Film Festivals for Social Change - A study of the conceptualization of social change by participants at the Nordisk Panorama Film Festival 2018

As a popular social practice, film festivals function as sites for entertainment and network building. Within the field of communication for development, especially documentary film festivals are theorized as contributing to public spheres, enabling public negotiations of alternative world views, as well as educational sites to learn about foreign lifestyles and practices. As a result, they are seen as contributing to social change processes by raising awareness for social issues, supporting community-building, and fostering expressions of global solidarity. This thesis introduces Lilie Chouliaraki’s concept of the distant other to this theoretical frame to highlight the dominant logics that guide the participants’ meaning-making processes around social change. This perspective enables an analysis of how the discursive relations between distant other and participants affect the participants’ imaginaries of how to achieve change and adds a reflective layer to the educational perspective of film festivals. With the specific focus on the Q&A discussions as practices intrinsic to film festivals, this thesis conducts a critical discourse analysis by analyzing the discursive relations that emerge in these discussions between the distant others and festival participants. This focus allows to assess how the imaginary of social change is affected by these relations as well as how they guide the participants’ sense of responsibility for social change. Based on the qualitative nature of this study, it can be seen as exemplifying how introducing the concept of the distant other can add new perspectives on the conceptualization of film festivals as contributing to social change. The study finds that sociability guides the discussions, and therefore, identifies the Q&A’s as sites for community-building and expression of solidarity within safe spaces. As the theories suggest, film festivals are spaces for learning and raising awareness, as well as creating an imagined community. However, the analysis highlights that these functions are based on the discursive relations following dominant, unrecognized logics by participants mirroring their own experiences in the representations and manifesting distance to the actual issue at hand. The study, therefore, highlights the festival’s function of a safe space for the participants with the consequence of not recognizing the others’ realities. Therefore, film festivals are identified as safe spaces and spheres for community-building among participants based on representations of distant worlds