Mapping histories and archiving ephemeral landscapes: strategies and challenges for researching small film festivals

Abstract

Film festivals have had a strong impact on small cinemas, contributing to the dynamic trends of national fields of film production. Drawing on research experience of mapping Chilean film festivals for the first time, this article discusses the methods used to identify film festivals and to reconstruct their historical trajectories. The article explores the strategies used to assemble fragmented and dispersed historical data from written and oral sources, by using both archival and ethnographic approaches. Examining the Chilean case, which involves smaller, lesser known and under researched film festivals, aims to shed some light on the challenges involved in researching the ephemeral cultural landscapes created by film festivals in precarious contexts. The article argues that festivals' positioning as ever-present events means that they tend to lose their memories and have complicated relationships with their own pasts. This also has an impact on the ways in which we can study and understand the festival phenomenon. Researchers need to consider multiple methods and research strategies, involving a range of epistemological and ethical issues, which can both enrich and complicate film festival research.