of the world’s five most prestigious, ‘A-list’ film festivals (Venice, Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Sundance), with the European and local response of the major film festivals operating in the war affected Yugoslavia (Pula, Belgrade, Sarajevo) and Ukraine (Kyiv, Odesa). The realities of other conflicts, their effect on global film festival scene and vice versa, are also taken into account, most notably the current war in the Middle East (since October 2023).

Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl and Adolf Hitler. Photograph used in the documentary "Leni Riefenstahl" (Andres Veiel, DEU, 2024), awarded at the Venice Film Festival with the Cinema & Arts award.

The analysis is organised around three categories:

1. (Wo)men on the screen and behind the cameras
  • What is the difference between male and female representation in programmed war films?
  • What is the difference between them among the participating filmmakers?
2. (Wo)men in decision-making structures
  • Who are the women responsible for film festival programming, awards, and managerial decisions in the war context?
  • What is their number and power reach in comparison to men?
  • How does their gender impact their activity, if at all?
3. (Wo)men on the stage and the red carpet
  • What are the examples of female (anti-)war action in the opening and closing ceremonies and other festivities? 
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Materials from the documentary "Leni Riefenstahl" (Andres Veiel, DEU, 2024).

Objectives

FESTWAR FM has four major objectives:

1. Identify

Provide quantitative data about female representation in film festivals in wartime including numbers of female filmmakers, films with women in prominent roles and women in decision-making positions, through a data visualisation chart published on the online digital archive.

2. Record

Centre marginalized voices by creating a series of interviews with women engaged with the analysed film festivals, in online digital archive’s podcast.

3. Analyse

Provide analysis of cinematic representation of women in screened and awarded films, of their presence, activities and decision-making power in film festivals in the war context, through a series of publications and public talks.

4. Publish

Provide digital distribution of knowledge and materials (archival and audio-visual documents) by bringing the project online through the digital archive.

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Selection of posters of festivals devoted to Palestinian and Ukrainian cinema.

News and events