“We need to keep making stuff, regardless of what the situation is”: creativity and the film festival sector during COVID-19
ISSN: 2056-4945
Article publication date: 22 February 2022
Issue publication date: 10 April 2023
Abstract
Purpose
In-person film festival experiences have faced uncertain futures since the spread of COVID-19. Snap-lockdowns, unclear and rapidly changing rules to public density allowances in theatres, distribution and challenges of “working-from-home” have become prominent issues to creative and cultural workers employed within the film festival ecosystem. The purpose of this paper, drawing from a series of interviews with film festival directors, organisers and workers within Australia, offers insight into the working lives of those employed within the film festival sector during 2020.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the research team's existing professional networks and a targeted approach of participant recruitment, this paper draws upon interview data from 5 semi-structured interviews with participants located in various Australian capital cities, who were working in the film festival sector during 2020. Participants were all mid-career, having at least 5 years of employment experience within the film festival ecosystem (directors, programmers and content creators) as well as having experience in other adjacent cultural and creative work.
Findings
The results in this study highlight common concerns of the legacy precarity has on professional and creative practice for those engaged in creative and cultural work, but also of unusual and unexpected opportunities for creativity and new film festival delivery beyond the dominant mode of in-theatre only experience pre-COVID-19.
Originality/value
The originality of this study lies in its qualitative exploration of the various employment experiences of Australian film festival workers during COVID-19.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge Creative People, Products and Places (CP3) Research Centre at the University of South Australia for their grant funding of this project. The authors would also like to acknowledge the research assistance of Simone Marangon in the initial stages of this project.
Citation
Richards, S. and Pacella, J. (2023), "“We need to keep making stuff, regardless of what the situation is”: creativity and the film festival sector during COVID-19", Arts and the Market, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 20-32. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAM-11-2021-0061
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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