National film festivals circuits in the Latin American sphere: discussing film canon, film culture, and cinephilia

Film festivals have been understood as part of a global network where each event acts as a node.[1] Their position depends on their relevance and hierarchies within the circuit. However, this notion of a network does not necessarily reflect the establishment of national or local circuits linked to small nations and cinemas. Therefore, this text discusses the creation of local film festival circuits based on film culture and cinephilia. Film festivals in Latin America are spaces for cinephilia par excellence, promoting a film culture that nurtures national cinema. This article uses the water cycle as a reference in order to identify that national circuits in Latin America work around a small group of festivals that act as condensers of resources, which are distributed to the rest of the circuit through different relationships: sublimation and deposition (film historiography); runoff (influence on smaller and local festivals); infiltration (film education); and evaporation, where the processed and transformed resources bring new films and new filmmakers to nurture the condenser film festivals to start this cycle all over again. Using the Chilean context, this model helps to understand the relationship between film festivals and film canon, film culture and cinephilia.

The water cycle model arises from the analysis of the idea proposed by Alex Fischer of understanding film festivals as an open system. His systems theory approach allows us to understand festivals as events that process and transform resources taken and returned to the environment in which they are located. From this point of view, the water cycle shows how, in a local or national context, the film festival circuit functions as a virtuous circle where, starting with a group of festivals that act as resource condensers, a cycle begins and ends with this group of festivals. Surprisingly, several concepts of the water cycle can be related to processes, events, and institutions that influence film festivals, cinephilia, and film circulation. Through this model the organisation of festivals can be analysed, also how their decisions can influence a group of smaller festivals and other instances of discussion and training in cinema.