Abstract
The particularities of documentary film festivals call for their own set of specific research questions, and in as such, some theoretical frameworks, research methods and data sources are privileged over others. In this short introduction to the section “Research and Methods,” two key aspects of documentary film festival research are discussed: research methodologies and archival practices. Presented as a summary of some of the main research problems faced by film festival studies, it gives a general overview of key tools for the study of film festivals and the practical issues to be faced by researchers, as well as the ways in which documentary festivals have provided particular responses to these queries. Finally, it proposes protocols of collaboration between festivals and researchers.
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Notes
- 1.
For a reflection about the VOD platform dafilms.com promoted by the alliance of several festivals, see interview to Diana Tabakov in Slováková (2020), in our second volume.
- 2.
In the 2016 edition of IDFA, Patricia Aufderheide from the School of Communication at American University in Washington, DC, conducted the talk “Evaluating Impact,” where case studies of impact measure of documentaries were analysed by industry professionals. See Vallejo (2016).
- 3.
Visit this link to download the study in English or French: http://www.hotdocs.ca/i/learning-from-documentary-audiences
- 4.
Similarly to the limitations of other secondary circuits, such as that of queer film festivals, as noted by Zielinski (2016).
- 5.
See interview with Ernesto del Río in our second volume (Vallejo 2020).
- 6.
Formerly Verzio Film Festival.
- 7.
The archive has been associated with the Bibliothéque nationale de France (BnF) since 2015, but the collaboration hasn’t materialized in any particular archival practice yet (see: http://www.lussasdoc.org/historique,199.html).
- 8.
Normally films shown in retrospective sections are not included in the market.
- 9.
In the European realm, digitization of these markets was implemented thanks to European Union funding.
- 10.
In the case of Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, even though it is not recognized by FIAPF, its organization is part of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which is accredited by FIAPF, and therefore follows the same rules. This prevents the documentary festival of keeping copies of the films in the programme.
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Vallejo, A. (2020). Introduction to Part I, Vol. 1: Researching Documentary Film Festivals. In: Vallejo, A., Winton, E. (eds) Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Framing Film Festivals. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17320-3_3
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