Abstract
In this chapter, we analyze the economic situation of film festivals in Austria. We focus on different types of film festival funding and financing modes, the economic situation of film festival staff, and the effects of the festivals and related tourism on the national economy. Further, we look into audience behavior with regard to film festival attendance in Austria. Finally, we critically evaluate the situation of film festivals in Austria in 2015. We argue that Austrian film festivals are making an important contribution to the diversity of the Austrian film landscape by multiplying the number and genres of films available on screen. Helped out with government subsidies by a total revenue volume of 57% to funding, Austria’s film festivals manage to attract a substantial number of festival-goers every year. Achieving the highest factor of seat load in Austria, we consider them to be highly successful. This chapter also demonstrates that publicly supporting film festivals is an indispensable driver for film diversity in the country.
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Notes
- 1.
Some evidence related to the Austrian film festivals has already been collected and published by the Austrian Statistical Office (Statistik Austria, 2016a).
- 2.
See the first press release of the FÖFF, Oct. 31, 2012 (FÖFF, 2012).
- 3.
We use the term “world cinema” as a synonym for foreign film, referring to films originating from all countries other than Austria, regardless of budget size or box office success. For a discussion of the term, see the Chapters “Introducing the Book’s Topics” and “Towards a definition of “world cinema”” (Dennison & Lim, 2006).
- 4.
In an additional interview, Marijke de Valck named the disciplines that tackle research on film festivals as follows: “Film festivals are taken as research object by anthropologists, cultural sociologists, economists, and studied in the fields of organizational studies, urban research, communication studies as well as cultural policy studies. Most prominently, however, research on film festivals developed as part of film and media studies. Within this broad discipline it sports intersections with highly diverse traditions, such as media industries studies (production-oriented) and the work on world cinemas (which stays closer to the classical text-orientation of film studies)” (de Valck, as interviewed on August 30, 2017).
- 5.
Not all the required data were provided in a uniform set by all the Austrian film festivals gathered in the FÖFF. For this reason, we clearly indicate in this chapter on which data sample our conclusions are based. A detailed overview of the individual sample designations can be found in the Appendix.
- 6.
The completed study was presented at the Diagonale—Festival of Austrian Film on 9 March 2016. Financing was provided by the Austrian Film Institute (ÖFI), the Austrian Federal Chancellery (BKA), the Collecting Society for Audiovisual Media (VAM), the Collecting Society for Filmmakers (VdFS), and the Professional Society for the Film and Music Industry, Film and Music Austria (FAMA).
- 7.
Due to the lack of seat load data of Austrian cinemas (official data only account for the average “seat load” per year but not per screening; see Österreichisches Filminstitut, 2016), it is not possible to draw a direct comparison between cinema and film festivals in Austria in this matter. Appropriate data are available for Austria’s major cinematheque—the Austrian Film Museum—where the average seat load per year accounts for 47% (paul und collegen, 2016).
- 8.
In September 2016, the City of Vienna and the Austrian Federal Chancellery—the two most important funding bodies of film festivals in Austria—taking up some of our recommendations—announced their plan to partly centralize and harmonize submission requirements.
- 9.
Research focus in the field of film festivals does not rely on economic aspects only. See, for instance, http://www.filmfestivalresearch.org/ where an extensive bibliography on film festivals can be found but not a single entry on film festival economics.
- 10.
This point is shared by Marijke de Valck: “In Europe, the necessity to complement state aid and ticket sales with sponsorship has increased, but state (or EU) subsidies remain crucial. Major film festivals have professionalized their sponsorship programmes, and the North American model of corporate sponsorship and mercenaries is tested and adapted to local societies. The commercial variant of festival organizations that emerges most strongly in Asia appears—at least for the moment—less influential in Europe” (de Valck, as interviewed on August 30, 2017).
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Appendix
Appendix
List of the Festivals gathered in the FÖFF:
Database for the sample names
No. | Name of the FÖFF festival | Cultural statisticsa | Participation in visitor survey | Participation in festival management staff survey | Info on audience size (Auslastung) | Interview with management staff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | FrauenFilm Tage | x | x | x | x | x |
2 | Tricky Women | x | x | x | x | x |
3 | Diagonale | x | x | x | x | x |
4 | Poolinale | x | x | x | x | x |
5 | Crossing Europe Filmfestival Linz | x | x | x | x | x |
6 | Ethnocineca | x | x | x | x | x |
7 | Festival of Nationsb | |||||
8 | VIS Vienna Independent Shorts | x | x | x | x | x |
9 | Internationales Film Festival Innsbruck | x | x | x | x | |
10 | Kino unter Sternen | x | x | x | x | x |
11 | Shortynale Klosterneuburg | x | x | x | x | x |
12 | Der neue Heimatfilm Freistadt | x | x | |||
13 | Alpinale | x | x | x | ||
14 | K3 Film Festival | x | x | x | x | x |
15 | /slash | x | x | x | x | x |
16 | LET’S CEE | x | ||||
17 | video&filmtage | x | x | x | x | x |
18 | Vienna Jewish Film Festival | x | x | x | x | |
19 | Viennale—Vienna International Film Festival | x | x | x | x | x |
20 | YOUKI Int. Jugend Medien Festival | x | x | x | x | x |
21 | Internationales Kinderfilmfestival | |||||
22 | This human world | x | x | x | x | x |
Total | 20 | 19 | 17 | 17 | 16 | |
Sample name | FÖFF20 | FÖFF19 | FÖFF17 | FÖFF17Aus | FÖFF16 |
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Zachar, G., Paul, M. (2018). Evidencing the Economics of Film Festival Funding: Do Government Subsidies Help?. In: Murschetz, P., Teichmann, R., Karmasin, M. (eds) Handbook of State Aid for Film. Media Business and Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71716-6_27
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