Film Festivals as Cosmopolitan Assemblages: A Case study in Diasporic Co-creation.
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Abstract
This paper seeks to explore the terms and development of cosmopolitanism as framed within the realm of film festivals. I will examine the specific case study of the Leicester Asian Film Festival, from the perspective of an insider—as a Film Programmer and Associate Director of the event. The questions that this paper intends to answer are: What happens to our understanding of film festivals when we frame it through discourses of cosmopolitanism as underlined by notions of borders, and conversely, what happens to our understanding of cosmopolitanism when we frame it through their engagement with film festival events? This article will attempt to answer these two interrelated questions and place cosmopolitanism in conversation with the developing literature on film festival studies; the aim is to offer an idea of film festivals as a “cosmopolitan assemblage”, within the frame of fluidity, exchangeability and multiple functionalities (Deleuze and Guattari). In developing this concept, I will draw on Hannerz’s use of the term cosmopolitanism as a state of mind. The aim is to theorise and shift away from Diderot’s early idea of cosmopolitanism made of strangers nowhere in the world, and move towards a notion of cosmopolitanism that includes being open to and involved with otherness (Hannerz), Such approach seeks to inspire new forms of consciousness and cultural competency applied to film festival programming.