Cultural Transfer and Political Conflicts: Film Festivals in the Cold War [1 ed.] 9783737005883, 9783847105886

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Andreas Kötzing / Caroline Moine (eds.) Cultural Transfer and Political Conflicts Film Festivals in the Cold War

Berichte und Studien Nr. 72 herausgegeben vom Hannah-Arendt-Institut für Totalitarismusforschung e.V.

Andreas Kötzing / Caroline Moine (eds.)

Cultural Transfer and Political Conflicts Film Festivals in the Cold War

English-Language Copyediting by Bill Martin

V&R unipress

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. ISSN 2366-0422 ISBN 978-3-7370-0588-3 Weitere Ausgaben und Online-Angebote sind erhältlich unter: www.v-r.de © 2017, V&R unipress GmbH, Robert-Bosch-Breite 6, D-37079 Göttingen / www.v-r.de Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Das Werk und seine Teile sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung in anderen als den gesetzlich zugelassenen Fällen bedarf der vorherigen schriftlichen Einwilligung des Verlages. Satz: Hannah-Arendt-Institut, Dresden Titelbild: „Berlin – Hotel am Zoo mit Flaggenschmuck während der Berliner Filmfestspiele“, Jahr: vermutlich 1960er-Jahre, © ullstein bild.

Contents

Andreas Kötzing / Caroline Moine Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 I. Festivals as Crossroads Between West, East, and South?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann Socialist Competition or Window to the World? East German Student Films at International Festivals in the Context of the Cold War . . . . . . . . . . 15 Andreas Kötzing Cultural and Film Policy in the Cold War: The Film Festivals of Oberhausen and Leipzig and German-German Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Dunja Jelenković The Film Festival as an Arena for Political Debate: The Yugoslav Black Wave in Belgrade and Oberhausen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Regina Câmara From Karlovy Vary to Cannes: Brazilian Cinema Novo at European Film Festivals in the 1960s . . . . . . . . . . 63 II. New Protagonists in Film Festival Politics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Anne Bruch “Just think of the possibilities of dissemination...”: The Film Festival Policy of the European Institutions in the 1950s and 1960s 79 Yulia Yurtaeva “Jetzt ‘festivalt’ auch die Television”: Television Festivals in the 1960s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

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Contents

III. Festivals as a Stage for National and Transnational Politics. . . . . . . . . 107 Maria A. Stassinopoulou Scenes from A Marriage: The Thessaloniki Film Festival Between Mainstream and Art Cinema from its Beginnings to the 1970s . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Stefano Pisu Transnational Mobilization and Domestic Political Exploitation: The 1977 Venice Biennale of Dissent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 John Wäfler The Surveillance of Film Festivals in Switzerland: The Case of Locarno International Film Festival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Dragan Batančev The Belgrade FEST, or What Happened When Peckinpah Met Wajda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Andreas Kötzing / Caroline Moine Introduction

A great deal of past scholarship has emphasised the pivotal role played by culture during the Cold War; and the term ‘Cold War cultures’ has even become a commonplace in academia. Particular cultural practices and products, it can now be seen, were pervasive in contemporary societies around the world, in both East and West, North and South.1 Of them, cinema, with its cultural, social, economic, and political dimensions, has been especially significant.2 Indeed, studying the cultural history of cinema allows for a highly nuanced analysis of the complex and variable aspects of the confrontations and divisions in place between the late 1940s and early 1990s. This can be achieved by examining not only the films of the time and the representations they generated, but the entire system of cinematic production, circulation, and reception as well. This kind of study subtly addresses the issue of the non-linear development of circulation not only across the Iron Curtain, but within either bloc, the fissures of which are becoming increasingly apparent. Such an approach challenges the widely accepted view of Cold War dynamics as largely quite rigid and uniform. Shifting relations of confrontation, competition, and rapprochement were in fact pervasive during the decades of the Cold War; and this is made especially clear in the history of film festivals.

1

2

See Konrad Jarausch/Christian F. Ostermann/Andreas Etges (eds.), The Cold War: Historiography, Memory, Representation, Oldenburg 2017; Annette Vowinckel/Marcus M. Payk/Thomas Lindenberger (eds.), Cold War Cultures: Perspectives on Eastern and Western European Societies, New York 2012; Patrick Major/Rana Mitter, ‘Culture’. In: Saki Ruth Dockrill/Geraint Hughes (eds.), Palgrave Advances in Cold War History, Basingstoke 2006, pp. 240–262. On this very thorough topic, see the dossier “The Cold War and the Movies”. In: Film History, 10 (1998) 3; Tony Shaw/Denise J. Youngblood, Cinematic Cold War: The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds, Lawrence 2010; Christin Niemeyer/Ulrich Pfeil (eds.), Der deutsche Film im Kalten Krieg, Brussels 2014.

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Following the founding of the Mostra in Venice in 1932, which rapidly became a showcase for films of the Rome-Berlin axis,3 and of a provisional festival in Moscow in 1935, the first generation of cinema festivals emerged more convincingly in the wake of the Second World War, as the reconstruction of Europe was getting underway.4 Karlovy Vary,5 Locarno,6 and Cannes7 were all born in the summer and early autumn of 1946, as the Old Continent was looking to reinvigorate national cinemas and revive international cultural exchanges. As the confrontation between East and West took off in 1947, diplomatic ambitions became a more significant factor in film festivals, especially those founded in conjunction with the Cold War.8 The rivalry between Moscow and Washington was especially evident in the two Germanies, with the founding of the Berlinale in 1951 in West Berlin9 and of the documentary film festivals of Mannheim and Oberhausen in 1952 and 1954 respectively in the Federal Republic; while in the GDR the Leipzig documentary and short film festival was launched in 1955.10 The establishment on a permanent basis of the Moscow festival in 1959 completed a first wave of film festival foundings, after San Sebastián in Franco’s Spain in 1953, Pula in Yugoslavia in 1954, and London in 1957. It happened, however, in a period of relative détente, when the Soviet cultural field was opened up to incoming international flows and high-quality national film productions were   3 Francesco Bono, La Mostra del Cinema di Venezia: Nascita e Sviluppo nell’Anteguerra (1932– 1939). In: Storia Contemporanea, 22 (1991) 3, pp. 513–549; Marla Stone, Challenging Cultural Categories: The Transformation of the Venice Biennale International Film Festival under Fascism. In: Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 4 (1999) 2, pp. 184–208.   4 Jesper Strandgaard Petersen/Carmelo Mazza, International Film Festivals: For the Benefit of Whom? In: Culture Unbound. Journal of Current Culture Research, 3 (2011), pp. 139–165 and 145–147; Caroline Moine, Les festivals artistiques de la guerre froide: quel rôle dans le renouveau de l’espace culturel européen? (années 1940–1960). In: Anaїs Fléchet et al. (eds.), Une histoire des festivals. XX–XXIe siècle, Paris 2013, pp. 41–53.   5 Jindriska Blahova, National, Socialist, Global: The Changing Roles of the Karloy Vary Film Festival, 1946–1956. In: Lars Karl/Pavel Skopal (eds.), Cinema in Service of the State: Perspectives on Film Culture in the GDR and Czechoslovakia, 1945–1960, New York 2015, pp. 245–274.   6 Guglielmo Volonterio, Dalle suggestioni del Parco alla Grande Festa del Cinema. Storia del Festival di Locarno 1946–1997, Venice 1997.   7 Loredana Latil, Le festival de Cannes sur la scène internationale, Paris 2005.   8 See Stefano Pisu, Il XX secolo sul red carpet. Politica, economia e cultura nei festival internazionali del cinema (1932–1976), Milano 2016.   9 Wolfgang Jacobsen, 50 Jahre Berlinale: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (1951–2000), Berlin 2000. 10 Andreas Kötzing, Kultur- und Filmpolitik im Kalten Krieg. Die Filmfestivals von Leipzig und Oberhausen in gesamtdeutscher Perspektive, Göttingen 2013; Caroline Moine, Cinéma et guerre froide. Une histoire du festival international de Leipzig (1955–1990), Paris 2014. 11 Lars Karl, Zwischen politischem Ritual und kulturellem Dialog. Die Moskauer Internationalen Filmfestspiele im Kalten Krieg (1959–1971). In: Lars Karl (ed.), Leinwand zwischen Tauwetter und Frost. Der osteuropäische Spiel- und Dokumentarfilm im Kaltem Krieg, Berlin 2007, pp. 279–298.

Introduction

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being promoted.11 Film festivals would continue to play a crucial role in the Cold War in the decades that followed and until the early 1990s; but every festival nevertheless remained influenced by local, national, and other international stories and specificities.12 Cultural transfer and Political Conflicts: Films Festivals in the Cold War13 offers an overview of current research on the history of festivals during this period. In the ten essays included, festivals are engaged and conceptualised as sites of exhibition, sociability, and exchange, and accordingly they are situated as much in the cultural history of cinema as of international relations.14 These case studies present a variety of research perspectives and methodological approaches, each taking public and private archival sources as a starting point, be they written, oral, or film. Our initial focus was on festivals that are less well known and studied than those of Cannes, Berlin, or Moscow. Similarly, with a view to covering a range of locations and thematic areas, we aimed to highlight festivals with specialised programmes, such as television festivals, as studied by Yulia Yurtaeva, or those promoting the construction of a European identity, as analysed by Anne Bruch.15 Although the focus of this volume is on European festivals, the festivals studied span the Iron Curtain, from West (Mostra, Locarno, Oberhausen) to East (Karlovy Vary, Prague, Leipzig), with special attention paid to those in south-eastern Europe (Thessaloniki, Belgrade). However, countries from the global South are also featured by way of inquiry into film selections in European festivals on both sides of the Iron Curtain.16 The case study by Regina Câmara on the distribution of Brazilian New Wave films demonstrates, for instance, how certain directors of

12

Marijke De Valck, Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia, Amsterdam 2007. 13 This volume is the product of “Cultural Transfer and Political Conflicts: Film Festivals in the Cold War”, an international conference held in Leipzig on 9–10 May 2014 by the Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Zeitgeschichte (University of Leipzig), Hannah-Arendt-Institut (TU Dresden), and the Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines (Université Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines/Paris-Saclay). 14 For an overview of the research on cinema festivals, see Dina Iordanova (ed.), The Film Festival Reader, St Andrews 2013; Jindriska Blahova (ed.), Film festivals. In: Illuminace. The Journal of Film Theory, History, and Aesthetics, 1 (2014); Aida Vallejo, Festivales cinematográficos. En el punto de mira de la historiografía fílmica. In: Secuencias. Revista de Historia del cine, 39 (2014), pp. 13–42. 15 See also works by Václav Šmidrkal on festivals around films produced by military studios, which took place in the West as much as in the East, namely in Versailles, France, or Prague, Czechoslovakia. Paper by Václav Šmidrkal, Festivals of Military Films in the East and the West, Cultural Transfer and Political Conflicts: Film Festivals in the Cold War, conference, Leipzig, 10 May 2014. 16 On the crucial role of the South in the Cold War, see Odd A. Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times, Cambridge 2006.

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the South – and no doubt one could include certain Cuban directors here, too – navigated the European divisions. As a result, their role shifted from observer to agent in the circulation of films between North and South and East and West.17 Likewise, the history of European film festivals during the Cold War cannot be complete without analysing the role played by American producers in the film selection of certain events, in both the East and the West.18 Dragan Batancev’s study of the Belgrade FEST in Yugoslavia investigates this question. These dynamics lead to the following realisation: film festivals, whether they called themselves international or not, were at the epicentre of the various circulations, exchanges, and tensions that fuelled the economic and cultural development of the Cold War. Each festival was in constant interaction with the broader contemporary political and cultural context. A few well known examples serve to illustrate this point: in 1956, Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard, France 1956), a documentary on the concentration and extermination camps during the Nazi era, was to be presented at Cannes; the West German and French governments, however, intervened to cancel the screening in order to forestall discussions about the Holocaust that might affect French-German relations.19 In 1963, Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ (Italy 1963) caused a scandal at the Moscow International Film Festival when the jury awarded it one of the main prizes.20 Soviet politicians criticised the decision and reprimanded the jury for their ‘error’. In 1970, the competition at the Berlinale was entirely cancelled because the jury resigned after a controversial debate over Michael Verhoeven’s Vietnam film o.k. (FRG 1970).21 A number of the essays here engage the kinds of mutual interaction in which many film festivals participate. While they cannot be described as systematic networks, such relationships and their histories must nevertheless be addressed and accounted for, on both institutional and personal levels, on either side of the Iron Curtain and through it.22 This is what Andreas Kötzing provides in his German-German étude croisée on Oberhausen and Leipzig in the 1950s and 1960s.

17 For film festivals between North and South, see also Rossen Djagalov/Masha Salazkina, Tashkent ’68: A Cinematic Contact Zone. In: Slavic Review, 75 (2016) 2, pp. 279–298. 18 See also Caroline Moine, La strategia europea della Fiapf durante la Guerra fredda: i produttori, arbitri dei festival internazionali di cinema? In: Stefano Pisu/Pierre Sorlin (eds.), La storia internazionale e il cinema. Reti, scambi e transfer nel 1900. Cinema e Storia. Rivista de studi interdisciplinari, Rome 2017, pp. 143–158. 19 Sylvie Lindeperg, “Night and Fog”. A Film in History, London 2014. 20 Lars Karl, Zwischen politischem Ritual und kulturellem Dialog, p. 286. 21 Jacobsen, 50 Jahre Berlinale, pp. 165–166. 22 Thomas Elsaesser, Film Festival Networks: The New Topographies of Cinema in Europe. In: European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood, Amsterdam 2005, pp. 82–107.

Introduction

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In a similar vein, Dunja Jelenković traces the effects of competition in the selection of the critical films of the Yugoslavian Black Wave both in Belgrade and in Oberhausen. These interactions involved both confrontation and collaboration, and they both embraced Cold War divisions and transgressed them, depending on the persons and periods involved. This volume thus also aims to underline the importance of analysing different temporalities in studying the Cold War. Once again, film festivals are apposite objects of study for highlighting such “games of scale”.23 Stefano Pisu’s analysis of the film selection for the 1977 Venice Biennale of Dissent demonstrates the potential that an in-depth study of a single key moment in the history of a festival – in this case a moment of crisis and post-1968 transformation both in Italy and internationally – can have. John Wäffler offers an entirely opposite approach with his long-term study of Locarno, from the 1950s to 1989, which allows us to see how the festival’s profile was built gradually under the close – and sometimes suspicious – supervision of the Swiss federal police. Dragan Batancev investigates the end of the Cold War by way of the FEST of Belgrade, from its founding in the 1970s until the 1990s, when Yugoslavia’s existence itself came to a chaotic end. The different essays featured here represent the great variety of historical actors involved in film festivals during the Cold War. The history of festivals cannot be concerned solely with institutions. Both institutions – whether public or private; whether state, regional, municipal, or social – and individuals are members of a complex collective that undertakes not only the organisation and management of a festival, but also the process of writing its history. Maria Stassinopoulou’s investigation of the early stages and evolution of the Greek Cinema Week during the 1960s and 1970s, clearly shows the complexity of the multiple cultural, political, and economic influences – both Greek and foreign (via the Ford Foundation, for example) – that were at stake before, during, and after the military junta. Film directors, producers, and critics are transmitters – from one festival to another, from one country to another, from one side of the Iron Curtain to the other. Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann demonstrates the crucial role, both individual and collective, played by international festivals as nodal points, spaces of interaction and exchange for cinema students in Eastern Europe from the 1950s to the fall of the Berlin Wall – despite the complex international policies in the East that developed in light of those festivals. The volume’s contributions have been arranged according to a progression, both chronological and thematic, and separated into three main sections. The first, “Festivals as Crossroads Between West, East and South?”, features four studies that analyse the complex circulation of films and people between East and

23

Jacques Revel (ed.), Jeux d’échelles: la microanalyse à l’expérience, Paris 1996.

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West and North and South at different moments of the Cold War. The second section, “New Protagonists in Film Festival Politics”, offers an overview of festivals that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s and were headed by institutions who did not fit the classic mold of film festival organiser. The final section, on “Festivals as a Stage for National and Transnational Politics”, features four case studies that address the interconnectedness of local, national, and transnational contexts in the creation and evolution of film festivals, in both the West and the East, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Produced by scholars of different national backgrounds, the contributions here demonstrate the richness and diversity of historical scholarship on film festivals during the Cold War. This is a first step, and it will hopefully encourage further studies that deepen our knowledge of global themes – the relationships between festivals in Europe and other parts of the world, for instance, such as Montevideo, Mar del Plata, Ouagadougou,24 Montréal, San Francisco, or the multinational host cities of the Asia-Pacific Film Festival.25

24 25

Colin Dupré, Le Fespaco, une affaire d’État(s), 1969–2009, Paris 2012. Sangjoon Lee, It’s ‘Oscar’ Time in Asia! The Rise and Demise of the Asia-Pacific Film Festival, 1954–1972. In: Jeffrey Ruoff (ed.), Coming Soon to a Festival Near You: Programming Film Festivals, St. Andrews 2012, pp. 173–187.

I. Festivals as Crossroads Between West, East, and South?

Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann Socialist Competition or Window to the World? East German Student Films at International Festivals in the Context of the Cold War

Following its founding in 1954, the state-controlled film school in Babelsberg educated most of East Germany’s filmmakers for more than three decades of the German Democratic Republic’s forty-year existence. Graduates of the school influenced the development of audio-visual media in their country, and they shaped the way East German film was perceived and reviewed both in East German society and abroad.1 The following chapter focuses on the function of film festivals as an international forum for young filmmakers from East Germany to present their debut films.2 Furthermore it aims to outline the film school’s festival policy and its attempts to use international festivals to present itself as an internationally acclaimed institution and socialist agency. Following a brief historical overview, which describes the establishment and consolidation of the school as well as the ambivalent effects of internationalization strategies on its educational profile, this chapter analyzes how the GDR film school presented its work during three decades at festivals in Leipzig and Oberhausen and at various student festivals. 1

2

Dieter Wiedemann, Woher wir kommen, wer wir sind, wohin wir gehen! In: Horst Schäde/­ Dieter Wiedemann (eds.), Bewegte Bilder, Bewegte Zeit. 50 Jahre Film- und Fernsehausbildung HFF ‘Konrad Wolf ’ Potsdam-Babelsberg, Berlin 2004, pp. 21–51. Egbert Lipowski, Curriculum vitae einer Berühmten. In: Ibid., pp. 53–111. Claus Löser, Im Dornröschenschloss. Dokumentarfilme an der Babelsberger Filmhochschule. In: Günter Jordan/Ralf Schenk (eds.): Schwarzweiß und Farbe. DEFA Dokumentarfilm 1946–1992. Berlin 1996. Tobias Ebbrecht, Nonkonformismus und Anpassung: Überlegungen zur Rolle und Funktion der Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen in der DDR von 1954 bis 1989. In: Benjamin Schröder/Jochen Staadt (eds.), Unter Hammer und Zirkel. Repression, Opposition und Widerstand an den Hochschulen der SBZ/DDR, Frankfurt/Main 2011, pp. 277–288. This chapter presents preliminary results from a research project on the archive of student films located at the Film University “Konrad Wolf ” in Potsdam. The research is part of the DFG project on “Regional Film Culture in Brandenburg” headed by Professor Dr. Chris Wahl at the Film University in Potsdam. The author was part of the project team from April 2013 to July 2014. The project’s final results will be published by Dr. Ilka Brombach. See for an overview of the project Ilka Brombach/Tobias Ebbrecht/Chris Wahl, ‘Walls Have Never Held Us Back’. 60 Years

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Historical and Institutional Background The first students began their studies in Babelsberg in November 1954. From the beginning the Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst (German Academy for Film Art) offered educational instruction in various fields of film production, including directing, cinematography, production, and acting. Headed by the wellknown director Kurt Maetzig and managed by Heinz Baumert, a former assistant professor from the University of Jena, the early years were characterized by a shortage of film footage and technical support as well as provisional conditions.3 Following the years of experimentation and consolidation, the first generation of filmmakers graduated in 1959/1960. The school also became the place for educating future personnel for East German television, which had been established in 1952 and began broadcasting regularly in 1956. During the 1960s and especially after 1969, when a second channel was established in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the GDR’s founding, East German television gained increasing influence in the school. As an effect of this influence many graduates went on to work for television after finishing their studies. Additionally, television offered support for additional technical resources to the film school, which was consequently renamed Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR (HFF) (Academy for Film and Television of the GDR) in 1969. Heavily controlled by the state and ideologically framed, GDR television became one of the most important “windows” for presenting student films to the East German public, mainly in specially adapted program slots in the second television channel.4 Thus, the education and instruction of future filmmakers in Babelsberg was both clearly embedded in and served as a major support of the media system in the GDR, which was oriented towards the interests of the state’s political leadership and focused on a national audience.5 A significant element in the school’s ideological orientation was internationalization. This element, on the one hand, reproduced ideological conformism and was determined within the framework of officially propagated internationalism and of “international solidarity” with national liberation movements in Latin

3 4

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of Student Films at the Film University Babelsberg ‘Konrad Wolf ’. In: Cahier Louis-Lumière 9, September 2015, pp. 78–85. Online: http://www.ens-louis-lumiere.fr/fileadmin/pdf/Cahier/9b/ PDF-interactif-FR_ENG.pdf. Heinz Baumert, Gründungsgeschichten. In: Hartmut Albrecht (ed.), 25 Jahre Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen. Versuch einer historischen Bilanz, Potsdam 1979, p. 56. For an overview on East German television see for example Knut Hickethier (with Peter Hoff), Geschichte des deutschen Fernsehens, Stuttgart 1998; Rüdiger Steinmetz/Reinhold Viehoff (eds.), Deutsches Fernsehen Ost. Eine Programmgeschichte des DDR-Fernsehens, Berlin 2008; Peter Hoff, Continuity and Change. Television in the GDR from autumn 1989 to summer 1990. In: German History, 9 (1991) 2, pp. 184–196. Markus Schubert/Hans-Jörg Stiehler, A Program Structure Analysis of East German Television, 1968–1974. In: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 24 (2004) 3, pp. 345–353. Tobias Ebbrecht, Nonkonformismus und Anpassung, p. 278.

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America, Africa, and the Middle East.6 However, especially after the final closing of the state’s borders in 1961, internationalization also enabled students to expand their views. Thus, the idea of internationalization slightly expanded, although partly involuntarily, the narrow national focus of GDR culture, which also characterized the film school. This broadening of perspectives can be understood in terms of three dimensions of internationalization, which influenced the work and lives of the students in Babelsberg in different ways. The first dimension involved the level of education and instruction. The film school in Babelsberg offered its students much greater access to international film production and film history than that provided by state-sanctioned exhibition in East German Cinema and television. During their required lectures on international film history, students encountered, (needless to say within socialist patterns of interpretation), canonical international films, which influenced their understanding of cinema in general and had an impact on the stylistic composition of their own films in particular. Additionally the students had the chance to see a wide range of films, from internationally acclaimed productions of the European New Waves to new movies from Hollywood that were not approved for cinematic release in the GDR. The second dimension of internationalization involved the student body. Besides East Germans who were delegated to the school from the DEFA studios or, beginning in the 1960s, from television, a number of filmmakers from other countries studied in Babelsberg as well. These international students were sent from socialist states like the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Bulgaria. Others came from allied communist parties and liberation movements that regularly dispatched students to East Germany. As a result, young people from virtually the entire world met in Babelsberg originating from Vietnam, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, and even from Israel, the Netherlands, and the UK. Between 1955 and 1964 alone sixty students from 23 countries studied at the East German film academy, almost exclusively in the fields of directing and cinematography.7 At first, the training of international students was intended to support the international efforts of national liberation movements, a concept based on an idea by the acclaimed documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens. These foreign students from “young nation states” were to be trained as “camera reporters” in order to document the struggles in their home countries. In September 1964 a special study group of foreign students from Bulgaria, Costa Rica, England, Greece,

6 7

Quinn Slobodian (ed.), Comrades of color. East Germany in the Cold War World, Oxford/New York 2015. Beschluss über die Weiterführung des Ausländerstudiums an der Deutschen Hochschule für Filmkunst, 3.11.1964 (BArch, DR 118/3353).

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I­ndia, Iraq, Israel, Cuba, Mongolian People’s Republic and Romania was created.8 But in the following years foreign students were integrated into classes that mixed Germans and citizens of other countries. The directing class that entered in 1978 and finished in 1982 was an example of this.9 Half the students came from East Germany, among them later renowned filmmakers such as Helke Misselwitz, Petra Tschörtner, and Thomas Heise, who was forced to leave the school in 1982 following investigations and repression by the Ministry of State Security (Stasi). The other half of the class came from different countries and included students from Latin America, a student sent by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), and an Arab Israeli who came under the auspices of the Communist Party in Israel. Although those international students were carefully selected and had to meet the Party’s ideological requirements, their presence at the school enabled encounters on a personal level.

Internationalization Strategies and Festival Policy A third, heavily regulated dimension of internationalization was the inclusion of student films from Babelsberg in international festivals. While the first two dimensions refer to an informal level of international encounters, festival attendance was more regulated and subject to intensive control inasmuch as festivals offered an opportunity for the school to present its activities and achievements to an international audience. One of the first international festivals to include films from Babelsberg was the Leipzig International Documentary and Short Film Festival that was created in 1955. From the mid-1960s on, East German student films were also presented in the West German Short Film Festival in Oberhausen. Additionally, films from Babelsberg circulated in film festivals dedicated to student productions in various Socialist countries (i.e. Poland) as well as in the West (i.e. the Munich student film festival). Situated between socialist competition and a window to the world such meetings offered the opportunity for the students to compare their films with those by filmmakers from other countries, but they also provided a forum for official self-portrayal. Internationalization intensified between 1973 and 1980, the period of Peter Ulbrich’s rectorship. In 1979, on the occasion of the school’s twenty-fifth anniversary, the HFF succeeded in contributing extensive programs of student films to the festivals in both Leipzig and Oberhausen. Ulbrich also achieved increasing 8 Ibid. 9 Martin Hübner, Kein Gegeneinander – dafür Toleranz. Gespräch mit Petra Tschörtner. In: Film und Fernsehen 11/1988. Reprinted in: Dietmar Hochmuth (ed.), DEFA NOVA – nach wie vor? Versuch einer Spurensicherung, Berlin 1993, p. 225.

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influence within the international network of film schools Centre International de Liaison des Ecoles de Cinéma et de Télévision (CILECT).10 The HFF had been an associate member of this association as early as 1958 and gained full membership in the mid-1960s. Ulbrich remained a member of CILECT board until 1986, six years after his tenure as rector at Babelsberg ended, and was thus closely involved in its administrative work.11 From 1974 to 1977 Ulbrich also served as president of the jury during the International Documentary and Short Film Festival in Leipzig.12 Film festivals were a central, but also ambivalent component of the HFF’s self-presentation. In a 1979 essay on the importance of international exchange, Ulbrich emphasized that some of the works produced by students in a given year were certainly on par with those of established filmmakers and thus qualified for inclusion in professional festivals. Because of this student films from Babelsberg increasingly found themselves on the programs in Leipzig, Krakow, Oberhausen, and West Berlin.13 Two festivals stand out in particular, the International Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Festival and the CILECT Festivals. The former was seen as a test of a special kind for aspiring young filmmakers. Critical feedback and discussions with an international audience of experts offered an opportunity to gain knowledge about professional filmmaking that exceeded the curriculum of a film school.14 The CILECT festivals in turn, which were hosted during the 1970s and 1980s in several, mostly Eastern European countries, had, in Ulbrich’s opinion, offered a space for a more intensive critique of the students’ works, but also provided them with solid self-confidence.15 Interestingly, Ulbrich evaluates the festivals mainly 10

CILECT was founded in 1954 in Cannes, France, in order to establish and manage cooperation and exchange between different film schools from both sides of the Cold War division line. The founding members were film schools from France, Italy, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union. Today CILECT includes 160 institutions from 60 countries on all continents. 11 Rektoren Präsidenten/innen: Prof. Peter Ulbrich (1973–1980). Online: http://www.filmuniversitaet.de/de/filmuniversitaet/geschichte/rektoren-praesidenteninnen/tma/detail/5907.html (26.03.2015). 12 Ulbrich was influenced by and convinced of the GDR’s official policy of international solidarity. In 1956 he was sent as a representative of the DEFA to Vietnam, an encounter that had a deep impact on him. He later stated that his visit to the country had been an important experience that distanced him from Eurocentric thinking. His relationship with Vietnam continued during the following decades. Ibid. 13 Peter Ulbrich: Internationaler Erfahrungsaustausch – ein hoher Wert für die Ausbildung. In: Filmwissenschaftliche Beiträge. 25 Jahre Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR. Sonderband 1/79, p. 34. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., p. 35. Still, little is known about the history oft the CILECT student festivals. Based on a small amount of documents that were preserved in archival collections related to the history

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from an educational point of view, which was at the same time explicitly and implicitly influenced and determined by the political-ideological framework of the Cold War. However, the school’s policy towards participation in international festivals was by no means uniform over the years and its organization was only partly systematic. We can gain only a preliminary understanding of the school’s specific outreach to particular festivals. In order to identify elements of an institutionalized festival policy it is thus necessary to reconstruct sporadic correspondences, concepts, and debates within and beyond the school’s administration and management according to documents and accounts preserved more or less accidentally.

The Festival in Leipzig as a Politicized Forum for Student Films In 1961, the first two student films from Babelsberg were screened in a special program at the International Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Festival. Kurt Tetzlaff, later a well-known documentary filmmaker and frequent visitor in Leipzig, presented his graduation film First page of a chronicle (Die erste Seite einer Chronik), and Hans-Eberhard Leupold, who later operated the camera for Winfried Junge’s long-term documentary The Children of Golzow (Die Kinder von Golzow, GDR 1961–2007) introduced his debut film A worker’s son (Ein Arbeitersohn, GDR 1960) at the festival in Leipzig. Both films ostensibly reflected the ideological and aesthetic requirements of socialist realism, but they also showed the influence of Italian neorealism and Soviet filmmakers such as Vsevolod Pudovkin and Alexander Dovzhenko, which were extensively discussed among the students in Babelsberg at that time. In the following years, too, the school was present at the festival in the form of dedicated student programs. In 1963 the festival even hosted at special symposium for film schools from the East and from the West, with representatives from schools in nearly twenty countries, including Babelsberg.16 Again the festival scheduled two student films about workers, Jürgen Eike’s His Forty-third (Seine Dreiunvierzigste, DDR 1963), an observant portrait of a bridge construction worker in Potsdam, and Karlheinz Mund’s 15,000 Volts (GDR 1963), a documentary film about female train engineers, which ended with the song “Frühlings­ of the Babelsberg film school this article intends to delineate a rough outline of the festivals’ relevance for East German student films. Additional research on this unique meeting place for filmmakers during the Cold War is still necessary. 16 Dieter Wiedemann, Hoffnung Leipzig? Die HFF Potsdam-Babelsberg ‘Konrad Wolf ’ auf der Dokwoche. In: Fred Gehler/Rüdiger Steinmetz (eds.), Dialog mit einem Mythos. Ästhetische und Politische Entwicklungen des Leipziger Dokumentarfilm-Festivals in vier Jahrzehnten, Leipzig 1998, p. 61.

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lied der Eisenbahner” (Spring song of railway workers), written and performed especially for the film by the controversial GDR songwriter Wolf Biermann. Both films not only represented an increasing interest in observing techniques of documentary filmmaking such as reduced commentary, panning camera movement and a focus on the actions of the protagonists, they also demonstrated a rejection of heroic ‘Socialist-realist’ narratives dominated by party-line commentary. Hence, they illustrated a new approach to documentary film, which was becoming increasingly influential in GDR filmmaking. This approach only ostensibly affirmed the political demands for socialist realist depiction of the working class, while the films implicitly focused also on ambivalences, conflicts and characters that challenged the concept of the Socialist hero. Mund’s film about female railway workers was only incompletely screened at the festival that year. The projection of the last reel, which included the Biermann song, was ‘forgotten’. Obviously representatives of the film school had little interest in offering the critical singer a platform at an international competition, although Biermann was then still an accepted, if not yet that famous, artist in the GDR. However the Biermann case returned a decade later to Leipzig. In 1976, only a few days before the festival was opened, Biermann was expatriated from the GDR. According to Andreas Kötzing the festival’s management did everything possible to hush up the case.17 To ensure official silence, Party groups were formed in order to prevent public discussions about Biermann; but in closed meetings of the student delegations from Babelsberg the case was a controversial issue. With the exception of 1965, HFF student films were regularly screened in special programs every year until 1989. There was always a specific focus on contributions from international students. As early as 1964, three films by Sudanese, Algerian, and Jordanian students were presented at Leipzig. Jagdpartie (The Hunting Party, GDR 1964), Ibrahim Shaddad’s graduation film, was an emphatic denunciation of American racism. The other contributions by foreign students were Monsieur Vanesse (GDR 1964, Ahmed Kerzabi) and Ahmed Romhi’s Rehearsal (Die Probe, GDR 1964) about the theater actor Ekkehard Schall, which in the following year was the first HFF film that won a prize in Oberhausen. In 1967 films by students from Venezuela, Iraq, Greece, and Sudan were presented in Leipzig. In the following years as well, international students regularly attended the festival in order to emphasize the internationalist orientation of the school. In 1977 twenty-two foreign students visited the festival. Among them were students from India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Vietnam, Poland, and

17

Andreas Kötzing, Biertisch statt Biermann. In: Ralf Schenk (ed.), Bilder einer gespaltenen Welt. 50 Jahre Dokumentar- und Animationsfilmfestival in Leipzig, Berlin 2007, p. 93–94.

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­ ulgaria, but also from the Netherlands. In addition to three Palestinians, the B school also sent an Arab Israeli to Leipzig.18 In the specific political and cultural context of the festival in Leipzig, the officially postulated claim for international solidarity as well as the GDR’s efforts to situate itself in an internationalist framework dovetailed with opportunities for young East German filmmakers to broaden both their cinematic and political views. According to Dieter Wiedemann, contributions by Arab or South American filmmakers represented conformist proletarian internationalism. On the other hand, however, they also introduced different aesthetic concepts, often characterized by a more poetic approach towards documentary cinema.19 Thus through encounters with internationally acclaimed filmmakers the festival also offered – in a controlled environment – a view beyond the niche reserved for future GDR filmmakers.20 This aspect was also emphasized by Karlheinz Bohm, a faculty member of the directing department of the HFF. In a contemporary report on the school’s activities in Leipzig, Bohm highlights the impact on the students of film screenings and seminars with renowned filmmakers such as Roman Karmen, Sergej Brobachenko, and Boris Dobrodejew.21 In his view, the Leipzig film festival was very much a “school” in the sense that it supported testing (of first films) and comparison (with other filmmakers).22 The internationalist focus played a crucial role in this interpretation. In order to demonstrate the importance of the festival for the school’s curriculum, Bohm quotes an anonymous student who addresses the “feeling” of being connected with all progressive people in the world through international solidarity and the struggle for peace and against military aggression.23 International contacts and relations during the festivals in Leipzig were based on these parameters. One extraordinary exception that revealed both the hypocrisy of the festival’s internationalist self-presentation and its implicit demand for conformity, was the 1968 iteration of the festival. In reaction to the Prague Spring all screenings of films related to rebellion, revolution, or protest, regardless of the part of the world it came from, were canceled. The festival thus contradicted its own propaganda’s claim of serving as a forum for internationalist struggles and political protest. Filmmakers from other countries, mainly from France, protested this move by the festival management. And although their proposed protest resolution was finally prevented by officials, the incident had serious consequences for the HFF. After 18 Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann, Übergänge. Passagen durch eine deutsch-israelische Filmge­ schichte, Berlin 2014, p. 152. 19 Wiedemann, Hoffnung Leipzig?, p. 64. 20 Ibid, p. 61. 21 Karlheinz Bohm, Begegnungen in Leipzig – verlagerter Unterricht. In: HFF Informationen, (1984) 3–4 , p. 21. 22 Ibid., p. 20. 23 Ibid., p. 22.

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they returned from Leipzig, two students who had volunteered as translators and guides for the international delegation of filmmakers, Barbara Demmler and Roland Bischoff, were prosecuted for assisting the international filmmakers’ protest. The punishment was probation in production and expulsion from the school.24 In his report on the matter, Wolfgang Harkenthal, director of the Leipzig festival from 1964 to 1972, stressed that students from Babelsberg had played a certain role in the political and ideological issues that arose during the festival. According to Harkenthal, students joined the provocateurs and thereby even intensified the impact of their protests. Harkenthal assessed the political condition of HFF students as unstable and criticized them for not confronting the “provocateurs”.25

The Oberhausen Festival Between Window and Showcase Compared to Leipzig, which functioned as a politically and ideologically controlled space for self-presentation and political education, the West German Short Film Festival offered an opportunity for the East German state film school to present itself as a creative, progressive, and substantial institution and an important player in the international cinephile arena. The HFF and its films began appearing at Oberhausen in the mid-1960s, with its first successively screened and awarded film being Ahmed Romhi’s Rehearsal. Babelsberg student films began regularly winning awards in Oberhausen in the mid-1970s, with prizes going in 1973 to Rainer Lindow’s largely conformist report about the East German youth radio station “DT 64” in preparation of the “Tenth World Festival of Youth” titled Those who love the Earth (Wer die Erde liebt, GDR 1972), in 1977 to Bodo Fürneisen’s documentary film Mareczku, dear boy (Mareczku lieber Junge, GDR 1976) about the marriage of an East German woman and a Polish worker, and in 1978 to Jan Bereska’s historical report Woodcutters (Holzfäller, GDR 1976) about lumbermen who worked in different epochs of Germany’s troubled history. Among other things, the awards for films from the HFF signaled the ambivalent position of East German student films in Oberhausen. The festival mainly screened films without students present. As Wiedemann has pointed out, the awards were usually accepted by officials: “The confidence of the state and the university administration in the students’ ability to resist the lure of the West was probably rather small.”26 That was certainly the 24 Günter Jordan, Verlust der Unschuld. In: Ralf Schenk (ed.), Bilder einer gespaltenen Welt, pp. 57–58. 25 Andreas Kötzing, Kultur- und Filmpolitik im Kalten Krieg. Die Filmfestivals von Leipzig und Oberhausen in gesamtdeutscher Perspektive 1954–1972, Göttingen 2013, p. 318, footnote 67. 26 Dieter Wiedemann, Woher wir kommen, p. 33. Unless otherwise indicated, translations of quoted passages originally published in German are by the author.

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case with Woodcutters: while Bereska’s film was invited to the festival, the director had to stay at home.27 The same thing happened some years later with one of the most impressive films from Babelsberg. In 1984 Petra Tschörtner’s graduation film Behind Windows (Hinter den Fenstern, GDR 1983), an artistic and simultaneously socially critical report about young couples and their living conditions in the GDR, received three prizes in Oberhausen, including the main award of the international jury. While her film was celebrated in West Germany, Tschörtner didn’t even know that it had been nominated. When she had finished the film it was evaluated negatively by the graduation committee due to its focus on the ambiguously presented situation of East German youth, and given a poor grade. But no real discussion developed between the teachers and the students although Tschörtner recalled that the atmosphere at the school was strange.28 In a 1988 interview about her documentary films in the late GDR, she mentions the success of her film in Oberhausen. She recalled having learned about it some weeks later from an article in Neues Deutschland: “For sure I was happy about this award,” she said, “but I would prefer to have been sitting myself in the cinema and meeting the people there.”29 Stasi reports on Tschörtner reveal a rather different version of this “official” recollection from the late 1980s. Apparently Behind Windows caused particular trouble at the HFF. A report by IM “Franz” from September 1983 states that the rector of the film school presumably ended the controversy. Behind Windows was send to the National Festival in Neubrandenburg, in a state sanctioned version, because Tschörtner had evidently criticized the re-editing of her film.30 And Tschörtner appears to have actually learned about the awards in Oberhausen from a colleague at the DEFA studio who had seen the news on West German television. According to a report by IM “Klaus” from April 1984, Tschörtner was quite surprised about this information because from her knowledge the film was only screened in the information section, not in the competition. She contacted the Head Offices for Film (HV Film) at the Ministry of Culture and was told to drop by sometime and pick up her awards. When she stated that she wasn’t interested in the awards but hoped for regular work, the conversation ended.31 Clearly Behind Windows had led to discussions and controversies in the school as well as among other GDR filmmakers. But despite these internal debates the 27 28 29 30 31

Jan Bereska, Das Eigene und das Fremde. In: Dietmar Hochmuth (ed.), DEFA NOVA, p. 148. Martin Hübner, Kein Gegeneinander, p. 225–226. Ibid., p. 226. IM “Franz”, Information über Stand der Auseinandersetzung zwischen dem HFF-Absolventen Petra Tschörtner und der HFF wegen ihres Films Hinter den Fenstern, 27.9.1983. In: Dietmar Hochmuth (ed.), DEFA NOVA, p. 234. IM “Klaus”, Einschätzung und Information zur HFF-Absolventin Petra Tschörtner, 30.04.1984. In: Ibid., p. 236.

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film was nevertheless considered suitable for submission to an international festival in order to present East German film production as critical, innovative, and controversial. The young filmmaker did not benefit from this success at all, however. She was prevented from accompanying her film to West Germany, and even after its international success she faced difficulties getting a regular position in the GDR film industry. This case clearly illustrates how far Oberhausen, from the perspective of the school’s administration, was of use primarily as a showcase for its student films, not as place for young filmmakers to network and make new discoveries. The possibility to contribute a retrospective of its student films to the twenty-fifth iteration of the festival in 1979 served as a unique opportunity for HFF officials to present the school and its productivity at a Western festival. This idea was first introduced in a letter from Ulbrich to Wolfgang Ruf, then director of the Oberhausen festival, in January 1978: “We would be quite interested to participate in the twenty-fifth West German Short Film Festival with a special program of the Academy of Film and Television of the GDR.”32 Ruf responded positively to the proposed program of East German student films, stating that he would be interested to see it come to fruition.33 A few months later Ruf then met with the head of the HFF dramaturgic department, Klaus Rümmler, to plan the retrospective. They decided to include two programs for a total of four hours running time.34 In the end, twelve films from the 1960s and 1970s were shown in Oberhausen, among them works by Volker Koepp and Christa Mühl, foreign students such as the Jordanian Ahmed Romhi, and films with anti-fascist topics such as Celino Bleiweiß’s short film The Game (Das Spiel, GDR 1962), about the execution of Soviet prisoners by German Nazi troops during World War II, and Konrad Weiss’s documentary Flames (Flammen, GDR 1967), a report about the Communist Jewish resistance group “Baum Gruppe”, as well as Peter Kahane’s Trumpet, Bell, Last Letters (Trompete, Glocke, letzte Briefe, GDR 1978), a poetic documentary film about resistance fighters during the “Third Reich”, which later won an award in the competition. The special program, Ruf insisted, “will no doubt provide an interesting insight into the education of young filmmakers in the German Democratic Republic”.35 This special HFF program illustrates the school’s efforts to utilize international festivals, especially Western one, to present its merits. In this regard the HFF’s festival policy essentially enacted the official directives of the GDR’s cultural policy. 32 Letter from Peter Ulbrich to Wolfgang Ruf, Potsdam, 17.1.1978 (Archive of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Schriftwechsel Länder A–H, 1978). 33 Letter from Wolfgang Ruf to Peter Ulbrich, Oberhausen, 27.1.1978. Ibid. 34 Report from Klaus Rümmler to Peter Ulbrich, Potsdam, 18.5.1978 (Archive of the Film M ­ useum Potsdam [FMP], HFF-Dramaturgie, Schriftwechsel i. H. 1975–1985). 35 Wolfgang Ruf, Vorbemerkung. In: Westdeutsche Kurzfilmtage (eds.), Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR. Materialien 1954–1979. Oberhausen 1979, p. 2.

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This was already proved in 1969, when the HFF joined the official GDR boycott of the Oberhausen festival, although the school received direct requests from the festival management to present its student films there.36

Competition and Encounters at International Student Festivals Student films from Babelsberg competed with works from other film schools not only at the acknowledged festivals in Leipzig and Oberhausen, but also at international festivals dedicated to films by student filmmakers. In this regard the HFF was oriented towards the leading film schools in other Eastern European countries, mainly the WGIK in Moscow, but also the Polish film school in Łódź and the FAMU in Prague. Those socialist film schools organized their own international forums for screening student work. An early attempt at this was made in September 1966 by the central committee of the Czechoslovakian Youth Organization, which hosted the first international film festival for students from film and television schools. The Babelsberg film school decided to send Celino Bleiweiß’s The Game and Rehearsal to Prague and also to send Bleiweiß, who was then working for GDR television, to the festival.37 But this decision caused controversy. Fritz Kirchhof, secretary of the central committee of the Free German Youth (FDJ), contacted the minister of culture, Klaus Gysi, and criticized the selection of the films as being unsuitable for representing East German youth, their problems and challenges, and for cultivating their reputation abroad.38 Different GDR institutions obviously also had competing interests, because from the perspective of the official film school such student festivals provided a forum for demonstrating artistic excellence, while the official state organization for East German youth regarded them as forums for self-presentation. The stated aim of 36

Although the GDR was de facto acknowledged as participating state at the Oberhausen festival in 1968, Norbert Mader from the cultural section of the Central Committee suggested to focus in the future on the GDR’s own festival in Leipzig and not to participate any more in Oberhausen and Mannheim. Thus, in 1969, no East German films were presented in Oberhausen. According to Andreas Kötzing this boycott may have been the result of a lack of clarity in East German ideological strategies regarding international festival participation. Kötzing, Kultur- und Filmpolitik im Kalten Krieg, pp. 334–337. 37 Letter from Dr. Korn to Dr. Schauer, Ministry of Culture, HV Film, Berlin, 16.6.1966 (BArch, DR 1/4282). 38 Letter from Fritz Kirchhof to Klaus Gysi, Minister of Culture, Berlin, 18.7.1966 (BArch, DR 1/4282). It is important to consider the historical context of this controversy. In December 1965 the 11th plenum of the central committee of the SED had decided to ban all current film productions. At the HFF three teachers were dismissed because they had edited a proscribed film journal that included an open discussion on stylistic influences of international film history. The plenum also criticized the mentality of East German youth. In this conflict all these aspects – film/culture, youth, and international relations – converged.

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the festival, however, was to introduce student films from different countries to young international filmmakers as well as to the public and to enable international friendships.39 The 1966 Czechoslovak festival established a new forum for screening student films and for young filmmakers to meet each other. The international association of film schools CILECT, which was constantly trying to cross the front lines of the Cold War,40 was especially active in providing regular opportunities for students to present their work. Hence, following this start in 1966, several CILECT student meetings and film festivals were organized to provide a place for students from different countries in East and West to watch and critically discuss their works. According to Egbert Lipowski, then dramaturgic advisor in Babelsberg, the HFF earned increasing respect and recognition in the international arena of film schools. Furthermore the CILECT festivals were explicitly intended as a forum for students to meet their peers from other schools and thus emphasized the educational aspect over self-presentation. This was reflected in their awards as well. In 1975 Jörg Andrees recieved a certificate of honor for Jestem Baba – I am a Woman (Jestem Baba – Ich bin ein Weib, GDR 1975), a documentary film about five Polish woman who are talking about their lives, at the international student meeting’s film festival in Łódź. In 1977, at the 4th CILECT festival in Budapest, the HFF films Working Days (Werktage, GDR 1977, Roland Steiner), a coproduction with the Budapest film academy, and Process (Der Prozeß, GDR 1976, Jörg Foth), a fiction film about the relationship between an East German girl and a young Pole that emphasizes the obstacles of their love due to the reactions of their social environment and the unsolved conflicts of German-Polish history, received awards.41 The same year in Budapest, the Yugoslav student Emir Kusturica, then studying at FAMU in Prague, stood up during a discussion after a HFF film screening and called the films from East Germany a disaster.42 Five years later, during the CILECT Student Film ­Festival 39

Statute of the International Film Festival by Students from Film- and Television Schools (BArch, DR 1/4282). 40 Peter C. Slansky, Filmhochschulen in Deutschland. Geschichte – Typologie – Architektur. München 2012, p. 457. 41 Foth’s film, which was photographed by and co-written with Thomas Plenert, was screened on November 11, 1977 in Budapest. The film was also part of a program of HFF student films at the 8th International Forum of Young Cinema during the 28th International Film Festival in Berlin. In the forum’s catalogue Foth emphasizes the importance of improvisation for successfully realizing the film, which was also the reason for its title: “Process”. Filme der Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR. In: Katalogblätter, 8. internationales forum des jungen films, online: http://www.arsenal-berlin.de/nc/berlinale-forum/archiv/katalogblaetter/action/open-download/download/der-prozess.html. 42 The student meetings featured both internal discussions among the students and public screenings for a broader audience. Whether Kusturica addressed his critical remarks in an internal meeting or in public is not clear.

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in 1985, the HFF’s contributions of the HFF looked quite different. Helke Misselwitz’s film essay House.Wives (Haus.Frauen, GDR 1982), for example, was celebrated in the West German Frankfurter Rundschau: “This film, made by a promising young director, illustrates the quite successful search for a profile by a film school whose program has provoked some critical discussions on at earlier CILECT meetings.”43 In her film essay Misselwitz had artistically and critically reflected the historical position of women and their social status. The CILECT festivals in particular enabled continuous regular exchange between Eastern and the Western film schools; it thus provided an opportunity for East German students to recognize not only their own shortcomings, but – as compared with their peers in Czechoslovakia and Poland – their widespread conformism as well. Regarding the political changes following the mid-1980s, the CILECT festivals became even more important. This is illustrated by a June 1987 letter from the dramaturgic advisor Angelika Mieth to the rector of the Babelsberg school Lothar Bisky, in which she complained that she and other playwrights had not been chosen to attend the film school’s delegation to the CILECT festival in Karlovy Vary, although one of the films she had advised, Eyes of an Angel (Engelsaugen, GDR 1987), by Jan Ruzicka, a partly surrealist short film about the tactics of insurance institutions that attempted to apply artistic elements from Czechoslovakian films, had been selected. In her letter Mieth highlights the importance of international exchange, especially given the calls for new educational concepts to countervail provincialism, such as knowledge of international film developments, artistic excellence, an atmosphere of support for young talents, and the promotion of student individuality.44 International student festivals clearly served as a threshold to the world in this process of renewal, especially in the late 1980s. And they paved the path for new collaborations between the HFF and West German institutions, especially the Munich Academy for Television and Film. These contacts became of increasing importance after the collapse of the GDR in 1989/90, when the HFF in Potsdam transformed from a state controlled film school to a public educational institution in a unified Germany. After 1981, the International Festival of Film Schools in Munich became another important forum for young filmmakers, and in 1987 also student films from the GDR were invited for the first time to the festival. The program in that year included four films from Babelsberg, among them Jan Ruzicka’s Eyes of an Angel. A year later Peter Welz presented Welcome to the Canteen (Willkommen in der Kantine, GDR 1987), a film based on a script by Frank Castorf that was made in 43 Hans-Joachim Schlegel, Hat der Film eine Zukunft? Überlegungen zum 7. Treffen der Filmhochschulen. In: Frankfurter Rundschau, 20.7.1983. 44 Letter from Angelika Mieth to Lothar Bisky, Potsdam 10.6.1987 (FMP, HFF-Dramaturgie, Schriftwechsel i. H. 1979–1988).

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close cooperation with the Berlin Volksbühne theater. In addition to Welz’s film, Dror Zahavi, an Israeli student from Babelsberg, presented his film Alexander Penn (GDR 1987) about a Russian-Jewish-Communist poet. Zahavi also accompanied Harry Hornig, then Vice-Rector for Education and Instruction, during a visit to the HFF in Munich in the winter of 1988–1989. The close links between the two schools were a direct result of a May 1986 cultural agreement between the governments of West Germany and the GDR, and they paved the way for later cooperations between film schools in East and West.45

Conclusion The developments of the 1980s demonstrate that festivals, especially student festivals, were an important place for international encounters and thus transformed into a major factor for the gradual opening up of the East German film school. Not only did students from Babelsberg present their films in Munich, but in 1989 Munich students were the first West Germans to present their work at the FDJ student film festival in Babelsberg. This second important period of internationalization, which took place during and after Ulbrich’s rectorate, accompanied the phase of liberalization introduced by Lothar Bisky in the mid-1980s. In February 1986 Klaus Rümmler formulated a paper on festival policy, which stated that by attending festivals HFF students would become informed about current national and international developments in film-making and compete with their work in order to overcome the increased isolation of the East German film school in the international arena thus counteracting the danger of provincialism.46 Rümmler’s guideline already indicated increasing ambivalence. The interplay between international festivals as both a window to the world and a space of encounters and as a place of socialist competition and self-presentation still needed to be overseen and regulated. Nevertheless, the school faced a constantly globalizing film and media culture and thus desperately needed input from the outside in order to avoid becoming fully isolated. Meeting international filmmakers was therefore essential. The fact that this process – which was supported by international festivals – led to the subsequent opening up of this state-controlled institution, was certainly not intended, but could not have been prevented any longer.

45 Karl-Friedrich Reimers, Bericht: Studienbesuch aus der Staatl. Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (HFF) München in der DDR-Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen (HFF) ‘Konrad Wolf ’ vom 22./23. Mai bis 27./28. Mai 1989, München 1989 (Private collection). 46 Klaus Rümmler, Vorlage zur Festivalkonzeption der HFF, Potsdam, 5.2.1986 (FMP, HFF-Dramaturgie, Schriftwechsel i. H. 1975–85).

Andreas Kötzing Cultural and Film Policy in the Cold War: The Film Festivals of Oberhausen and Leipzig and German-German Relations

A Twofold German Film History? With the division of Germany into two states after 1945, the history of German film was divided as well. The development of filmmaking in the Federal Republic had, it would seem, hardly anything to do with state-coordinated film production in the GDR. At least the scholarship, even today, tends to focus on developments in either country that were truly independent. In most cases, even broader surveys of post-1945 German film deal with the histories of filmmaking in the two German states as entirely separate phenomena.1 Some past scholarship, however, has already indicated the potential value in looking at East and West German film as a single entity, whether with regard to how the two German states were each presented, or by way of discussing certain topical fields in terms of content and aesthetics.2 Furthermore, there remain today a number of features of a common history of German films that have yet to be fully analyzed. These include the exchange of films between the two German states and how they were censored; the work of individual actors and directors who prior to the building of the Berlin Wall were able to work in both German states; 1 2

See for example Wolfgang Jacobsen et al. (eds.), Geschichte des deutschen Films, Stuttgart/Weimar 2004. See Detlef Kannapin, Dialektik der Bilder. Der Nationalsozialismus im deutschen Film. Ein OstWest-Vergleich, Berlin 2005; Matthias Steinle, Vom Feindbild zum Fremdbild. Die gegenseitige Darstellung von BRD und DDR im Dokumentarfilm, Konstanz 2003. Especially for the international context of East German (DEFA) productions, see the articles in Michael Wedel et al. (eds.), DEFA international. Grenzüberschreitende Filmbeziehungen vor und nach dem Mauerbau, Wiesbaden 2013. A new perspective on comparing East and West German film history was established by the Retrospective section of the Berlinale in 2016. That year, the Retrospective focused on films from the two German states that were produced in 1966 – a year that became famous because in both countries a generation of young filmmakers was breaking new ground and turning the spotlight on current topics. See Connie Betz/Julia Patis/Rainer Rother (eds.), Deutschland 1966. Filmische Perspektiven in Ost und West, Berlin 2016.

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or the rare cases of German-German co-productions, which sometimes occurred as late as the end of the 1950s, for instance by way of the Pandora film company, which was run by Erich Mehl in Sweden.3 Particularly in the international branches of film production, there was considerable interconnection and delimitation between the two German states, even in the period of division.4 As I will show, the festivals for documentary and short film in Oberhausen, in West Germany, and Leipzig, in East Germany, in the 1950s and 1960s serve as examples of this. The two festivals were founded at almost the same time, and particularly in their early years they were connected with each other in manifold ways. My focus will be on direct links between the two festivals, the contributions at each by filmmakers from the two German states, and political conflicts triggered by individual films.5

The Festivals in Oberhausen and Leipzig A number of film festivals were founded in Germany in the 1950s, including the Berlinale (1951), the Mannheim Film Festival (1952), the West German Short Film Festival Oberhausen (1954), and the Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Festival (1955). These festivals were started at a time when the division of Germany was gradually being consolidated and the Cold War was becoming the central issue of international politics. The East-West conflict had far-reaching effects on the festivals in Oberhausen and Leipzig, which initially were structured very similarly in terms of themes and content. The two festivals were thus carried out in a situation of tensed, mutually influencing competition. At the beginning, in 1955 and 1956, the Leipzig festival was an all-German week of documentary films. After a break of three years, the festival was resumed in 1960 according to a different political concept. In the course of the 1960s, the festival made its official reputation as an “anti-imperialist forum of militant movie publishing”.6 In the early 1970s, the festival regulations stipulated the exclusive exhibition of films that were “progressive and militant” and that dealt “with the 3 4

5 6

Among others, Mehl produced the movies Light Signal (Leuchtfeuer, GDR 1954) and Gaming House Affair (Spielbankaffäre, GDR 1957). The approach of “asymmetrically entangled histories”, as described by Christoph Kleßmann, which considers the entanglement and delineation of the two German states, suggests itself as a basis for dealing with German-German film relations in the period of the Cold War. See Christoph Kleßmann, Konturen einer integrierten Nachkriegsgeschichte. In: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 18–19 (2005), pp. 3–11. This essay basically encapsulates the argument of my book Kultur- und Filmpolitik im Kalten Krieg. Die Filmfestivals von Leipzig und Oberhausen in gesamtdeutscher Perspektive, Göttingen 2013. See e. g. the description of the early history of the festival in Albert Wilkening et al. (eds.), Kleine Enzyklopädie Film, Leipzig 1966, p. 690.

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struggle of mankind against imperialism and for world peace, for maintaining and defending human dignity; the struggle of peoples for liberty, independence and happiness, creative power, and the scientific-technological and social progress of human society; and that are made in an artistically convincing way”.7 These political goals licensed the SED’s repeated instrumentalization of the festival as a means of demonstrating its open-mindedness towards the world, with foreign policy in mind of course, and of garnering international recognition of the GDR on the cultural-political level. Criticism of “really existing Socialism” was not tolerated in Leipzig, neither in the films themselves nor in supporting events and public debates. To be perceived internationally as a festival, however, the organizers had to invite representatives even from countries that were critical of the GDR system; and guests from West Germany always had a particular role to play in this regard. Thus it was inevitable that films were presented in Leipzig that documented cultural, social, and political realms of life that were quite far from any socialist image of the world. The Leipzig Festival was thus a place that permitted insights into everyday life beyond the Iron Curtain.8 The Oberhausen Festival, too, was fraught with complex tensions. For a long time, it had been politically controversial in West Germany because of the special relationship with socialist countries that it maintained. The motto that the festival adopted in 1959 – “The Way to the Neighbor” (Weg zum Nachbarn) – implied an engagement with Eastern Europe; and as a result, films from the GDR were shown in Oberhausen that could not be seen anywhere else in West Germany. “However”, as the film journalist Wilhelm Roth remarked, “there was also a flipside to the political decision by the festival to open up towards the East: It required both considerable diplomatic skills on the part of Oberhausen when it came to dealing with the film bureaucracies of the socialist countries, as well as a readiness to compromise when it came to inviting films and directors; the negotiations were potentially even humiliating because the organizers were confronted again and again with unsurmountable obstacles.”9 An additional problem was the fact that the socialist countries, and the GDR in particular, used the festival as a platform for propaganda for their own political system. Its open-mindedness towards these countries initially put the Oberhausen festival in contravention of the cultural-political guidelines of West Germany, which since the mid-1950s were

7 8 9

Regulations of the XIV. Internationalen Leipziger Dokumentar- und Kurzfilmwoche für Kino und Fernsehen. (Federal Archive/Bundesarchiv (BArch) Berlin, DR 139/18). For a detailed history of the Leipzig festival, see Caroline Moine, Cinéma et guerre froide. Histoire du festival de films documentaires de Leipzig (1955–1990), Paris 2014. Wilhelm Roth, Die schwierigen Nachbarn. Ein Festival und seine Mythen. In: Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (eds.), kurz und klein. 50 Jahre Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Ostfilderrn-Ruit 2004, p. 9.

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oriented toward uninterrupted integration into the West. Only with the introduction in the late 1960s of the “Neue Ostpolitik” (New Policy Toward the East) by the coalition government of Social-Democrats and Liberals did the Oberhausen Festival’s political position meet with public recognition.10

Participation in the Two Festivals by Filmmakers from the Two Germanies There were several periods in which the political conditions, i.e. political relations between the two German states, allowed for both East and West German filmmakers to contribute to the festivals in both Leipzig and Oberhausen. The years 1957/58, 1961/62, and 1967/68 stand out as watersheds in this context. The West German Short Film Festival in Oberhausen was focused from a very early stage on friendly exchange with directors from Eastern Europe, including the GDR. Its second and third iterations featured films from DEFA, the East German film studio. In those days, participation by the GDR was still a relatively smooth affair; in 1956, East German participants even signed their names in the “Golden Book” of the City of Oberhausen in gratitude for the hospitality they had been shown. The situation was similar at the Leipzig festival, which in 1955 and 1956 operated as an all-German platform for documentary films from both countries. Despite individual conflicts and politically motivated interventions into the festival program, relations between East and West German filmmakers were cordial at Leipzig as well.11 From the beginning, however, both the Federal Government and the SED leadership viewed German-German contacts at the two film festivals with suspicion, mostly because of their political implications. For instance, while the SED approved the extended relations with the West that were coordinated by the Club of the Filmmakers (Club der Filmschaffenden, CdF) and were not restricted to just film festivals, the precondition for this was that any exchange with West German directors and producers should take place in an ideological framework. The Party was primarily concerned with improving the GDR’s reputation in the Federal Republic by intensifying relations in the cultural sphere.12 In Leipzig, for instance, this found expression in a number of roundtables organized by the CdF to dis10 See the memoirs of the former festival director Wolfgang J. Ruf, Grenzverläufe, Grenzüberschreitungen. Reminiszenzen an die Oberhausener Ost-Politik. In: Ibid., pp. 57–66. 11 See Christiane Mückenberger, Fenster zur Welt. Zur Geschichte der Leipziger Dokumentarund Kurzfilmwoche. In: Ralf Schenk/Günter Jordan (eds.), Schwarzweiß und Farbe. DEFA-Dokumentarfilme 1946–92, Berlin 2000, pp. 364–381. 12 See Wolfgang Kernicke, Entwurf des Arbeitsplans für das I. Halbjahr 1956 des Clubs der Filmschaffenden, 2.1.1956 (BArch Berlin, DR 1/4652a).

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cuss the development of German-German relations with West German guests. The Federal Government rejected such contacts because it wanted to prevent any ideological influencing during the festivals. Accordingly, both the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry of All-German Issues explicitly advised West German producers not to participate in the Leipzig festival.13 The Federal Government was similarly opposed to East German directors being invited to attend West German festivals, because it feared that the SED might exploit the festivals for propaganda purposes and because in general the GDR was to be denied any opportunity for self-representation. From 1957–58 on, both in Leipzig and in Oberhausen, German-German relations took a turn for the worse; and this is when the first watershed becomes obvious. The idea of an exchange of films between the two German states was increasingly eclipsed by political problems. A crucial factor here was no doubt the integration of West Germany and the GDR into Western and Eastern Europe respectively and the attendant hardening of political relations between them. On the one hand, the GDR government was increasingly invested in representing the GDR as a sovereign state. Particularly in the realm of cultural policy, it changed course in the late 1950s, turning away from any “all-German” approach.14 The West German government, on the other hand, rejected the political recognition of the GDR and, in the context of the Hallstein Doctrine, insisted on being the exclusive representative of Germany’s interests. These two processes were intertwined and had immediate effects on the festivals. In 1957, as a result of the new course in the SED’s cultural policy, the “all-German” concept of the Leipzig festival was dropped. The festival itself was then suspended, to be resumed only three years later, in 1960, with a new political concept. Furthermore, the CdF, which had partnerships not only with the West German Short Film Festival Oberhausen, but also with the Mannheim Festival, urged its partners to be allowed to appear at those West German festivals as a politically independent GDR delegation. In the process, the name “GDR”, which was highly controversial in the Federal Republic, became the object of a permanent debate, and this, among other things, resulted in the East German delegation’s withdrawal from the Oberhausen festival. The second watershed in the two countries’ participation in each other’s festivals was closely tied to the building of the Berlin Wall. This paramount manifestation of the political division of Germany was reflected in the development of the festivals as well. The period following the construction of the Wall was characterized by ongoing interconnections between the two German states together with 13 Bundesminister für gesamtdeutsche Fragen an den Verband Deutscher Filmproduzenten e.V., Fachgruppe Kulturfilm, Bonn, 27.10.1954 (BArch Koblenz, B 106/897). 14 See for example the speech by Alfred Kurella, Head of the Culture Commission of the Politbureau of the CC of the SED. In: Elimar Schubbe (ed.), Dokumente zur Kunst-, Literatur- und Kulturpolitik der SED, Vol. 1: 1946–1970, Stuttgart 1972, pp. 536–538.  

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a growing need for delimitation. One effect of this conflict was that in 1962 the Oberhausen festival management decided, in response to the Wall, to withdraw its invitation to the Club of the Filmmakers – a controversial decision with far-reaching implications. Both the Club and the SED institutions presiding over it used the occasion to stage an effective campaign against the West German festival.15 By exerting political pressure, the GDR succeeded in persuading almost all of the other socialist states to boycott Oberhausen. This “successful action” provided the CdF in years to come with a comfortable bargaining position, as it could threaten to repeat the campaign should its demands for “equal participation of the GDR” not be met. However, Hilmar Hoffmann and Will Wehling, the leading managers of the Oberhausen festival, responded to these attempts at blackmail with considerable diplomatic skill, signaling regulations or official publications and public talks that would take the East German demands into consideration without fulfilling them completely. One example of this was that DEFA productions were on several occasions announced as “films from Germany”, with an additional comment provided in quotation marks: “selected by the Association of Filmmakers of the GDR”. In this way, while the German Democratic Republic was indeed mentioned, the enemy state’s name appeared in quotation marks. The special role the GDR had at the Oberhausen festival during this time is evident not least in the fact that from 1964 on, following a request from the East German partners, the conditions for the GDR’s participation were fixed in written contracts – with no other country were negotiations subject to comparable regulation.16 In the mid-1960s, German-German interconnections were particularly strong at Oberhausen because the festival was, so to speak, “dependent” on the GDR’s participation. The boycott of 1962 had demonstrated that any exclusion of the GDR might result in other East European states steering clear of the festival in response. But Oberhausen’s international reputation was considerably augmented by the high-quality short films from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary that were being shown there – without these East European “neighbors” the festival would have lost much of its distinctive value. As the City of Oberhausen was making efforts at the time to receive funding from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Hilmar Hoffmann and Will Wehling did their best to avoid suggesting full recognition of the GDR. However, the festival’s political concept, i.e. its pursuit

15 See Andreas Kötzing, Im Schatten des Manifests. Die VIII. Westdeutschen Kurzfilmtage und die Rolle der DDR. In: Ralph Eue/Lars Henrik Gass (eds.), Provokation der Wirklichkeit. Das Oberhausener Manifest und die Folgen, München 2012, pp. 201–206. 16 See for example the agreement on the participation of the CdF of the GDR in the West German Short Film Festival in Oberhausen 3–8 February 1964, Berlin, 8.1.1964, signed by Werner Rose and Will Wehling (Archive of the Film Museum Potsdam, VFF, File: Festivals, Oberhausen 1963–1965).

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of the comprehensive inclusion of filmmakers from Eastern Europe, was fundamentally rejected by the West German government; and the Federal Ministry of the Interior refused any kind of support for the Oberhausen festival. This conflict smoldered for several years, before flaring up in 1965, when the Federal Minister of the Interior, Herrmann Höcherl, publicly called Oberhausen a “red festival”.17 The ministry’s attempts to influence the substance of the festival by way of politico-economic pressure nevertheless failed: The festival management took the conflict to the public and successfully asserted its political independence. The GDR played an essential role in this conflict inasmuch as the participation of East German functionaries in the festival was a crucial factor in the Federal Government’s reservations about it. Following the construction of the Berlin Wall, German-German contacts played a role in Leipzig as well, but under different conditions: Whereas the Oberhausen festival was in constant conflict with the West German government over its political orientation, but was able to avoid being influenced by the state, the Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Festival developed into an event that served as validation of the state and was subject to the SED’s cultural policy in all important fields. In this context, relations with West Germany were highly contradictory at first. On the one hand, the Leipzig festival was increasingly instrumentalized for propaganda purposes; this involved not only casting the reality of life in the socialist states in a positive light, but also, and above all, asserting ideological difference from the representatives of “Western imperialism”, in particular the Federal Republic. Nevertheless, the organizers made purposeful attempts to invite as many West German filmmakers, producers, and journalists as possible. Their endeavors were informed by the cultural-political idea that by demonstrating its open-mindedness to the world at the Leipzig festival, the GDR would be able to improve its international reputation.18 The CdF, which coordinated contacts with West Germany, was quite successful in this regard. In 1963, for instance, the association succeeded in securing official participant status for he West German Association of Film Producers (Westdeutscher Produzentenverband). This not only enhanced the reputation of the Leipzig festival in West Germany, but also contributed to that year’s festival seeing more guests from West Germany, especially West Berlin, than from any other country.19 However, the relative openness

17

See the exchange of letters between the West German government and the Oberhausen festival, excerpts of which have been published in: Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (eds.), kurz und klein, pp. 45–68. 18 See the conceptual plan for the Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Short Films, Appendix 9 of the record of the meeting of the Central Committee of the SED, 22.7.1964 (BArch Berlin, SAPMO, DY 30/J IV/2/3/995, pp. 40–50). 19 See Mückenberger, Fenster zur Welt, p. 317.

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of the Leipzig festival, which involved more than just fostering contacts in West Germany, was controversial within the SED. Individual party functionaries and a handful of directors from the DEFA Studio for Documentary Film, like Andrew Thorndike and Walter Heynowski, succeeded in pushing through an intensive ideologization of the festival after 1964.20 The internal struggle over the Leipzig festival’s political direction had a direct effect on the treatment of German-German relations in its program as well, with the political situation in the Federal Republic serving increasingly as a target of criticism from one year to the next. The years 1967–1968 stand out as a third watershed in the history of German-­ German relations at Leipzig and Oberhausen, as both festivals saw the dawning of new prospects for the participation of the two German states. In Oberhausen, following the festival’s thirteenth iteration, the management began using the acronym “GDR” without quotation marks in printed programs, guest lists, and all other official festival publications; and with that the GDR achieved its primary goal of being represented as an independent state in the context of the Oberhausen festival. The singlemindedness with which the SED authorities involved pursued this formal recognition becomes clear when one considers that neither the CdF nor the recently founded Association of Film and Television Professionals (Verband der Film- und Fernsehschaffenden, VFF), had any concrete idea as to how the GDR was to represent itself at Oberhausen after this goal had been achieved. For a short time, they even considered discontinuing East German participation in the festival; and in 1969 the VFF broke off its involvement without giving any reason at all. By contrast with previous years, however, this did not lead to any debates worth mentioning; and from 1970 on, East German films could be screened again in Oberhausen. Following West Germany’s official “recognition” of the GDR that year, the participation of East German filmmakers at Oberhausen soon lost its particular political significance. Interestingly, a similar normalization did not take place with regard to West German involvement in the Leipzig festival; as a matter of fact, the Federal Republic’s special status was even reinforced at the end of the 1960s. At first, it was the West German Association of Film Producers that provoked a crisis in 1967 when it refused to participate in the festival and called on its members to boycott it.21 The one-sided political direction of the Leipzig festival in the previous years, 20 See Andreas Kötzing, Decreed Open-Mindedness. The Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Festival in the 1960s as an Example of the Self-Representation of the East German State. In: Pavel Skopal/Lars Karl (eds.), Cinema in Service of the State. Perspectives on Film Culture in the GDR and Czechoslovakia 1945–1960, New York/Oxford 2015, pp. 229–244. 21 See the circular Nr. 2/67 by the West German Film Producers Association about the 10th Leipzig Festival for Documentary und Short Films, Wiesbaden, 11.9.1967, signed by Hans Friedewald, the manager of the association (Archive of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, File 1968, filing: Verband Deutscher Film- und Fernsehproduzenten).

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from which the Association publicly distanced itself, was a key motivation for this call; and its effect was that by the end of the 1960s far fewer directors and guests from West Germany and West Berlin took part in the Leipzig festival. This was also due to the fact that in Leipzig West German participants were increasingly chosen based on their political views: Only those journalists, directors, and producers were invited who were not likely to publicly criticize the political and social situation in the GDR and the other socialist states. This was triggered by the debates of 1968, when in Leipzig a number of festival participants, among them several West German guests, had voiced their protest against the political direction of the festival and against bans on individual films.22

Conflicts About Films The role played at Oberhausen in the 1950s and 1960s by those East German DEFA productions that the CdF nominated in consultation with the Central Committee of the SED and the HV Film (Hauptverwaltung Film), was primarily a political one. Aesthetic considerations were secondary; and only seldom did an East German film attract attention for its extraordinary artistry, as was the case with Jürgen Böttcher’s Stove Fitters (Ofenbauer, GDR 1962).23 Instead, GDR films typically presented a critical perspective on the Federal Republic: almost every year, the individual productions suggested for the festival demonstrated a critical attitude towards the West German social system, thus reproducing stereotypes of the enemy. However, the Party’s hope of exploiting the Oberhausen festival for political purposes by way of propagandistic films was hardly fulfilled. While high-quality films from other socialist states were profoundly influential for the Oberhausen festival and were often awarded prizes,24 it was not until 1970 that an East German film received such an award. Of the films and television productions nominated by the CdF for both Oberhausen and Mannheim, some stand out because they were not exhibited. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the responsibility for this usually lay with West Germany’s Interministerial Committee on East–West Film Issues (Interministerieller Ausschuss für Ost-West-Filmfragen), which controlled the import of East European films on behalf of the government and could prevent films from being shown

22 23 24

See Günter Jordan, Verlust der Unschuld. In: Ralf Schenk (ed.), Bilder einer gespaltenen Welt. 50 Jahre Dokumentar- und Animationsfilmfestival Leipzig, Berlin 2007, pp. 54–58. See Dietrich Kulhbrodt, DEFA-Filme in Oberhausen – Rückblick auf fünfzig Jahre. In: Apropos: Film (Jahrbuch der DEFA-Stiftung), Berlin 2005, pp. 106–118. See the overview of award winners in: Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (eds.), kurz und klein.

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in the Federal Republic. Communist propaganda and positive representations of life in socialist countries, but also hints at personal continuities between National Socialism and the Federal Republic, were to be excluded from West German screens.25 While such censorship was legally disputed, it affected the choice of films for the West German festivals, as any production from Eastern Europe that the organizers wished to present had first to be presented to the Committee, and a number of films were in fact denied permission. In 1958, for instance, the Committee forbade the presentation of four films from socialist countries, including the DEFA production Hellas Without Gods (Hellas ohne Götter, GDR 1957) directed by Karl Gass.26 The Oberhausen festival at first tolerated this supervision, but in the course of the 1960s, as the Committee’s activities increasingly met with public criticism, it began to resist such politically motivated censorship. Finally, in 1966, Hilmar Hoffmann ensured that the festival no longer had to present films to the Committee. Among those films that had been denied permission by the Interministerial Committee, the DEFA films You and Some Comrade (Du und mancher Kamerad, GDR 1957) by Andrew and Annelie Thorndike and A Diary for Anne Frank (Ein Tagebuch für Anne Frank, GDR 1958) by Joachim Hellwig stand out. Both films were originally supposed to be shown in a series on the Nazi period at the Mannheim Festival. The Committee banned their presentation, as they both dealt with the re-integration of National Socialist perpetrators in the Federal Republic.27 In this way they intended to prevent any public debate on this taboo topic. However, the public debate that nevertheless took place regarding these and other censored films demonstrated that the Interministerial Committee’s practices ultimately had quite the opposite effect – in several respects. Firstly, the state “ban” itself attracted considerable attention to these DEFA films in West Germany, as far more festival guests were discussing them than would have otherwise. Secondly, such bans typically contributed to a mystification of the films in question, as the audience was prevented from coming to their own conclusions about their often reductive and propagandistic contents. Not least, the bans swelled the sails of East German propaganda at home, as they were often seized on as strong publicity against West Germany’s allegedly repressive censorship practices.28

25

See Stephan Buchloh, “Pervers, jugendgefährdend, staatsfeindlich”. Zensur in der Ära Adenauer als Spiegel des gesellschaftlichen Klimas, Frankfurt/New York 2002, pp. 218–249. 26 See Record No. 2/58 on the 23 January 1958 meeting of the Interministerial Committee on East–West Film Issues, Bonn, 30.1.1958 (BArch Koblenz, B 102/34487). 27 See Record No. 14/60 on the 10 May 1960 meeting of the Interministerial Committee on East– West Film Issues, Bonn, 10.5.1960 (BArch Koblenz, B 102/34489). 28 See Andreas Kötzing, Provozierte Konflikte. Der Club der Filmschaffenden und die Beteiligung der DEFA an der Mannheimer Filmwoche 1959/60. In: Wedel et al. (eds.), DEFA international, pp. 369–384.

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It is significant for the film-political connection between the West German festivals and the Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Festival that almost all East German films that were prevented from being screened in Mannheim or Oberhausen on political grounds were available for viewing in Leipzig and often received prizes there. Films such as Command 52 (Kommando 52, GDR 1964) or The Laughing Man (Der lachende Mann, GDR 1965) by Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann, contributed considerably to the Leipzig festival’s growing reputation in the 1960s as an “anti-imperialist film forum”, by contrast with the West German festivals.29 Furthermore, the Leipzig program included films each year that dealt provocatively with the political situation in the Federal Republic; and this often led to conflicts during the festival.30 The presentation of East and West German films in the context of the two festivals was characterized by an ideologically motivated asymmetry: Whereas the GDR insisted on being allowed to agitate offensively, by way of individual films, against the political system of West Germany, thus exploiting its democratic right to free speech; in Leipzig no critical debate on the system of rule was tolerated in principle – and definitely not by West German filmmakers. Documentary films dealing with the popular uprisings in the socialist states in the 1950s or with the Prague Spring could not be viewed in Leipzig, nor could productions that dealt critically with social developments in Eastern Europe. If we exclude the first two “all-German” years, then we can say that from the beginning the festival’s internal selection criteria, which were determined in coordination with the political administration, limited the admission of Western productions to so-called “progressive” films, which categorically distanced themselves from the capitalist system and exclusively denounced wrongdoings by Western states. Under the political circumstances of the SED dictatorship, a representative selection of films by Western directors was impossible. Particularly with regard to films from West Germany and West Berlin, the Leipzig festival focused on productions that dealt 29

30

Both films deal with the participation of West German mercenaries in the civil war in the Congo. They were nominated by the CdF for the festivals of Mannheim and Oberhausen, but the Interministerial Committee banned their presentation. For a detailed account of both the films and their propagandist attitude, see Steinle, Vom Feindbild zum Fremdbild, pp. 294–307. Exemplary for this are the debates on Walter Heynowski’s film Brothers and Sisters (Brüder und Schwestern, GDR 1963), which was shown at the Leipzig festival in 1963. The film aimed to represent the Federal Republic as a country of social contradictions, where increasing poverty and excessively high rents contributed to the exploitation of workers. By contrast, it represented the GDR as a “progressive” state, one where all power came from the people and the working population independently owned all producer goods. In Leipzig a number of West German festival guests objected to the screening of the film. See letter to Wolfgang Kernicke, Director of the 6th Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Festival, Leipzig, 19.11.1963. Appendix 1 to a report by the Culture Dept. of the Central Committee of the SED: Information über die VI. Internationale Leipziger Dokumentar- und Kurzfilmwoche, Berlin, 4.12.1963 (BArch Berlin, SAPMO, DY 30/ IV A 2/9.06/135).

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with the Nazi-era past or critically discussed individual aspects of West German society. Only from 1963 to 1966, when the Association of Film Producers was involved in selecting the West German films, was there greater variety, which can be seen in the participation of individual representatives of the New German Cinema.31 After the call for a boycott by the producers’ association in 1967, however, the range of exhibited films from West Germany and West Berlin was increasingly restricted to productions by directors and producers with ties to the DKP (German Communist Party), including the group known as Das Team. Apart from this, individual productions by graduates of the German Film and Television Academy of West Berlin (Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin, or DFFB) were also shown on occasion. Almost all West German films presented in Leipzig in the 1950s and 1960s were screened at the festivals in Oberhausen and Mannheim. From the East German point of view, however, the Leipzig festival screenings of these films were particularly significant because they were usually the only opportunities to see them in the GDR.

Relations Between the Festivals and Personal Contacts German-German politics also played a significant role in my third area of focus, the immediate relations between the festivals themselves. In the early years in particular, the festivals constituted a distinct network. The Mannheim Festival, which was founded in 1952 as the first German festival for documentary films, served as a conceptual model for both Oberhausen and Leipzig, which were started in 1954 and 1955 respectively. Initially there was intensive interaction among all three festivals. In 1955 in Leipzig there was even a discussion about potentially cooperating with Oberhausen and Mannheim; but such ideas never produced concrete results.32 What characterized German-German relations in the context of the festivals were the personal contacts that developed in those early years. Individual staff members of the CdF, such as Werner Rose or Wolfgang Kernicke, were involved in organizing the Leipzig festival on the one hand, while on the other they served as contact partners when it came to selecting DEFA films for Oberhausen and Mannheim. From this there resulted a regular communication 31

32

In 1966, for instance, the following short films were shown at the Leipzig festival: Monologues by Fritz Kortner for an LP (Fritz Kortner spricht Monologe für eine Schallplatte, FRG 1966) directed by Hans Jürgen Syberberg; 24 Pictures (24 Bilder, FRG 1966) directed by Rob Houwer; and Charly May (FRG 1966) directed by Thomas Schamoni. See Andreas Kötzing, Blinde Flecken. Das Jahr 1966 und die deutsch-deutschen Filmbeziehungen. In: Betz et al. (eds.), Deutschland 1966, pp. 82–95. See the memo (no author indicated) on a meeting between filmmakers from West Germany and the GDR that took place during the first Leipzig festival in September 1955 (BArch Berlin, DR 1/4652a).

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which, however, was increasingly affected by the political developments even in the late 1950s. The above-mentioned conflicts regarding the GDR’s participation in the West German festivals, for instance, also affected the direct relations between the festivals, since after the building of the Berlin Wall, the Leipzig festival increasingly defined itself in contradistinction to the West German festivals. Especially after the festival boycott of 1962 there were several attempts in the GDR to discredit the Oberhausen festival and, conversely, to present the Leipzig festival as the only remaining forum for politically committed films. The actual background for this, however, was that the political concept of the Oberhausen festival contradicted the SED’s cultural policy. In particular, the festival’s screening of politically subversive films from socialist countries was viewed very critically by the SED. Accordingly, contacts between the festivals were subject to political constraints. While the Oberhausen festival established a close relationship to the Polish Short Film Festival in Krakow over the course of the 1960s, with the two festivals organizing exchange programs year after year,33 all of its attempts prior to 1972 to establish a similar relationship with the Leipzig festival ran aground on the political reservations of the SED. Any exchange of films between the festivals was to be negotiated only after the Federal Republic had recognized the GDR. Despite these political constraints there nevertheless existed a remarkable relationship between the festivals of Leipzig and Oberhausen throughout the 1960s. For instance, in the correspondence records of the two festivals we find evidence that their respective directors were in regular contact with each other. In certain cases, the two festivals even supported each other with research on individual films.34 Furthermore, representatives of each of the two festivals participated regularly in the other one, as it provided an opportunity to make important contacts: The organizers of the Leipzig festival visited Oberhausen in order to invite West German directors to Leipzig; similarly, Hilmar Hoffmann and Will Wehling were able to make numerous contacts with East European filmmakers during their stays in Leipzig. Thus each festival served as a platform for preparing and planning the other; and both provided opportunities for establishing personal contacts. However, this interaction involved a systemic asymmetry. For instance, from the memories of many West German participants in the festival we know 33

See, among others, the report by Will Wehling on the special program “Oberhausen in Krakau” (Archive of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, File 1972, filing: Krakau-Festival). 34 In 1968 the director of the Leipzig festival, Wolfgang Harkenthal, helped to procure a film by the “National Liberation Front of South Vietnam”, which Will Wehling intended to present at the Oberhausen festival. See Wehling’s correspondence with Harkenthal (Archive of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, File 1968, filings: Länder A-N, Schriftwechsel Süd-Vietnam). 35 See the interview with journalist Wilhelm Roth in: Andreas Kötzing, Die Internationale Leipziger Dokumentar- und Kurzfilmwoche in den 1970er Jahren, Leipzig 2004, pp. 145–149. Roth first reported on the Leipzig festival in the mid-1960s.

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that, apart from film interests, their reasons for going to Leipzig were primarily private, i.e. it gave them an opportunity to meet East German friends and have conversations with them.35 For East German participants in Oberhausen, on the other hand, this was only partly possible because the constitution of the GDR delegation was essentially regulated by the SED, and members were chosen on political grounds above all. For this reason the circle of journalists, filmmakers, and functionaries who were allowed to go to Oberhausen was quite limited.36

Conclusion Both the interconnections and the delimitations between the two German states that took place, as I have shown here, at the West German Short Film Festival Oberhausen and the Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Festival, underline how diverse the German-German contacts were in the fields of filmmaking in the 1950s and 1960s. These relations were definitely not the exception. The interest in cooperation and mutual exchange that we find among directors of documentary and short films and festival programmers had analogues among churches, academic associations, and trade unions as well. In those areas the idea of unity between the two Germanies was sometimes even more clear, because institutions in either country, such as the Protestant Church or the trade unions, could refer to a common tradition dating to before 1945.37 This was not the case with the film festivals, which had been founded only in the mid-1950s. The festivals were also exceptional in the context of German-German relations because film was such a highly politicized field. Both German governments attributed a high social significance to documentary film in particular, based on their assumption that the circulation of such films would immediately influence opinion-making among audiences. A key factor for this was the propagandist take-over of filmmaking and publishing under National Socialism, an experience that continued to have an impact on both German societies. On the other hand, we may also identify similar parallels in the GDR’s public relations needs. The stubbornness with which the GDR demanded respect for its political sovereignty in its dealings with the West German Short Film Festival Oberhausen, was similar to its approach in the field of professional sports, where

36

Furthermore, the Central Committee of the SED passed extended directives that were supposed to regulate the attendance of delegation members at Oberhausen. See, for example, Appendix No. 4 to Record No. 14, 9.2.1966, Re: Teilnahme an den XII. Westdeutschen Kurzfilmtagen Oberhausen 1966 (BArch Berlin, DY 30/J IV 2/3/1151, pp. 24–32). 37 See Jens Hildebrandt, Gewerkschaften im geteilten Deutschland. Die Beziehungen zwischen DGB und FDGB vom Kalten Krieg bis zur Neuen Ostpolitik 1955 bis 1969, St. Ingbert 2010.

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it strove for recognition just as intensely. Even the periods around the different watersheds show similarities. The state “recognition” of the GDR in the context of the West German Short Film Festival happened around the same time as the IOC decision to admit the GDR as an independent nation to the Olympic Summer Games in Mexico in 1968.38 As in other areas of society, the controversy around the GDR’s participation in the Oberhausen festival pointed to the fact that while its aggressive attempts to assert state sovereignty did lead to the formal achievement of its goal, this was regularly undermined by public opinion: The ongoing fixation on even the slightest detail that might serve to call into question the autonomy of the GDR created an image of deficient sovereignty. German-German relations, however, were characterized not only by the GDR’s stubborn struggle for sovereignty, but also the uncompromising attitude of the West German government, which for a long time actively opposed any recognition of the GDR. The Federal Ministry of the Interior’s attempts to exert political influence on the West German film festivals by way of preventing the GDR’s participation, were mirrored in other cultural contexts as well. What is extraordinary, however, about the Ministry’s conflict with the Oberhausen festival is that it was largely unsuccessful in its attempts to influence it and that such uncompromising behavior led to the effective isolation of the West German government. One last analogy between the situation of the festivals and developments in other areas of society is the special role that West Germany played at the Leipzig festival. As with television, for instance, the competition with West Germany deeply influenced the development of the Leipzig festival, which, after the construction of the Berlin Wall, increasingly defined itself in contradistinction to the West and the Federal Republic in particular. Developments in East Germany, on the other hand, were not so important for the West when it came to film festivals – by contrast with the field of professional sports, among others. By contrast, the extensive interconnections between the two Germanies that the Oberhausen festival fostered came about because the Oberhausen festival made its own, independent attempts to include the GDR and was, at least for a time, even dependent on the latter’s participation, in order not to have to do without East European films entirely.

38 See Uta Andrea Balbier, Kalter Krieg auf der Aschenbahn: Der deutsch-deutsche Sport 1950–1972. Eine politische Geschichte, Paderborn 2007, pp. 158–168.

Dunja Jelenković The Film Festival as an Arena for Political Debate: The Yugoslav Black Wave in Belgrade and Oberhausen (1967–1973)

“If I criticize my girlfriend for wearing an ugly hat it does not mean I don’t love her. On the contrary: I want to buy her a nicer hat. And why not swear at my country for wearing peasant shoes…” – Dušan Makavejev1 Dark humor, pessimism, and criticism of socialist Yugoslavia’s political programs were some of the principal characteristics of the New Yugoslav Film (1963–1973), a polemical cinema that brought international recognition to Yugoslav cinematography, unrivaled in the country’s filmmaking history. Although the filmmakers gathered around the New Yugoslav Film did not condemn the socialist system as such, but rather criticized socialist society in order to improve it, their work was subject to constant ideological attacks and questioned by political apparatchiks, who as a part of their negative campaign labeled the most critical among them the “Black Wave”.2 Even though Yugoslav culture was mostly oriented to the West after the split with Stalin in 1948, and unlike other socialist/communist countries had a relatively open cultural scene with considerable room for independent thinking and criticism, the Black Wave films provoked the most severe confrontation of state censorship with artists in the history of the Yugoslav state. On the other hand, Yugoslav censorship was not absolute; while the Black Wave films were subject in their own country to constant debate and often unavailable to general audiences, they were permitted to travel to festivals abroad, often winning awards. 1 2

In: Student, March 1963, quoted in Ranko Munitić, Adio, Jugo-film!, Belgrade 2005, p. 104. Although it is widely accepted, the term “Black Wave” is seen by some scholars as less accurate than “New Yugoslav Film”. We should understand that Black films were the most critical within the New Yugoslav Film, or, as Vlastimir Sudar points out, all Black films were at the same time New films, while not all the New films were Black; neither were all the films produced in the period New Yugoslav Film. See Vlastimir Sudar, A Portrait of the Artist as a Political Dissident. The Life and Work of Aleksandar Petrovic, Bristol 2013, pp. 183–184. For problems related to terminology between New Yugoslav Film and Black Wave, see Gal Kirn/Vedrana Madžar, New Yugoslav Film. Between Subversion and Critique. In: East European Film Bulletin (2014). URL: http://eefb.org/archive/august-2014/new-yugoslav-film-between-subversion-and-critique (last accessed 20.7.2015).

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With regard to documentaries and short films, the festivals that were especially important for Yugoslav filmmakers were, on the local level, the Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film Festival in Belgrade and on the international level, the West German Short Film Festival in Oberhausen. They had each been founded in 1954 and had numerous intersections, often screening and awarding the same films and collaborating on many occasions. Yet, while the Yugoslav festival was created as a “state” event, with the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) well represented in its organizational structures and undertaken with the patronage of President of the Republic Josip Broz Tito himself, the Oberhausen festival was, in the context of a bipolar world divided by the Cold War, an independent event intended to present marginalized and suppressed films from both the West and the East and to show that we lived in “one world”.3 The festival in Oberhausen had always served as a reference point for Yugoslav film and festival professionals. Yugoslav filmmakers also played a significant role in the history of Oberhausen. As Dorothea and Ronald Holloway note in O is for Oberhausen, which was published for the festival’s twenty-fifth anniversary: “In the long run, the Yugoslav contribution to the Oberhausen festival was the most consistent of all the national entries, insofar as quality and thematic content are concerned.”4 Between 1961 and 1975, Yugoslav films won a total of 45 awards, 26 of them between 1967 and 1973 alone.5 Arguing that the campaign against the Black Wave had the characteristics of a struggle for political influence rather than those of classical censorship, as one of the leading filmmakers of the period Želimir Žilnik defined it in an interview given to Boris Buden,6 this chapter will investigate how local journalists and film critics supported state censorship through their reporting on the so-called “Black Wave”, by comparing the recognition that Yugoslav polemical short films gained at the Festival in Oberhausen with the acknowledgement they received at home at the Festival in Belgrade. This chapter will offer an overview of press reports on three short documentaries from Žilnik’s first period that were screened at both festivals and were all award-winners at Oberhausen: The Unemployed (Nezaposleni ljudi, Yugoslavia 1968), June Turmoil (Lipanjska gibanja, Yugoslavia 1969), and Black Film (Crni film, Yugoslavia 1971). The period under consideration begins in 1967 with the debut of both Žilnik and the newly founded production house Neoplanta Film at the Belgrade festival, and ends with the formal end of the Black

3 4 5 6

Dorothea Holloway/Ronald Holloway, O is for Oberhausen. Weg zum Nachbarn, Oberhausen 1979, p. 24. Ibid., p. 117. The information is gathered from both books O is for Oberhausen, and kurz und klein, which was published on the occasion of the festival’s 50th anniversary. Boris Buden/Želimir Žilnik, Uvod u prošlost, Novi Sad 2013, p. 79.

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Wave in 1973. The chapter will open with a presentation of the context that led to this new trend in Yugoslav filmmaking and the coining of the term “Black Wave”. It will describe this trend’s position at the national documentary film festival and provide a brief introduction to the most important characteristics of Yugoslav censorship. It will then proceed to discuss criticisms of the three films in question. The research is based on an analysis of journalistic reports on both festivals published in the Yugoslav press between 1967 and 1973.

Liberties and Limitations of the Yugoslav Cultural Scene At the start of the Cold War, the government of the newly formed Yugoslav federation7 started slowly building the reputation of socialist Yugoslavia as a paradise-like country located neither in the East nor in the West. Two decisive events helped them construct this representation: the double-victory of the Yugoslav communists in WWII over the fascists and the old royal government, which enabled them to create a multi-national classless society; and the 1948 split with the Soviets, which inspired them to turn, on the local level, towards self-management, and on the level of international politics, towards the non-aligned movement. A political system of numerous contradictions, socialist Yugoslavia was a communist-led country whose citizens traveled freely, a country with an economical system that had elements of both liberalism and statism,8 and a cultural scene open to innovations from the West.9 In order to promote such a system, the Yugoslav government found two important allies – the cinema and the press. Yet the two of them, as will be explained below, often collided in the views they expressed in the public sphere, which was the result of a system that simultaneously tried to impose control over its cultural production and to promote certain pluralism of thought.

7

8 9

In 1943, when the country was still under Axis occupation, Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was proclaimed at the second session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ), replacing the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The federation was renamed the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945, and in 1963 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). It consisted of six republics: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro. The partisan leader and the head of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY), Josip Broz Tito, ruled the country, first as the prime minister (1944–1953), and then as the president until his death in 1980. Autonomy of enterprises on one hand, and central planning of state-controlled assets on the other. Modern art, western literature, Jazz, American rock and roll, Hollywood movies, numerous co-productions with Western companies, etc.

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As in Soviet Russia and other socialist and communist states,10 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY)11 quickly recognized film’s propaganda potential and began systematically encouraging and financing film production immediately after World War Two. The State Film Company of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (Državno filmsko preduzeće DFJ) was formed in 1945 and was soon followed by the creation of production houses for the individual republics.12 Although not all productions were uncritical, Yugoslav documentary and feature films typically presented images that at least implicitly propagated the principles of the new Yugoslavia: the ideals of anti-fascism and a classless society, the motto of brotherhood and unity, and, with regard to the Cold War, the system of workers’ self-management and the policy of non-alignment. The central element of the Yugoslav nation-building myth, World War Two, the period when the Yugoslav socialist state was created, was given particular attention, alongside the achievements of Josip Broz Tito, the leader of the partisan movement, both in fictional partisan feature films and in documentaries. Documentary film in addition provided ample testimony to the growth of the new country in the form of industrial record films13 and other films about modernization, industrialization, and production in Yugoslav factories. Rapid growth in film production combined with a dearth of exhibition opportunities led to the establishment of the Yugoslav Film Festival in 1954 in Pula, which aimed to showcase the country’s newest cinematic achievements. In 1959, the festival was split into two festivals: the Yugoslav Fiction Film Festival, which remained based in Pula, and the Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film Festival, which was launched the following year in Belgrade.14 As part of the state-organized production system, the first Board of Censors was also formed right after the war. However, at the beginning of the 1950s, when the period of schism with the USSR ended (a period when cultural production was much more closely monitored), more liberties were gradually introduced. Yugoslav censorship was conducted by the Commission for Film Preview, a governmental body whose duty was to check all of the country’s domestic productions and imported films and decide whether or not a film should be licensed for 10 Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art. Volume IV: Naturalism, Impressionism, The Film Age. London/New York 1999, p. 243. 11 In 1952, the Communist Party officially changed its name into the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in order to mark a distance from the Eastern Bloc. 12 See Dejan Kosanović, Sto godina filma u Srbiji. In: Dragoslav Srejović/Radoslav Zelenović (eds.), Vek filma 1895–1995, Belgrade 1995, pp. 155–251. 13 The term “industrial record films” (Serbian: namenski film) refers to all the documentaries commissioned for a certain informative purpose, usually footage of the physical reconstruction of the country’s infrastructure as well as the état des lieux of the country’s industry. 14 The festival took place in Belgrade for the first time 4–9 March 1960, as The First Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film Festival. In 1961 it was resumed at Pula under the name The Eighth Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film Festival, with 1954 being taken as the official year of its founding.

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public screening in Yugoslavia. The Commission also made recommendations for which scenes to cut out in order for a film to be released. The members of the commission were artists, critics, and fellow filmmakers. Professional politicians were not necessarily included, because all the artists in the Commission were by default members of the Party.15 Their task was to make sure that a film did not incite violence or seek to damage the constitutional order, that it was not detrimental to public morality, that it did not spread national or religious hatred, and that it was not “unpedagogical”. The director and the producer of the film in question were welcome to attend the screening if they wished.16 In spite of the existence of such a procedure, Yugoslav censorship was not absolute or unconditional. Practically all domestic films, if suggested changes were accepted, did in the end receive the license. In addition, the fact that some highly critical films were produced at all, bespeaks the relatively high level of freedom in socialist Yugoslavia. Yet, just as it would be wrong to claim that Yugoslav culture was marked by total censorship, it would be equally inaccurate to argue that the liberties there were absolute. In the period after the split with Stalin, 1948–1991, two waves of stricter censorship can be noted, both resulting from the harsh political circumstances that provoked the government to start monitoring cultural production more closely. The first one (1961–1963) corresponds with a certain political alienation from the USA and improvement of relations with the USSR.17 The second one (1967–1973) is linked to the context of a turbulent situation both locally (the fall of Vice President Aleksandar Ranković, Tito’s clash with the leaders of the Croatian Spring of 1971, and with the liberal party head in Serbia in 1972), and internationally (the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, for instance, could be interpreted as a potential threat to Yugoslavia as well).18 Despite considerable investments in culture and education, the rapid modernization of industry, and general economic growth, the early years of the socialist state saw the emergence of numerous defects; corruption, disparity between regions, and social inequality were increasingly conspicuous. The system’s failures reached their peak after the debacle of the economic reform of 1965 that was supposed to put a final end to the problem. Introducing greater elements of a market economy, the reform led to various social and industrial problems, including higher prices, lower living standards, strikes, higher gaps between various regions, and resulting tensions between leaders of different republics.19 High unemployment rates provoked significant emigration that was even supported by the state, which organized opportunities for citizens to go abroad to work. This 15 Buden/Žilnik, Uvod u prošlost, pp. 72–73. 16 Ibid. 17 See Radina Vučetić, Monopol na istinu, Belgrade 2016. 18 Ibid. 19 See Hrvoje Klasić, Jugoslavija i svijet 1968, Zagreb 2012, pp. 20–26.

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all culminated in a wave of student protests that, as in other countries around the world, swept across Yugoslavia in 1968. Gradual liberalization combined with political and economic crisis created the basis for the development of a polemical atmosphere among Yugoslav intellectuals, who at times expressed polar opposite positions regarding the direction that Yugoslav socialism was taking. Filmmakers, especially documentarians, reacted quickly to these changes; and Yugoslav cinema, which had abounded in images of social progress and well-being, adopted a new stance, favoring productions that were critical and engaged (the New Yugoslav Film). In response to these events, the system started changing as well, abandoning some of the liberties it had licensed and implementing certain Stalinist methods that had been in use previously in the short period between the end of WWII and the years around the split with Stalin.20 Yugoslav censorship had no transparency; rules and procedures were mostly random and unclear, and sometimes it was not known who made which decisions and why. Although only one film was officially banned – the omnibus film The City (Grad, Yugoslavia 1963) – dozens of films were “bunkered” – that is, they were prevented from being screened publicly. As Želimir Žilnik said in an interview for a documentary about Black Wave history, Censored without Censorship (Zabranjeni bez zabrane, Serbia 2007), “those were the films banned without a ban order” – they simply never gained admittance to the public sphere. Films were kept from entering the general culture by being assigned bad screening times and locations or being denied distribution to cinemas or broadcast on television. Often the only place where local audiences could see such bunkered films before they disappeared from cultural life was the Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film Festival in Belgrade, which, having been created with the aim of mirroring production, usually screened most of what was produced in the country.21 That said, the festival somewhat paradoxically had its “golden age” at the end of the sixties, when a series of critical films was screened. Yet the realistic and often crude selection of documentaries that showed, without any make-up, protests, unemployment, lack of housing possibilities, and unequal opportunities in the society that officially stood for equality, resulted in a proliferation of two streams 20

21

See Ljubodrag Dimić, Agitprop Kultura. Agitpropovska Faza Kulturne Politike u Srbiji 1945–1952, Belgrade 1988; Želimir Žilnik, Yugoslavia: Down with the Red Bourgeoisie! In: Philipp Gassert/ Martin Klimke (eds.), 1968. Memories and Legacies of a Global Revolt, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Supplement 6, 2009, p. 186. Some films however never even made it to the festival, as it was the case with I Miss Sonia Henie (Nedostaje mi Sonja Heni, Yugoslavia 1972), Cross with a Star (Krst sa zvezdom, Yugoslavia 1972) and Women are Coming (Žene dolaze, Yugoslavia 1972) which were banned by the Commission for Film Preview, and consequently all withdrawn from the festival programme in 1972, the year when the campaign against the Black Wave filmmakers culminated, that would soon lead to the formal end of the period in 1973. See Dunja Jelenković (ed.), Festival kratkog metra – 60 godina/The Short Film Fest – 60 Years, Belgrade 2013, pp. 79–84.

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within the festival, of two different political and aesthetic views, that throughout this period (1967–1973) openly confronted each other. The period of tense debates within the festival and among the journalists who followed it, started with Žilnik’s debut film, A Newsreel on Village Youth, in Winter (Žurnal o omladini na selu, zimi, Yugoslavia 1967), a documentary about young people from the villages around the town of Novi Sad and the pointlessness of their leisure time. Although the film was screened at the festival, it was not in any of the official competitions and was given a relatively bad screening time. This provoked intense debates. Journalist and film critic Ranko Munitić left the jury in protest against different pressures “from above”. The president of the jury,22 Slovenian filmmaker France Kosmač, explained that their mistake regarding Newsreel had been unintentional.23 The film was nevertheless awarded two special awards – from the Slovenian magazine Ekran and from the Central Committee of the Youth League of Yugoslavia; and at the request of the people present, it was screened again so that everybody could see it.24 However, some of the country’s most important media, such as its oldest and most widely circulated newspaper Politika, traditionally a supporter of the regime, were completely quiet about these events, despite publishing daily reports from the festival. Apart from ignoring certain stories, one of the most significant methods the regime used was to discredit a filmmaker in the press. A turning point in the officials’ relationship towards New Yugoslav Film happened when Party intellectual Vladimir Jovičić, a journalist for the Belgrade daily Borba, organ of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, published an article titled “A Black Wave in Our Cinema”.25 In it, Jovičić negatively criticized the new trend in filmmaking and demanded that filmmakers stop portraying Yugoslav social reality as being much more depressing than it actually was.26 The expression “Black Wave” was meant to be pejorative, but instead it was adopted as an umbrella term for all the critical, alternative, and avant-garde films from the period – despite their stylistic differences – by filmmakers such as Aleksandar Petrović, Želimir Žilnik, Lazar Stojanović, Živojin Pavlović, Dušan Makavejev, or Karpo Godina. The most intense struggle between filmmakers and state censorship in Yugoslav history was about to begin. In spite of the many debates in the media, however, films typically were not banned outright during this period.

22

At the time jury was also in charge of film selection. The 1967 jury were: France Kosmač (president), Zvonimir Berković, Jovan Boškovski, Rajko Đukić, Muhamed Karamehmedović, Ranko Munitić, and Neđo Parežanin. 23 See Jelenković (ed.), Festival kratkog metra, pp. 55–60. 24 Ibid. 25 Vladimir Jovičić, Crni talas u našem filmu. In: Borba, 3.8.1969, pp. 17–24. 26 Ibid.

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The Unemployed (1968) Žilnik and Neoplanta Film won official awards in Belgrade for the first time in 1968 – the Silver Medal27 for two films, The Unemployed and Little Pioneers, We Are a Proper Army, We Grow Everyday Like Green Grass (Pioniri maleni, mi smo vojska prava, svakog dana ničemo ko zelena trava, Yugoslavia 1968).28 The two documentaries portrayed the “dropouts” of society, and in so doing so they showed the flaws of the system. The ironic title of Little Pioneers… referred to a well-known Pioneer song, but was a collage of testimonies by underaged pickpockets, prostitutes, and hobos who in a rather relaxed manner spoke of their lives on the street, of theft, abuse, and violence. While this film showed how society had abandoned these children to fight for their own survival, The Unemployed in similar fashion presented a story about the country’s lack of job opportunities, demonstrating how the state had failed to provide proper care and solutions for another group in need. The director spoke to various jobless people and posed them a series of questions related to their situation and to the situation in the country. At the beginning of the film, one of the characters explains how he believes “unemployment is the true face of socialism”. Later, another claims how only people in power (directors of factories) have a place to live. The same character emphasizes how factory bosses earn ten times more than workers. Edited together in a ten-minute sequence, these testimonies present an image of unemployment that bears no trace of the social equality promised by the Yugoslav socialist program. The criticism that followed in the local press was harsh and based mostly on an accusation that the film was overdone, forced, and purposefully edited so that it portrayed the situation in Yugoslavia as much darker than it actually was. In an article titled “The Unemployed Pioneers”, Filmske novosti’s Nino Milenović gave negative marks to both films and stated that The Unemployed was: “a superficial sketch made with the intention – so it seems – to shock the audience by using rough effects and shock [sic] and that is all – or at least that is all the film achieved”.29 Being obliged to acknowledge that the events captured by the cameras had in fact happened, some of the critics found a handy solution, to question the testimonies themselves and to discredit both the filmmaker – for allegedly manipulating the material he had – and the characters – for not trying hard enough to resolve their problems. A local newspaper from Novi Sad, Dnevnik, published an article titled “Unreliable Witnesses: Ethical and Aesthetic Dilemmas”, which 27 Jury 1968: Bata Čengić, Simon Drakul, Slavko Goldštajn, Branko Kalačić, Dušan Makavejev, Toni Tršar, and Milan Vukos. 28 Little Pioneers also got the special mention for camera work and the award of the Central Committee of People’s Youth. 29 Nino Milenović, Nezaposleni pioniri. In: Filmske Novosti, 27.3.1968.

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states: “The Unemployed is basically a fake film. Its intention is to be a witness to unemployment among the proletariat by actually showing images and statements provided by the Lumpenproleteriat.”30 Milutin Čolić, a critic for the well-known journal Politika, continued with similar accusations: “When a peripheral, sporadic, illusionary or invented and staged image of life is to be presented as an objective and authentic truth, then there is no art in that.”31 It seems that in order to move the attention away from their own propaganda, state media were accusing the filmmakers of spreading anti-Yugoslav propaganda. While in Yugoslavia the film was accused of being “staged”, in Oberhausen it won the Grand Prix. Even though this was the first time that a Yugoslav director was awarded this prestigious award, Politika journalist Dragoslav Adamović twisted the story, and throughout his entire report from Oberhausen he actually criticized the German festival for giving Žilnik the award. Even though the news was that a Yugoslav film had won the Grand Prix at a prominent festival abroad, this was buried in the article, beginning with its (misleading) title: “The Festival of Surprises: Instead of Expected Grand Prix, Vukotić Did Not Even Receive Special Mention”. On the contrary, the article is devoted to the fact that another Yugoslav director, the animator Dušan Vukotić, who had had considerable international success with his Oscar-winning animated film The Substitute (Surogat, Yugoslavia 1961) and had been noticed at Oberhausen in previous years, received no awards that year. Žilnik is mentioned in passing and in the form of negative criticism. Unable to challenge the importance of the festival where Politika had been sending its special reporter for years, Adamović chose to blame the jury, which he claimed, was “comprised of completely new people, five of whom have never even been in this town nor at the festival. Composed in such a way, the jury didn’t pay attention to some previously established and proven values of this festival, nor to its style and practice.”32 In a text titled “Who Blames Želimir Žilnik?”33 the Novi Sad critic Tomislav Ketig reacted to Politika’s reporting from Oberhausen, stating that Adamović “directly ATTACKS the jury for granting its major award to a mediocre film of OUR production, because we have had better”.34 Ketig concludes by pointing out that Adamović had failed to mention the statement of the Oberhausen Festival’s director, about Žilnik being one of the most interesting new names in short film in the world. 30 M. Kujundžić, date unavailable, Source: Neoplanta Film Documentation (for internal use) 1966–1971. 31 Milutin Čolić, Počelo je sumorno. Prava i režirana istina. In: Politika, 21.3.1968. 32 Dragoslav Adamović, Festival iznenađenja. Umesto očekivanog Gran Prija Vukotić bez obične pohvale. In: Politika, 8.4.1968. 33 Tomislav Ketig, Kome je kriv Želimir Žilnik. In: Politika, 13.4.1968. 34 All capital letters in this and other quotes are as in original.

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One fact that was never mentioned in any of this media was that the famous film had originally been titled The Unemployed Men and Women, but Žilnik, who was present at the screening of his film for the Commission for Film Preview, in order not to be deprived of permission for public screening, agreed to cut out the part about the women, which the members of the Commission deemed too “insulting”.35 The film that won the Silver Medal in Belgrade and the Grand Prix in Oberhausen was therefore actually only one part of the whole film. Commenting on the negative media campaign in an interview given to Pero Zubac for the newspaper Index in 1968, Žilnik stated that there was no such thing as “Black” film, only “Black” realization and added: “The three films that I have made so far are made in such a way that they cannot be liked by everybody. They were made directly AGAINST certain concepts of ‘art’. I would believe I was wrong if I received compliments from the people who are currently attacking me in Politika, Student, and Dnevnik from Novi Sad.”36 In contradiction with the harsh attacks that Black Wave filmmakers were constantly facing in the press, the publication of such an interview confirms the existence of a relatively high level of freedom of expression in the public sphere, thus demonstrating that the pressure from the regime was strong, but not absolute.

June Turmoil (1969) The debates continued in 1969. Some journalists announced that the Belgrade festival that year would be the site of an “even greater” conflict between “grayhaired fathers” and young directors.37 Žilnik’s documentary about the 1968 protests, June Turmoil (Lipanjska gibanja, Yugoslavia 1969), was only granted the critics’ award; the official jury did not grant it any prize at all.38 The film makes us witness to the development of the protest and clashes between students and police, and includes testimony on a young woman’s beating by the police. Protestors’ demands for a better, more just socialism are shown to us via slogans such as “Down with red bourgeoisie”, “We’re sons of working people”, “We need jobs”, “Students – Workers”, and “Who is responsible for chaos in the industry?” One female student protagonist states: “One of the biggest police offenses was when they ordered us to take down the banners … and among them there were portraits

35 36 37 38

Buden/Žilnik, Uvod u prošlost, pp. 74–75. Ne postoji crni film. Razgovor sa Želimirom Žilnikom vodio Pero Zubac. In: Index, 25.4.1968. B.B., Uzbuđenja i polemike. In: Večernje novosti, 5.4.1969. Official Jury 1969: Živko Čingo, Milo Đukanović, Branko Ivanda, Taras Kermavner, Velja Stojanović, Nikola Tanhofer, and Aleksandar Petrovic, as the president. Critics jury: Bogdan Kalafatović, Aco Štaka, Vlado Vuković, and Matjaž Zajec.

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of Tito and Lenin photos.” The last comment suggests that neither the protagonists nor the filmmakers were necessarily against Tito or the system, but that their criticism was agitating for an improvement of the already existent system. That is why, among others, in spite of a common post-socialist understanding, we cannot talk about these films as of a dissident cinema, at least not a dissident cinema which aimed at the overthrow of the system. Rather, its motivation was the reform of the system from within. Another reason is the fact that they were all produced within a system of state-organized cinema. However, as with Žilnik’s previous film, there was no lack of negative criticism after the screening, and the film was characterized as pointless39 and unsuccessful.40 After the end of the festival in Oberhausen, Neoplanta received a letter about the festival’s decision to award Žilnik’s June Turmoil in retrospect.41 The film was not a part of the official Yugoslav delegation to Oberhausen, but had been invited directly by the festival. Normally, a federal body, the Commission for Foreign Cultural Relations, was the one in charge of all official representations of Yugoslav culture abroad, as well as cultural co-productions and collaborations. A jury that they named was responsible for making the official Yugoslav selection for international festivals. However, their selection was not binding for festival directors, who were free to decide which films sent by the Commission to screen and to invite others to participate.42 That is how in 1969 two Neoplanta films – Žilnik’s June Turmoil and Bojana Marijan’s Working Class Follies (Vesela klasa, Yugoslavia 1968) – were screened in Oberhausen independently of the official Yugoslav selection, as part of a program presenting Neoplanta’s achievements. This even provoked a parliamentary debate. The session of the Group for Education and Culture (Sednica Prosvetno-kulturnog veća), that took place on 3 July 1969, the day Žilnik’s first feature, Early Works (Rani radovi, Yugoslavia 1969) was screened at the Berlinale, was devoted to the participation of Yugoslav films at international film festivals, with special attention given to the screening in Oberhausen of the two Neoplanta films independently of the official Yugoslav representation.43 When it comes to the local media, Žilnik’s second Oberhausen prize underwent a similar fate as the first one. In another report from Oberhausen, “Hope is in the Cartoons”, Dragoslav Adamović again put the emphasis on Yugoslav

39 40 41 42

M. Kujundžić, Besmislene žive slike. In: Dnevnik, 17.4.1969. Slobodan Novaković, Smotra nemoći. In: Komunist, 1.5.1969. V. U., Naknadno priznanje Žilniku. In: Dnevnik, 19.4.1969. If a producer would get an invitation from a festival abroad, and the film would not pass the local commission, production house could complain for the violation of their rights and potential material damage if the film would be prevented from going to the festival. See Buden/Žilnik, Uvod u prošlost, p. 81. 43 Ibid.

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animation. He described two general objections to the Yugoslav selection as being, firstly, that Yugoslavia sent too many films, and secondly, that the films were biased given that as many as seven of them were from “our outdated Black series” and six depicted “our primitivism”.44 As Boris Buden argued in his article “Shoot it Black: An Introduction to Želimir Žilnik”, the problem was not that Black Wave filmmakers were not telling the truth with their films, but that they were representing the truth in an undesirable way, and hence sending an unflattering and ugly image of Yugoslav society.45 Emphasizing that what happened in Oberhausen was not a new “problem” and insisting that Yugoslavia was much more than what was shown in the films that the Oberhausen audience was seeing, Adamović continued: “This was very obvious at the press conference: even some of our friends from abroad are disappointed with the way we see ourselves and represent ourselves abroad … Political dilettantism, combined with a lack of creative potential, always results in a non-artistic work. Choosing only films of that kind and sending them abroad to represent us is not a smart idea.”46 The Oberhausen report published in the Zagreb newspaper Večernji list devotes a whole paragraph to June Turmoil, in the form of negative criticism, but does not even mention the name of the film, nor the name of the filmmaker.47 The text therefore shows that the two major censoring tactics used against the Black Wave in the press – discrediting the filmmaker and ignoring him – could also be combined. It seams that the press devoted a little bit less space to June Turmoil than to The Unemployed,48 perhaps because the film only got a special diploma in Belgrade and the Oberhausen prize arrived only after the festival. Another likely reason was that attention was focused on Early Works, which came out soon after. Žilnik’s first fiction feature is an allegorical story of four young people who took part in student demonstrations in June 1968 and, inspired by Karl Marx, were trying to “change the world”. The film won the Golden Bear in Berlin. In Pula it was awarded a special diploma for directing, as well as awards from the magazines Ekran, Studio, and Mladina. However, it provoked a huge political backlash and even faced legal charges because of “severe misconduct with regard to social and political morals”.49 Žilnik successfully defended it in court, but he was soon thereafter excluded from the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.

44 45 46 47 48 49

D. Adamović, Nada se zove – crtani filmovi. In: Politika, 27.3.1969. Boris Buden, Shoot it Black! An Introduction to Želimir Žilnik. In: Gal Kirn/Dubravka Sekulić/ Žiga Testen (eds.), Surfing the Black. Yugoslav Black Wave Cinema and Its Trangressive Moments, Maastricht 2012, pp. 170–180. D. Adamović, Nada se zove – crtani filmovi. M. Modrinić, Pljesak – Crtanim filmovima. In: Večernji list, 26.3.1969. Press clippings available in the Neoplanta Film Documentation (for internal use)1966–1971, include 16 articles and interviews mentioning The Unemployed, and five mentioning June Turmoil. Okružno javno tužilaštvo: Rešenje/District Attorney s Office: Resolution 31/69, 19.6.1969.

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Black Film (1971) Ironically responding to criticism and attacks and to the label “Black Wave” itself, Žilnik named his following documentary Black Film (Crni film, Yugoslavia 1971). The film addressed the issue of homelessness and the inability of the system to acknowledge and solve the problem. Not a classical documentary, but rather an intervention, this “film about filming a film” is a documentary-parody of Yugoslav society. The flyer for the film features the following quote: “Since I didn’t succeed in warning society of social differences nor in making any other impact, I decided to do what I could, and to show where we lived – to my wife and child.”50 One night, Žilnik picks up six homeless people in the street and takes them home at three in the morning, telling them they could stay at his place for a few days because socialism wasn’t taking care of them. As they enter the apartment, he yells to his wife to announce their presence. He explains why he has brought them, saying “I mean, we’ve got this apartment from the state, and these people have no place to go”, a statement that clearly points to one of the elements of inequality in Yugoslav society, in which everyone was supposed to be equal. He addresses social workers, policemen and ordinary people, all of whom turn a blind eye to the problem. Žilnik acts as if he is going to try to solve the problem of the homeless, but it quickly becomes clear that he had brought the group of homeless to his place just in order to shoot a film, not to really help them out. Black Film was criticized in Belgrade by others because of Žilnik’s cruelty, at the end for instance, when after he had gathered enough material for himself, he throws the people out, saying that he only had few more minutes of film strip and that he helped as much as he could. This was actually, in the manner of the entire film, a metaphor for the way the state was treating its citizens: it appears to be helping them, but once it gets what it needs from them, it lets them manage on their own. After the Belgrade screening, Vladimir Vuković wrote in Večernji list: “It is really sad to watch those unfortunate people presenting their misery to others for the sake of someone’s revolutionary snobbery and personal prominence … The so-called ‘Black Film’ has become a blend of narcissism and superficiality. Actually, apart from cheap points gained at international festivals, these films bring nothing new to either our cinema or the people they are about.”51 Žilnik won some of those “cheap points” again; he once more received an award in Oberhausen for Black Film, but not in Belgrade.52 The partial understanding shown for the Black Wave films by the Belgrade festival’s official jury once again contrasted 50 51 52

Buden/Žilnik, Uvod u prošlost, p. 93. Vladimir Vuković, Četvrti dan i naglo poboljšanje. In: Večernji list, 8.3.1971. Jury 1971: Marjan Brezovar, Miroslav Modrinić, Vladislav Urban, Aleksandar Đurčinov, Krešo Golik, Miloš Radivojević, Vehap Šita, Branimir Šćepanović, and Janez Vrhovec.

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with the unanimous admiration shown for them in Oberhausen. However, as we have seen, while Oberhausen’s interest in Yugoslav film was consistently high throughout the entire period, it seems that the Belgrade festival had no firm attitude towards the Black Wave. Their position depended on various circumstances. Films were given better or worse screening times and more or less important awards depending on the affiliations of jury members, who were usually fellow filmmakers, film critics, and to a lesser extent political figures. The press followed a similar pattern; but with the largest Yugoslav newspapers acting as mouthpieces for the regime, it was in the press that the negative campaign against the Black Wave was conducted and reinforced.

Conclusion When analyzing the reactions against the Black Wave, both the international and local political climate should be taken into consideration. As we have seen, the polemical cinema of the 1960s and early 1970s did not negate the absolute values of Yugoslav socialism, nor was it fighting against it as such. With its critical stance, the Black Wave rather showed an intention to improve Yugoslav socialism; as scriptwriter Branko Vučićević argued: “Those were the films that called on the Communist Party to stick to its own program.”53 In this sense, we cannot say that the conflict between the Black Wave artists and the regime was a conflict in terms of “freedom” on one side and “communist dogma” on the other.54 Yet, Žilnik and Neoplanta were harshly criticized on an ideological level, and the success they had abroad was also seen as political. On the one hand, bearing in mind the context of the Cold War and Yugoslavia’s non-aligned position, one of the objectives after the break-up with the USSR in 1948 was to be able to present the “Third Way” of Yugoslav socialism as a successful alternative to the Socialist camp. It was in this context that the press systematically accused the so-called “black” filmmakers of achieving international recognition for political reasons rather than for the artistry of their work. As Lena Kilkka Mann explains, “Žilnik and Neoplanta are accused of consciously politicizing their films in order to tailor them to the expectations of their socialism-critical hungry foreign audience”.55 However, in line with numerous contradictions of the

53 54 55

Quoted in the documentary Censored without Censorship. Buden/Žilnik, Uvod u prošlost, p. 172. Lena Kilkka Mann, The Provocative Želimir Žilnik: from Yugoslavia’s Black Wave to Germany’s RAF. In: Jochen Raecke/Biljana Golubović (eds.), Der serbische Film, Südslavistik online, Zeitschrift für südslavische Sprachen, Literaturen und Kulturen, May 2010, p. 44, URL: http://www. suedslavistik-online.de/02/kilkkamann.pdf.

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system, the case of Neoplanta’s films’ participation in Oberhausen shows that the officials interfered with cultural representation abroad and wanted to control it, but that they did not attempt to establish absolute control. On the other hand, since the degree of diatribe against the Black Wave filmmakers was sometimes disproportionate to the amount of criticism that these films were expressing, it is possible that the attack on the filmmakers was conducted partly also in order to turn attention away from the destabilizing situation in the country. In the case of very harsh political criticism, censorship also helped prevent further exacerbation of the situation. Yet it is important to emphasize that the oppositional films of the 1960s and 1970s were not the initiative of an opposition, but were part of official state-subsidized production. That is why, although it might be expected that a regime would go after its most severe critics, the fact that state authorities had begun to turn more and more against their own cinema production is slightly paradoxical. After the attempt to ban Žilnik’s Early Works in 1969, actions against the Black Wave ranged from the violent removal of Makavejev’s feature WR: Mysteries of the Organism (WR: Misterije organizma, Yugoslavia 1971) from the festival program in Pula in 1971, to the confiscation of the film Plastic Jesus (Plastični Isus, Yugoslavia 1972) and arrest of its director Lazar Stojanović in 1972, as well as the expulsion of the professor Aleksandar Petrović from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in 1973. Another significant event was the case of Neoplanta Film’s self-censorship in 1972, when the management decided to withdraw twenty of its own films from distribution although the Commission had not banned them. The climate was becoming unbearable and, one by one, the filmmakers who had brought international fame to Yugoslav cinema in the 1960s fled the country: Makavejev and Petrović to France and Žilnik to Germany. The Belgrade Festival resumed the rhythm it had before the turbulences caused by the Black Wave and returned to more conventional programming. In 1973, the year that marked the formal end of the Black Wave period, the festival opened with a panegyric to Tito, We Love You (Volimo te, Yugoslavia 1973).

Regina Câmara From Karlovy Vary to Cannes: Brazilian Cinema Novo at European Film Festivals in the 1960s

Introduction: Cinema Novo as Auteur Film The Cinema Novo’s role in the European film festivals in the 1950s and 1960s was emblematic for the pluralistic and democratic profile of those events in Cold War times. The major European film festivals, like Karlovy Vary and Cannes, provided Brazilian directors with an international forum for their work, beginning with their first international success, Lima Barreto’s The Bandit (O Cangaceiro, Brazil 1953), and continuing in the 1960s, despite the obstructionism of the military dictatorship from 1964 on. The European festivals helped to sharpen the Brazilian directors’ political and aesthetic self-perception as artists from an “underdeveloped” country. At the same time, participation in these festivals had an impact on the way the Brazilian auteur film was considered on both sides of the Iron Curtain. As well as the previously mentioned festivals, there were others such as Bilbao, Berlin, Santa Margherita, Pesaro, Venice, and Locarno where Latin American film in general was able to establish an international profile for itself. Meanwhile, the auteur film movement, initiated by Italian Neorealism and the French Nouvelle Vague in the 1940s and 1950s, was becoming a global movement, as Jean Comolli noted in the Cahiers du cinéma in 1966.1 There are some characteristics that the various national auteur film movements have in common. First, in keeping with the concept of the auteur film, film directors endeavored to make films based on ideas in order to express themselves as creative and reflexive personalities; they often lacked financial support; and they attempted to depict the social and psychological reality of their generation, frequently by means of documentary. Second, many film directors started their careers as film critics for journals or newspapers and therefore had a primarily theoretical approach to filmmaking. Third, the auteur film movement consisted

1

Jean-Louis Comolli, Situation du nouveau cinéma 1. In: Cahiers du cinéma, 176 (1966), p. 5.

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not only of active film directors and crews, but of an entire public sphere that included a number of film clubs and a (usually recently founded) cinemathèque. The festivals were not isolated gatherings of people working with film; many others, both national and international associations related to film culture already existed, such as meetings of film critics and clubs. There were also international institutions such as the Catholic Church or UNESCO, which even outlined a national or international politics of film.2 There seems to have been a consistent, shared understanding regarding political and aesthetic ideas and opinions that was far from being reflected in the international political situation, dominated as it was by the division into two political “blocs”. The film festivals worked as platforms where international film directors could meet, regardless of where they came from, in order to show their works and discuss them. This included directors from both blocs who were adherents of the auteur movement and its focus on the director as representing his or her own personal perceptions and aesthetic ideas than the political system he or she came from. At the same time, film festivals have also been battlefields for the artistic supremacy of one bloc over the other.3 In the case of the Brazilian film directors, festivals functioned as sites where directors could turn the attention of a global audience to Brazil’s national problems, both before and after the country became a military dictatorship. In the 1960s, nearly all Latin American countries became military dictatorships, supported by the United States and the West in order to maintain their control over the Latin American continent.4 In 1964, Brazil thus joined this Western bloc definitively, forced by way of a putsch, although Brazil’s public and politicians had maintained an independent position toward both the West and the East after 1945. Although the generation of international young directors of the auteur film had many aesthetic and political ideas and strategies in common, representatives of Cinema Novo made clear that the social and political realities in Brazil were distinct from those in France and shaped their interest in the “Third World”, which came up as an important topic and was contextualized by the decolonization movements in Africa and Asia and by the Cuban Revolution.

2 3 4

Melisande Leventopoulos, Les catholiques et le cinéma. La construction d’un regard critique (France, 1895–1958), Rennes 2015. Caroline Moine, Cinéma et guerre froide. Histoire du festival de films documentaires de Leipzig (1955–1990), Paris 2014; Andreas Kötzing, Kultur- und Filmpolitik im Kalten Krieg. Die Filmfestivals von Leipzig und Oberhausen in gesamtdeutscher Perspektive, 1954–1972, Göttingen 2013. Fernando Santomauro, A United States Information Agency e sua ação no Brasil de 1953 a 1964, Sao Paulo 2015.

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European Platforms for the Cinema Novo Cinema Novo was first identified as a movement by Eli Azeredo in the Jornal do Brasil in 19615 and initially linked to a number of short documentaries that had actually been co-financed by the Instituto Nacional de Cinema Educativo (INCE). The famous film director Humberto Mauro (1897–1983), who deeply influenced the cinematographic language of the new generation, had worked for this institute between 1936 and 1964, producing more than 300 documentaries on Brazilian society.6 As the works of the young film directors began to be screened at European film festivals and to win their first awards, the Brazilian public became increasingly interested in their own film culture and its political messages. Brazilian films were shown at nearly all the important film festivals in Europe from the beginning of the 1960s on – in Venice, in Cannes, in Karlovy Vary, and in Berlin.7 There was also a smaller festival in Bilbao dedicated to Iberoamerican and Philippine Cinema, which started in 1959 and still exists (Zinebi – Bilbao International Film Festival for Documentary and Short Film).8 However, there is one festival that had a very special significance regarding the reception of Cinema Novo in Europe and also involved the Catholic Church: the Rassegna del cine latino-americano, which was established in 1960 in Italy. The Catholic Church was not only trying to advance a certain film politics internationally, but it was establishing links with Catholic political groups of the cultural and intellectual avant-garde in Latin America, where Liberation Theology was an important issue. This film festival was founded by Father Adriano Apra, co-author with Federico Fellini of The Sweet Life (La Dolce Vita, Italy 1960), who had also established the Columbianum, an institution where culture was to function as an integrative force independent of any political bloc thinking and which oversaw the organization of the festival. Apra’s interest was focused on the cultural manifestations of Latin America – cinema in particular. The Rassegna first took place

5 6 7

8

Regarding the importance of Eli Azeredo’s article, see Paulo Saraceni, Por dentro do Cinema Novo. Minha viagem, Rio de Janeiro 1993, p. 109. See the biography by André di Mauro, Humberto Mauro – o pai do cinema brasileiro, Sao Paulo 2013. The Bandit (O Cangaceiro, Brazil 1953) by Lima Barreto, Cannes; Arraial do Cabo (Brazil 1960) by Paulo César Saraceni, Bilbao, Florence, Santa Margharita; Cat Skin (Couro de Gato, Brazil 1960) by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, Karlovy Vary, Viña del Mar; Assault on the Pay Train (Assalto ao Trem Pagador, Brazil 1962) by Roberto Farias, Lisbon and Venice; The Given Word (Pagador de Promessas, Brazil 1962) by Anselmo Duarte, Cannes; Three Henchmen of Lampião (Tres Cabras de Lampião, Brazil 1962) by Aurélio Teixeira, Venice; Barravento (Brazil 1962) by Glauber Rocha, Karlovy Vary; Barren Lives (Vidas Secas, Brazil 1963) by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Cannes; The Guns (Os Fuzis, Brazil 1964) by Ruy Guerra, Berlin; Black God, White Devil (Deus e Diabo no Terra do Sol, Brazil 1964) by Glauber Rocha, Cannes. In: Cahiers du cinéma, 101 (1959), p. 37.

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in Santa Margherita (1960, 1961), then in Sestri Levante (1962, 1963, and 1964), and later moved to Genoa (1965).9 Although it was a small festival, many important film critics attended it, and the jury included leading European intellectuals, such as Edgar Morin and Roger Bastide, and film directors like Joris Ivens and Chris Marker. A small, but qualitatively ambitious festival, it not only involved film screenings, but combined them with small conferences on cultural relations between Europe and Latin America; it thus offered insights into the new Latin American film movements. The Rassegna was organized by Gianni Amico, himself a documentary film director who after founding it together with Apra worked for other international film festivals in Italy and collaborated with Glauber Rocha and Jean-Luc Godard. It was financed primarily by the Catholic Church by way of Apra’s Columbianum. The respective host cities (Santa Margherita, then Sestri Levante and then Genoa) also provided financial support. The fifth Rassegna del Cine Latino-Americano, which took place in Genoa, 21–30 January 1965, was accompanied by a conference on the Third World and the World Community. Both events were co-funded by UNESCO.10 Apra had already demonstrated an interest in film in the 1940s, when he established a cine club in Genoa. He also founded an institution whose aim was to coordinate the work of all cine clubs in Genoa, the Secretariado de Cultura. This institution was the nucleus of what would later become the Columbianum, which was convened when Apra organized a round table in 1958 in order to discuss cultural relations between Europe and Latin America. Important intellectuals like Roger Bastide and Victor Raúl de la Torre were invited. Apra’s intentions concerned not only culture, but as well the idea of a European position toward other countries, one that departed from all Cold War ideology, especially with regard to Latin America. The Rassegna in Sestri Levante in 1962 saw the end of the isolation of Cuba. For the first time since the revolution, Cuban authorities and their diplomatic representatives were officially allowed to take part in a cultural event in Italy.11 Thus, Apra’s idea was not only to present Latin American cinema to a European public, but to improve relationships between the two continents in general. As Miguel Pereira has discovered, the Columbianum was shut down for financial reasons and Apra even imprisoned. Although he provides no proof, Pereira states that the CIA might have been involved in the shut-down due to Apra’s involvement in Cold War politics through his cooperation with Latin American cultural forces.12

  9 10 11 12

Miguel Pereira, O Columbianum e o cinema brasileiro. In: ALCEU, 8 (2007) 15, pp. 127–142. Ibid., p. 127. Ibid., p. 132. Ibid., p. 137.

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Manifestos and Festivals Considering the importance of film festivals for the way representatives of Cinema Novo perceived themselves, it is not surprising that both of Glauber Rocha’s programmatic texts, which later on were considered “manifestos”, appeared in reaction to the success of Cinema Novo at European film festivals. The first, “Arraial, Cinema Novo e Camera na Mão” (Arraial, Cinema Novo and a Camera in the Hand), was published in the Suplemento Dominical do Jornal do Brasil in response to the awards that Brazilian film directors won at European festivals in 1961.13 There were awards for Barravento and Cat Skin at Karlovy Vary and for Three Henchmen of Lampião at Venice, where the film Assault on the Pay Train was also screened the same year. In 1962 The Given Word was awarded the Palme d´Or in Cannes; and Arraial do Cabo, a film about the eponymous idyllic village of fishermen being invaded by industry, won awards in Bilbao, Florence, and Santa Margherita.14 Ruy Guerra’s Western-like film The Guns, which was exemplary for the films of the Cinema Novo in general with its treatment of power structures, hunger, and repression in the arid northeast of Brazil, also received an award at the Berlin film festival in 1964. During the first four or five years of the 1960s thee Brazilians themselves began to discover their own film culture, and Glauber Rocha delivered the central text for this flurry of successes for the Cinema Novo. “Arraial” is first of all a description of the state of mind of the young film directors. It is about their aesthetic and political approach to filmmaking, which was to be independent from international investors and to help free their country’s national cinema from economic and intellectual colonialism. At the same time, it was not to be too hermetic, but to speak to the general audience. Rocha also wrote about the development of Italian Neorealism and its new star, Michelangelo Antonioni. Referring to Italian film, he mentioned the Rassegna in Santa Margherita as very important for Latin American film in general: “I would like to point out the artistic and sociological importance of Santa Margherita, which has opened the door for Latin American cinematographic cultures and through which the Argentines have already successfully penetrated the European audience. Through Santa Margherita our films, if they are any good, will be cured of the colonial inferiority complex.”15 In his text, Rocha underlines the importance of the Rassegna for the Brazilian film movement and hence the success of Cinema Novo in Europe. At the

13 14 15

The complete article appeared on 12 August 1961 in Jornal do Brasil and has been republished in: Paulo Saraceni, Por dentro do Cinema Novo, pp. 118–123. See also Glauber Rocha, Revisao do Cinema Brasileiro, Sao Paulo 2003, pp. 125 ff. Saraceni, Por dentro do Cinema Novo, p. 117. Ibid., p. 122.

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same time, he asks the Brazilian state for substantial support for the developing film movement by introducing laws that could facilitate loans and financial support. He also addresses the lack of training possibilities for young film directors and their difficulties in finding the necessary equipment for film productions. In general, film directors started from a very difficult financial and technical situation. The only financially successful film studio in Brazil was the Atlantida Studios of Rio de Janeiro, which was famous for its musical comedies, the so-called “Chanchadas”, which the young Brazilian film directors rejected on aesthetic and political grounds. Rocha also describes how the aesthetics of the Brazilian film movement ought to develop, presenting what is considered a sort of first aesthetic program for Cinema Novo. One of his phrases in the essay has been circulated as essential to the aesthetics of the movement: “Uma camera na mão e uma idéia na cabeca” (a camera in the hand and an idea in your head). The directors of the Nouvelle Vague or Italian Neorealism also preferred to capture the personal, subjective, and documentary feel of lived reality. This intimate perspective could only be produced by certain measures of creating – the camera should be light enough, for instance, to facilitate the spontaneity and intuition of the filmmaker. Any sort of industrial-like studio superstructure would prevent the director (or individualist author in his or her self-understanding) from getting the desired images. The second programmatic text was “Estética da Fome” (Aesthetics of Hunger), which was delivered at the fifth Genoa Film Festival in 1965 and in which Rocha describes the meaning of a national film movement in the context of underdevelopment and dependence. This manifesto is particularly important for the aesthetic and political development of Cinema Novo as it is about Brazilian reality and the supposed view of foreign film spectators regarding the reality represented in the films. It also shows the situation of a Brazilian filmmaker between colonialism, underdevelopment, and cultural dependence. Many Cinema Novo directors depicted Brazilian reality very critically. They filmed hunger, violence, and repression and portrayed the efforts of some people to find a way out of this vicious circle. Glauber Rocha tries to present a foreigner’s view of this filmic reality, arguing that foreign spectators are mainly interested in the aesthetics of the images, while for Brazilian directors, the reality they encountered in daily life (and which is depicted in the films), is in fact very hard. Rocha is conscious of the surprise that European audiences experience when viewing his films for the first time. In his opinion, “foreign” spectators’ encounter with the underdeveloped reality depicted in the films nourished their “nostalgia” for the primitive. For them, hunger is tragic, but at the same time it entails a tragic originality as an intrinsic aesthetic quality. Rocha also says in his text that Cinema Novo expresses his vision of the colonialist situation in Brazil and its dependence on economically and politically more powerful countries, such as the United States. “Aesthetics of Hunger” is therefore a polemical title, and it is programmatic for Cinema Novo,

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because “hunger” actually has nothing to do with “aesthetics” given that it is not an artistic invention, but rather refers to a hard reality. Rocha supposes that European viewers generally do not realize this and that they do not really consider the day-to-day life being depicted, but see it as an aesthetic quality of Brazilian films. Therefore, Rocha’s manifesto is also a statement about a misunderstanding between Europe and Latin America and the feeling of loneliness and lack of comprehension between directors from an “underdeveloped” country and their European audiences. It is also an expression of a certain resignation regarding the possible and maybe even necessary support of Latin America by Europeans. At the same time, one might say that Glauber Rocha is too polemical in his text and even misunderstands the sensibility and solidarity of the European audience, especially during the 1960s, when decolonization was an important issue even for the internal politics of European countries due to the contemporary political developments in Africa (a number of newly independent countries, Algeria), in Asia (China and Vietnam), and Latin America (Cuba). The fact that throughout Europe a number of new festivals were established that focused on the cinema of the Third World and especially on Latin America, demonstrated the great interest in the political and cultural development of that region of the world.16 Rocha’s texts, both of which engaged with film festivals in Europe, provide insight into the development of Brazilian cinema and into the social and political situation in Brazil. Aesthetically and politically, Cinema Novo became increasingly radical during the 1960s – especially in the four years leading up to the military coup. While “Arraial” still describes the optimism of this new film generation and what they were longing for, the later “Estética” is nearly a political manifesto on hunger, underdevelopment, and colonialism. The characteristics of political, economic, and cultural colonization had been described systematically before the appearance of Rocha’s manifesto in the theory of dependence and were widely discussed both in Brazil and abroad.17 The theory of dependence was generally in favor of revolutionary self-liberation – as in the case of Cuba, for example. In Brazil the democratization process towards a construction of a civil society that started under the Kubitschek government during the mid-1950s was eliminated by the military coup against the left-wing government in 1964. From then on, Brazil was governed until the 1980s by a military dictatorship loyal to the United States. President João Goulart, who wanted

16 17

The importance of the fate of Latin America and Africa for internal national politics in France has been exemplarily analyzed by Christoph Kalter, Die Entdeckung der Dritten Welt. Dekolonisierung und neue radikale Linke in Frankreich, Frankfurt a. M. 2011. See for example André Gunder Frank, US–Brazil Economic Relations: A Case Study of American Imperialism, Ann Arbor 1963.

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to establish social rights and land reform, was banned from Brazil in 1964. The military coup had a tremendous impact on artistic freedoms in Brazil. At the end of the 1960s, Glauber Rocha went into exile, returning in the 1970s. Cinema Novo not only established itself as a film movement at the important European festivals, but it helped to politicize and sensitize other film directors and intellectuals as it contributed to an international debate on decolonization, which was then affecting European countries as well. After 1964, it was difficult for Brazilian film directors to discuss the topic of colonialism in their own country due to censorship imposed by the military dictatorship. Brazilian participation at European festivals decreased from then on as many of the directors who before 1964 were critical of Brazil’s social and political problems had to reorient themselves under the new political circumstances. The aesthetic and political engagement with Brazilian society from within, which had motivated Cinema Novo from the beginning, was no longer possible. Despite these circumstances, by 1966 the Cahiers du cinéma dedicated a major article to Brazilian cinema and began to see it as a cinematographic point of reference for European and other international filmmakers. The Brazilian press had begun reporting intensively on Cinema Novo well before 1964. Every award won at a festival was documented, described, and celebrated in the newspapers and was considered important for the country and its increasing presence on the international stage. The award won by The Given Word at Cannes in 1962 was particularly sensational. Karlovy Vary had already screened Nelson Pereira dos Santos’ film Rio 100 Degrees F and awarded it a prize in the 1950s. Made in 1954, it is considered the first Cinema Novo film. Not only the European festivals were becoming important for the self-depiction of Cinema Novo; there were new festivals in Latin America as well – Argentina (Mar del Plata, from 1954 on) and especially Chile (Viña del Mar, from 1963 on) – that served as platforms for promoting Brazilian film in South America and that also became increasingly significant for films from outside Latin America.18 The European film festivals, however, offered more: They helped the representatives of Cinema Novo to compare their work to other film directors and film cultures on an international level. Karlovy Vary was especially important for Brazilian film directors. At this festival, many nations, including a number of underdeveloped countries, were represented. It was therefore an A-list festival that not only featured large-scale film industry productions, but dedicated space for up-and-coming filmmakers from around the world. The Brazilians were not only able to make contact with film directors from France, but also to get to know other Latin American and Asian 18

Glauber Rocha, Na Garganta do Diabo premia Brasil em Mar del Plata. In: Diário de Notícias, Salvador, 27./28.3.1960, p. 3.

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film directors.19 The Karlovy Vary and Sestri Levante film festivals even helped to draw attention to the specific aesthetic and political aspects of the international auteur film. For Brazilian film critic Diva Múcio Teixeira, it became clear at the European festivals, and especially in Karlovy Vary and Sestri Levante, that it was not commercial Brazilian cinema, with its exploitation of samba and carnival, that would win over European audiences, but rather the Brazilian auteur film. He even stated that it might be the aesthetics and ideas of Brazilian or Latin American film that would help guide European film directors out of their apparent creative crisis.20 The intensive reception of Latin American and especially Brazilian cinema only started in the 1960s. Even though the West German journal Filmkritik ran an article on Latin America as early as 1961, its author Hans-Dieter Roos mentioned at the beginning that nobody in Europe knew what was happening on screens between Caracas and Cape Horn.21 It was actually the French who discovered Brazilian cinema and supported it fervently – if late. In 1960 Cahiers du cinéma published an in-depth report on the Rassegna in Santa Margherita that mentioned the members of the jury and notable film directors and intellectuals, such as Roberto Rossellini or Roger Bastide.22 But despite the fact that Brazilian cinema had been winning awards since 1961, it was only in 1966, in the article mentioned above, that the journal started to refer to Cinema Novo as the avant-garde of a new international style driven mainly by its political ambitions. The foreword of this issue shows how important Cinema Novo had suddenly become in France, which was underlined by the small festival of Latin American films organized by the Cahiers in April 1966. The discovery of Latin American film was connected with the idea of “revolution”, which at this time was a realistic political possibility in Brazil (and had been even before the Cuban Revolution took place in 195923) and to which Glauber Rocha developed a singular aesthetical and psychological approach. It was not so much Cinema Novo’s aesthetics as its political ambitions that were important for the film critics of Cahiers du cinéma.24

19 Walter da Silveira, Sestri Levante e o Brasil, Parte III. In: Diário de Notícias, Salvador, 12./13.8.1962. 20 Diva Múcio Teixeira, Sestri Levante. In: Diário de Notícias, Salvador, 29./30.7.1962. 21 Hans-Dieter Roos, Vor Hollywoods Hintertür. In: Filmkritik, 8 (1961), pp. 370–374. 22 Olivier de Tourmel, Santa Margherita. In: Cahiers du cinéma, 110 (1960), p. 51. 23 See for example the publications of the think tank ISEB (Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasileiros), which had been founded in 1955. 24 Jean-Louis Comolli, Situation du nouveau cinéma 1, p. 5. See also Alexandre Ferreira, La vague du Cinema Novo en France: fut-elle une invention de la critique?, Paris 2000.

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Cinema Novo as a Cultural and Political Force There were certain new economic and political circumstances after the end of the Second World War that helped to stimulate the creation of new artistic movements in Brazil and elsewhere. First of all, Brazil had already recovered economically during the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1950s a broad program of industrialization was introduced with the aim of helping the country free itself of economic dependence on Europe and the USA. Democracy and freedom of the press were introduced after a long period of dictatorship. Social movements like the Ligas Camponesas, which aimed to improve the working and living conditions of poor people in the northeast of the country, emerged, often in association with culturally and artistically active groups such as the Centros de Cultura Popular. Many important artists of the time also belonged to these centers and attempted to involve a political consciousness in their work. At the same time, there was a new fervent interest in film and film history, from which Brazilians had largely been cut off during the war. Due to the extensive Cold War cultural politics of countries like the United States, Brazilians now had access to historically important films and were also able to view recent film productions. Going to the cinema or to film club, and writing for the literary supplements were a part of the day-to-day life for every Brazilian “film fanatic” who dreamed of becoming an important director in the future. The development of Brazilian cinema was therefore inspired by the general optimism after 1945. It was mainly influenced by new film movements like Italian Neorealism. These independent, studio-critical film movements were very similar, aiming as they did to create a non-commercial cinema that represented their personal and national realities and to effect a social and political rethinking of their countries. It was the rising film market after 1945 and all the films entering the international cinema screens after having been closed up during the Second World War which made up the creative minds of the young film directors of the New Waves. Film was also part of the cultural foreign policy of the Cold War, and the French, Americans, as well as the British all developed extensive film programs with world-wide distribution. Film was a useful medium for spreading an image of one’s own nation and for delivering certain political ideas related to it. In Rio de Janeiro, the Modern Art Museum’s Cinemateca and the Alliance Française both screened new films of the Nouvelle Vague, as well as films that were historically important.25 After 1945, many American films finally entered the Brazilian film market, which had not been commercialized abroad during the Second World War. Such cultural exchanges with other countries also helped Brazilian cinephiles to develop new areas of interest, discover new aesthetics, and reflect on

25

Saraceni, Por dentro do Cinema Novo, p. 31.

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film history in general. These developments were accompanied by a concern for preserving their own national film heritage. Brazil was trying to develop its own international cultural policies, using film as one medium and international festivals as a platform. It was the Departmento Cultural do Itamaraty (Cultural Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) that handled Brazilian participation in international film festivals. It selected the jury members who would decide on the films representing Brazil at those festivals, and it enabled the transport of copies via diplomatic bag. Sometimes it even helped to finance films. Some Brazilian diplomats also helped the young filmmakers in Europe by buying copies of existing films or facilitating contacts with possible investors. They contributed to making the Cinema Novo known in Europe. At the same time their activities show that there was no nationally formulated foreign cultural policy, but that much depended on the moment and on what such diplomats did with the possibilities at their disposal and the circumstances they were confronted with. The Brazilian ambassador in Rome in the early 1960s, Hugo Gouthier, provided help to Paulo César Saraceni, who like Gustavo Dahl was studying at the Centro Sperimentale at the time. Gouthier sent Saraceni’s film Arraial do Cabo to the film festival in Florence, where it won an award, which Gouthier received on his behalf.26 The father of the film’s cameraman, Mario Carneiro, was a diplomat for UNESCO in Paris at the time and was helpful in promoting Brazilian cinema in France. While Saraceni and Dahl were in Rome, Mario Carneiro and the director Joaquim Pedro de Andrade were studying and working in Paris. There, de Andrade was able to finish his film Cat Skin, which was then presented at the festival in Karlovy Vary in 1962. Although there was definitely an interest on the Brazilian side in promoting Cinema Novo outside of Brazil, the degree of personal engagement by Brazilian diplomats was definitively more important than any official strategy. Ambassadors like Gouthier and Paulo Carneiro knew the young film directors personally and helped them out as an act of benevolence and not as part of a strategic political measure. Hugo Gouthier does not even mention meeting the young filmmakers in Rome in his autobiography.27 However, Saraceni has cited Gouthier as an important benefactor of Cinema Novo.28 He also mentions Paulo Carneiro as a mentor. The foreign ministry provided scholarships for study abroad to several young directors, including Saraceni, before the military took over the government in 1964.29 Brazilian cinema’s great success in France – and Ambassador Carneiro no doubt played an important role here as well – was marked by the Cahiers du cinéma in 1966,

26 27 28 29

Ibid., p. 93. Hugo Gouthier, Presença, Brasília 2008. Saraceni, Por dentro do Cinema Novo, p. 90. Ibid., p. 71.

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when it proposed the idea that there was not one “cinema nouveau”, but many “cinemas nouveaux” (like the Brazilian one), and that the representatives of the Nouvelle Vague should actually stop considering themselves the core of the international auteur film movement and start noticing and allowing themselves to be inspired by other new and less well known national film movements, especially those from Latin America. Brazilian film was no doubt screened and discussed at the European film festivals not only because of its aesthetic qualities, but rather because of its thematic importance within a general political context that was dominated by the debate on decolonization and colonial oppression. Although the Latin American countries were all formally independent, at least since Cuba’s independence in 1902, they still viewed themselves as dependent on the former colonizers. In Latin America there was a visible shift from a political and economical development-oriented theory to a dependency-oriented one. In Brazil, desenvolvimentismo started out from the premise of a possible independent economic, political, and social future via planned development, accompanied by social policies that would help to equalize social differences and bring more harmony to society. Access to education for all citizens and land reform were some of the more important projects. Strong industrialization was planned in order to help the economy to grow. Due to their general failure, these optimistic development strategies were partly replaced in the 1960s by the more radical dependency theory, which suggested “revolution” as a means to overcome dependency and colonialism.30 This was influenced by the Cuban experience, among others, as the only, or primary, strategy for liberation from dependency on former colonizers, which was seen as the sole explanation for the difficult political and economic situation of the Latin American countries. In Cinema Novo films, as well as in writings by critics and directors, the social reality of Brazil was an extremely important element; and for Glauber Rocha it was even the main motivation for making films. Rocha’s manifestos actually reflect an ideological shift, from the optimism of the “Arraial” manifesto to a more radical and pessimistic view in “Estética da Fome”. Cinema Novo films were definitely political and they met with a politically interested audience at the European film festivals, which was already debating questions of revolution and decolonization in the context not only of the Cold War, but also of the many social and student movements that were emerging in the United States and spreading to Europe. These developments were accompanied by a revolution in the arts. In philosophy, the topics of revolution and the critique of capitalism, consumerism and the nuclear threat were topics of ongoing debate. Such ideas were reflected in the film world as well, with both directors and festivals having

30

André Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, New York 1967.

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specific political objectives. The Rassegna del Cine Latinoamericano expressed its solidarity with the Latin American continent. Karlovy Vary was also considered a very “political” festival, as the German film critic Enno Patalas reported in 1962: “[Karlovy Vary] is certainly a political festival: in another and – as paradoxical as it seems – more democratic way than the ‘Berlinale’, of course, which sees itself as a ‘window to the free West’. Karlovy Vary serves the other side. Karlovy Vary understands itself as a base for demonstrating the capacities of the East. At the same time, directors, authors, and functionaries are willing to respond to questions and critique from colleagues and journalists. The press conferences in Carlsbad are different from those in other film festival towns … There was also desire to missionize among the adepts of Marxist theory, especially during the ‘symposium’, where directors from underdeveloped countries, mainly in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, debated their problems. There are directors from Prague who have already been to Cuba or Indonesia. Young filmmakers from those countries are invited to continue their artistic education at film academies in Moscow, Lodz, Prague, Budapest, and Babelsberg. Foreign politics is cultural politics … Each of those countries, it seems, is working on its own myth.”31 It is clear that during the 1950s and 1960s, many developing countries, like Brazil, created their own strong national film culture. Obviously, it is a historical phenomenon that so many independent film movements from countries not known for their film culture suddenly appeared in the public sphere.32

The End of an International and Pluralistic Film Movement The politics of the film festival also demonstrate the desire of either “bloc” (West or East) to conquer emerging countries like the Latin American ones, which, at least until their democratically elected governments were overthrown by military regimes in the 1960s and early 1970s, were independent of the division of the world into two systems. By September 1973, with the coup in Chile, Several Latin American countries were US-backed military dictatorships. Whether at home or in exile, Latin American artists now had limited resources not only for self-expression but for existential survival, and the international film market and film festivals lost an important contribution. Although Brazilian film directors continued producing new works, they had to change artistically and politically in order to pass censorship. It is hardly surprising that American cinema, which in the 1960s had ceded much of its global commercial dominance to the many New Waves around the world, would prevail again in the 1970s, with the distribution 31 32

Enno Patalas, Dieses Jahr in Karlsbad. In: Filmkritik, 7 (1962), p. 298. Guy Hennebelle, Os cinemas nacionais contra Hollywood, Rio de Janeiro 1978, p. 245.

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of New Hollywood films and blockbusters. The pluralistic film festival and the engaged auteur film ceased to exist due to the lack of free artistic expression in many countries under Soviet- or US-oriented dictatorships – whether in Eastern Europe or in Latin America. And no doubt the auteur film itself was undergoing a general crisis, for which Jean-Luc Godard’s artistic and political development might serve as an example. European film festivals were not only important for Cinema Novo but in general for the emergence of different national and popular film cultures, which promoted realities related to colonialism, dependency, and underdevelopment – all characteristics of the so-called Third World. Perhaps their most important contribution was not only to cinematographic culture itself, but to a more democratic and pluralistic cinema, one no longer dominated by financial objectives or ambitions of political power.33

33

Ibid., p. 243.

II. New Protagonists in Film Festival Politics

Anne Bruch “Just think of the possibilities of dissemination…”1: The Film Festival Policy of the European Institutions in the 1950s and 1960s

Introduction “Behind closed doors” – this phrase best describes the public information efforts conducted by supranational institutions and their representatives during the formative period of European integration, from the early 1950s to the early 1970s.2 This harsh verdict contrasts sharply with the public relations campaigns initiated by the Council of Europe, the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and the later Commission of the European Communities (EC), all of which employed the mass medium of film, introduced special European film awards, and accordingly addressed and initiated a variety of film festivals across Europe. These European institutions went even further in their efforts and in the 1960s established their own film contests and film weeks. But so far, neither the two iterations of the Festival du Film Sidérurgique (Luxembourg, 1963 and 1965), nor the Council of European Film Week (CoE, various European locations, 1964–1970) and the Journées d’Etudes du Film Européen (Brussels, 1964) have been analyzed by historians as indispensable components of a major media mobilization offensive run by the European institutions during the Cold War. This article seeks to examine the general film policy and film festival policy of the European institutions with regard to the principal features of their supranational information policies. It will focus on the question whether the then established film policy and European film festivals were an attempt to influence 1 2

2e Festival du film sidérurgique à Luxembourg, 24.–25.10.1965: prix, coupures de presse, vol. 5, Le second festival du film sidérurgique européen (CEAB, 08-1557, fols. 0115 and 0120). Except where otherwise indicated, all translations are by the author. Alexander Reinfeldt, Unter Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit? Akteure und Strategien supranationaler Informationspolitik in der Gründungsphase der europäischen Integration, 1952–1972, Stuttgart 2014. The period between 1952 and 1973 is generally regarded as the formative years. See Gabriele Clemens/Alexander Reinfeldt/Gerhard Wille, Geschichte der europäischen Integration. Ein Lehrbuch, Paderborn 2008, p. 95.

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public opinion on European integration issues, despite the fact that “information policies were only in part pursued to communicate European integration to the public”.3 To answer this question, this article reconsiders the general framework of the European information and film policy, before concentrating on the three above-mentioned European film events. The empirical findings are based on archival sources from the Central Archives of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence.4

European Information Policy With the formation of the ECSC in 1952, the High Authority immediately established its own press and information service in Luxembourg, which expanded its responsibilities without any hesitation towards the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC/Euratom) in 1958.5 Concerning their information policy, the Directorate-General of Press and Information distinguished between two different areas of their enterprise. The first and most important involved engaging officials of the Common Assembly, politicians in national governments, opinion leaders, representatives of key economic sectors, influential trade unionists, information distributors, academic scholars, and expert audiences. The second and less significant segment, which was regarded as necessary but received significantly less funding, was concerned with the general public.6 The prioritization of political, economic, and bureaucratic elites was due not only to the limited financial resources of the press

3 4

5

6

Alexander Reinfeldt, Communicating European Integration – Information vs. Integration. In: Journal of Contemporary European Research, 10 (2014) 1, pp. 44–56, p. 45. Especially the reports prepared by the Comité des experts culturels of the Council of Europe, Archives centrales du Conseil de l’Europe, Bruxelles (ACE, EXP/Cult), the papers of the Commission des Communautés Européennes Archive Bruxelles/Florence (Fonds CEAB), and the documents of the Association européenne des enseignants (Fonds AEDE). This research is part of the DFG project “Advertising Europe” at the Jean Monnet Chair for European Integration History and European Studies supervised by Professor Gabriele Clemens. For more information see Gabriele Clemens (ed.), Werben für Europa. Die mediale Konstruktion europäischer Identität durch Europafilme, Paderborn 2016. The second subsection, “European Information Policy”, is based on the more detailed chapter written by Gabriele Clemens, “Auftrag Europa” – Öffentlichkeitsarbeit und Filmwerbung der Europäischen Gemeinschaften. In: Clemens (ed.), Werben für Europa, pp. 43–128, esp. p. 91. See also Michel Dumoulin, Die Entwicklung der Informationspolitik. In: Michel Dumoulin (ed.), Die Europäische Kommission 1958–1972. Geschichte und Erinnerungen einer Institution, Luxemburg 2007, pp. 543–569. According to a report published in 1963, this target group received three quarters of the annual financial budget of the EEC’s information service. Memorandum für die Räte über die Informationspolitik der Gemeinschaften, 26.6.1963, p. 30 (CEAB 2/2345).

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and information service, but also to the fact that decisions on European matters were generally made by representatives of the supranational High Authority and the Commissions of the EEC and EAEC. Fervent public debate on European integration and increased democratic participation were therefore regarded by the European political establishment as possible obstacles for the decision-making process on a European level.7 Accordingly, the Joint Press and Information Service of the European Commission8 drafted a programme to direct its activities towards distinguished public notables in 1968: “Because of the fact that an audience of 180 million Europeans … cannot be addressed on a daily basis, we have to approach primarily, if not exclusively, distinguished public representatives.”9 As a consequence of this narrow, elitist approach, frequent surveys held in the ECSC member states in the 1950s revealed an alarming lack of knowledge concerning the institutions, activities, and objectives of the ECSC.10 As a result, the ECSC Press and Information Service decided to broaden its focus. Information policy was henceforth intended to inform the general public more comprehensively. The objective pursued was twofold. Not only should average European citizens be made familiar with the activities of the European institutions, but they should also acquire a genuine, new European spirit and novel patterns of thought and behaviour regarding European solidarity.11 The far more challenging task consisted now of winning the hearts and minds of Europeans and of creating a sincere European mentality, reciprocal understanding, and mutual respect.12 While the more elite-orientated information policy concentrated on well-established activities like specific publications, lectures, conferences, and organized visitor programmes for selected decision-makers, the common information strategy had to employ more innovative forms of disseminating knowledge to the general public. Apart from exhibitions and fairs, modern types of mass media came

  7 Reinfeldt, Communicating European Integration, p. 47.  8 In 1958, a common Press and Information Office for the European Economic Community, ECSC, and Euratom was formed, but all three institutions retained independent spokespersons’ groups.   9 Presse- und Informationsdienst der Europäischen Gemeinschaften, Entwurf des Aktionsprogramms für 1968, 15.1.1968 (CEAB 2/2914). 10 Jacques-René Rabier (Service d’information de la Haute Autorité), L’opinion publique et la C.E.C.A., 10 December 1957. URL: http://aei.pitt.edu/57872/1/Public_opinion_and_ ECSC_1957_F.pdf, accessed 28.5.2016. 11 Europäisches Parlament, Sitzungsdokumente, Dok. 89, 18 November 1960. In: Kommission der Europäischen Gemeinschaften. Informationspolitik der Kommission (Mitteilungen der Kommission an den Rat), 14.5.1968 (CEAB 2/2914). 12 Europäisches Parlament, Sitzungsdokumente 1962–1963, Dok 103: Bericht im Namen des Politischen Ausschusses über die Tätigkeit der Informationsdienste der Europäischen Gemeinschaften, November 1962 (CEAB 2/2123).

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increasingly into consideration. Radio broadcasts, newsreels,13 and the emerging television sector were important elements of the daily entertainment routine, but especially film had captured the attention of European press and information officials.14 They believed that due to its highly suggestive influence and good reproducibility, film was a very efficient means not only to inform wide segments of the European populace directly, but also to develop a shared European awareness. Furthermore, with all its cinematographic visualization techniques, the audiovisual medium of film offered an opportunity to persuade the population of the advantages of the European integration process on both rational and emotional levels.15 The evidence of the cinematic image, its high level of vividness, and dramatic narration with easily recognizable tropes and metaphors represented further significant advantages of film over pamphlets, newspapers, and radio broadcasts. A closely related reason for the use of film was the fact that cinema was by far the most popular pastime activity in the 1950s and 1960s, which soon had been replaced by television at the end of the decade. General interest in movies was impressive and audience figures extremely high.16 Cinema was not only an “art form which conveyed an idea of modernism, of permanent motion and excitement”, but also a figurative “battlefield” reverberating political as well as social conflicts in post-war Europe. For a wide range of social strata and age groups, film became an important stimulus of change.17 Consequently, it occupied a central place in European culture and turned out to be a pivotal “realm of memory” for a collective understanding concerning shared values, historical experiences, and cultural achievements.18 13

Important European events and prominent European politicians were regularly featured in newsreel programmes. For more details, see: Eugen Pfister, Europa im Bild. Imaginationen Europas in Wochenschauen in Deutschland, Frankreich, Großbritannien und Österreich 1948–1959, Göttingen 2014. 14 Renseignements tirés des sondages d’opinion sur la Communauté européene du charbon et de l’acier, 29.10.1957 (CEAB 2/321). 15 In parallel with this new information orientation towards film organized by several press offices of European institutions, which included also the CoE and the ECSC, another massive media campaign was set in motion by the US-American European Recovery Program (ERP/Marshall Plan) from 1948/49 onwards. David Ellwood describes this operation as “the largest propaganda operation directed by one country to a group of others ever seen in peacetime”. See David Ellwood, The Shock of America. Europe and the Challenge of the Century, Oxford 2012, p. 372; see also Anne Bruch/Gabriele Clemens/Jeanpaul Goergen/Thomas Tode, “Cooperation means Prosperity” – Das Werben für die Integration Europas in den Marshallplan-Filmen. In: Clemens (ed.), Werben für Europa, pp. 191–226. The persuasive effect of language, music and moving images is described by Wolf Singer, Das Bild in uns – Vom Bild zur Wahrnehmung. In: Christa Maar and Hubert Burda (eds.), Iconic Turn. Die neue Macht der Bilder, Köln 2014, pp. 56–76, esp. p. 69. 16 Pierre Sorlin, European Cinemas, European Societies, 1939–1990, London 1991, p. 79. 17 Ibid, pp. 89 and 92. 18 For example, the film historian Gian Piero Brunetta defines cinema on a national level as one of the most important “luoghi della memoria” (realms of memory) in recent Italian history. See

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Aspects of European Information Policy Concerning Film Convinced of the general benefits of cinematography as a means to inform the public about joint European efforts and political structures and the supranational principles of the European integration process, high-ranking information officers decided to design a comprehensive information policy concerning the audiovisual medium of film. This included the production of European information and feature films, thus termed “European films”, the introduction of European film awards, and the subsequent establishment of European film festivals.19 Films, Awards, and Festivals of the Council of Europe

One of the very first European organizations to implement a recognizable film policy was the Council of Europe (CoE). According to its statutes, which aimed to “achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realizing the ideals and principles which are their common heritage and faci­ litating their economic and social progress”,20 the CoE’s Committee of Cultural Experts21 proposed its own cultural policy. The Committee’s stated aims were to promote a profounder European cooperation and to encourage the “European idea”. The CoE’s concept of a “European idea” was primarily based on European history. The Committee’s members believed that from shared historical experien­ ces and cultural achievements a new commitment to political unity and reciprocal solidarity should arise. With respect to cinematography, they declared that “if the countries were to be brought yet closer together, it was important that their peoples should know how much they already owed to the historical process of inter­ change which had been taking place throughout the centuries by less deliberate and conscious methods. There was a need, in both the cultural and educational

Gian Piero Brunetta, Il Cinema. In: Mario Isnenghi (ed.), I luoghi della memoria. Strutture ed eventi dell’Italia unita, Rome 1997, pp. 223–251. 19 The term “European films” is defined as “Films that with regard to their content, form, and effect seem well-suited to serve the human, spiritual, political, and economic integration of Europe, films that both augment mutual understanding amongst the peoples of Europe and strengthen pan-European consciousness”. Besprechungsprotokoll zur “Woche des Europäischen Films und Fernsehfilms”, (10 April 1963), Brussels, 18.6.1963 (HAUE, Florenz, Fonds Code AEDE-2014). Normally, these films lasted no longer than twenty minutes, and they often comprised compilation sequences mixed with film and animation arrangements. 20 Statute of the Council of Europe, London, 5 May 1949. URL: https://www.coe.int/en/web/ conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/001?_coeconventions_WAR_coeconventionsportlet_languageId=en_GB, accessed 28.5.2016. 21 The Comité des experts culturels/Committee of Cultural Experts changed its name to the Conseil de la coopération culturelle/Council for Cultural Co-operation in 1962.

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fields, for films about Europe.”22 Accordingly, with the intention to propagate a better European understanding, the Council of Europe commissioned a film with the working title “The West, Human Adventure” (Occident, humaine aventure) in 1952.23 For understanding the European film and information policy, this film is rather significant for a number of reasons. It not only represents a unique experiment of European cooperation on a cultural level, but it also became a template for later “European films” dealing with complex historical narratives.24 In a joint effort, all sixteen CoE member states attempted to construct a shared European memory by recounting their own national histories from a European perspective. The French film producer Philippe Brunet and the Information Director of the Council of Europe, Paul M.G. Lévy, decided to use only “iconographic material (pictures, prints, etc.), historic relics (insignia, manuscripts, important records), exterior views (places and monuments of great historic interest)”.25 Two thousand illustrated history books were collected and 450 photographs submitted to European historians for approval before filming began.26 The content of the film focused on “the growth of the civilization by which our European group has left its mark, more than any other, on the history of humanity as a whole”.27

22 Charles Henry Dand/John A. Harrison, Educational and Cultural Films. Experiments in European Co-Production, edited by the Council for Cultural Co-Operation of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg 1965, p. 12. This quote from 1965 corresponds with earlier statements by CoE representatives; see for example Comité des ministres, 13ème session, Programme d’action du Conseil de l’Europe. Suggestion du gouvernement français, 16.11.1953 (ACE, CM (53) 90/7), and, Comité des experts culturels, Session extraordinaire, 17.03.1954, Programme d’action du Conseil de l’Europe, Section culturelle et scientifique (EXP/Cult (54) 9). 23 A first concept of the film project was introduced in November 1950. Committee of Cultural Experts, Fourth Session, Strasbourg, 24.–28.4.1952. Item 10 of the Agenda. Memorandum by the French Delegation on the Proposed Film: “The West, Human Adventure”(ACE, EXP/Cult (52) 19). 24 European art and history were two very popular topics among the filmmakers. The film The Open Window (La fenêtre ouverte, Netherlands 1952), commissioned by the Western European Union, concentrates for example on landscape painting. Further “European films” dealing with history are Continent Without Frontiers (Continent sans frontières/Kontinent ohne Grenzen, Belgium/FRG 1963), Europa (EEC/USA 1962), European Community (La Comunità Europea, Italy 1955/56), A Day in Europe (Un giorno in Europa, Italy 1958), Europe and Christianity (Europe et chrétienité, France 1954), The Long Road to European Unity (La lunga strada per l’unità europea; Italy 1962), European Unity in Art (Unità europea nell’arte, Italy 1962), Europe and Catullus in Sirmione (L’Europa e Catullo a Sirmione, Italy 1961), and Europe addresses the School – Villa Falconieri (L’Europa passa attraverso la scuola – Villa Falconieri, Italy 1961). 25 Committee of Cultural Experts, Fourth Session, Strasbourg, 24th to 28th April, 1952. Item 10 of the Agenda. Memorandum by the French Delegation on the Proposed Film: “The West, Human Adventure” (ACE, EXP/Cult (52) 19). 26 Unfortunately, there are no further information about the involved historians, but they all came from Council of Europe member states. 27 Committee of Cultural Experts, Fourth Session, Strasbourg, 24.–28.4.1952. Item 10 of the Agenda. Memorandum by the French Delegation on the Proposed Film: “The West, Human Adventure” (ACE, EXP/Cult (52) 19).

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The result was a kaleidoscopic recital of European cultural achievements from antiquity to the present, which deliberately reduced the mentioning of conflicts, wars and contested memories to the absolute minimum. After five years of meticulous planning, research, and filming, the 66 minutes long film premiered in Paris in April 1956 as Europe, Human Adventure. The long production process and historiographical task of mixing the different aspects of European history into a single positivist narrative reveal a challenging aspect of the concept of “European films”. On the one hand they had to define and create a shared European awareness, but on the other they were to avoid any risk of serving as a tool for indoctrination. But this was one of the central criticisms directed at the film. Even Lévy expressed his disapproval with the result and considered Europe, Human Adventure to be inappropriate because it imagined a direct link from the “Venus de Milo to Jean Monnet”, thereby degrading the enterprise of cultural experts to “a level of inadmissible propaganda”.28 Despite all these concerns, Europe, Human Adventure was awarded the “Venice Festival Prize for the Best European Documentary” in 1956.29 This award, underwritten by the Council of Europe, was replaced in the following year by another prize for the best “film européen”. With this new prize, the Committee of Cultural Experts intended “that the prize should give a film which we think useful an added chance of reaching a large public and that the fact that the film is presented as being sponsored by the Council should have a direct propaganda value for the latter”.30 The Committee agreed to “utilize the existing machinery of film festivals” and to award the prize on an annual basis. Eligible films included feature-length films, documentaries, and experimental films from any of the sixteen member states of the Council of Europe which “possess great artistic value and illustrate the fundamental notions of Europe’s civilization or help to comprehend the way of life of the populations of one or more member states of the Council of Europe”.31

28 Films sur l’Europe et les problèmes européens (ACE, Dossier No. 206/20). 29 The French version of Europe, Human Adventure, which is six minutes shorter, is available online: http://www.ina.fr/video/VDD11021243, accessed 28.5.2016. Comittee of Cultural Experts, Thirteenth Session, Council of Europe Prize to be Awarded at a Film Festival in Europe, 17.12.1956, Appendix G, Memorandum by the Director of Press and Information on the Venice Film Festival, 1956, p. 27 (ACE EXP/Cult/B (56) 9). The film script was written by the Belgian Foreign Minister Paul Henri Spaak, who also read the voice over of the French version of Europe, humain aventure. 30 Committee of Cultural Experts, Twelfth Session, Council of Europe Prize to be awarded at European Film Festivals, Memorandum of the Danish Delegation, Strasbourg 26.4.1956, p. 2 (ACE, EXP/Cult (56) 19). 31 Prix du Conseil de l’Europe à décerner en 1958 à l’occasion du Festival Mondial du Film de Bruxelles, Strasbourg, 20.8.1957 (ACE, EXP/Cult (57) 11).

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At the Berlin Film Festival in 1957, the Médaille d’Or of the Council of Europe was presented for the first time to the film Stresemann (FRG, 1956).32 In a memorandum, the German representatives of the Committee of Cultural Experts expressed their wish to establish the CoE’s film prize in Berlin because “situated in the centre of Europe, this city has always been a place of intense international exchanges of ideas, a meeting-ground of contrasting cultural and intellectual tendencies. This special character of Berlin is particularly underlined to-day by its position as a point of intersection between East and West.”33 But thenceforth, the Council of Europe Film Prize passed from one selected European film festival to the next, including Edinburgh (1959), Venice (1960), Arnhem (1961), Cork (1962), San Sebastián in the Francoist Spain (1963), and Locarno (1964). From 1964 on, the CoE’s film prize was superseded by the Council of Europe Film Week which took place annually until the early 1970s. The rather diffuse reason given for this replacement was that the Film Week would serve as a “more practical formula to encourage the production of high quality educational and cultural films in Europe”.34 The Medaille d’Or and the Film Week were not the only prizes and festivals awarded and organized by the Council of Europe. From 1956 until the 1960s, the CoE’s Committee of Cultural Experts also organized the Giornata del Film Europeo at the annual Venice Film Festival and extended the film prize categories to newsreels and documentaries. In 1961, the increasing proliferation of these activities raised some concerns with the CoE’s Press and Information department. A report summarized the apprehensions of the Committee of Cultural Experts and advised that “it was undesirable that a Council of Europe Secretary-General’s prize should be awarded in 1961 since an increase in the number of prizes bearing the name of the Council of Europe was liable to cause confusion in the minds of the public”.35 Aware of the fact that their information policy was not having the desired effect on the wider public, the Committee’s report recommended not only that “an article written by specialist” be circulated, but also that “anecdotes and picturesque or amusing details about the winning films or their producers” be provided to the press.36 Furthermore, meetings with pro-European non-governmental organizations and special film screenings in various capitals were recommended as a means of increasing publicity. 32

Comité des Experts culturels, 14ème Session, Réunion du Bureau, Rome, 14.–15.10.1957, Prix du Film du Conseil de l’Europe, Strasbourg, 20.8.1957 (ACE, EXP/Cult (57) 11). The director of the film was Alfred Braun, and the journalist Axel Eggebrecht wrote the script. 33 Committee of Cultural Experts, Eleventh Session, Council of Europe Prize to awarded at European Film Festivals, Memorandum by the German Delegation, Strasbourg, 15.10.1955 (ACE, EXP/Cult (55) 39). 34 European Film Week in Paris. In: Council of Europe News, N.S., Nr. 33, November 1964, p. 4. 35 Comittee of Cultural Experts, Second Meeting of the Restricted Committee (Paris, 18– 19.1.1961), Strasbourg, 8.1.1961, p. 3 (ACE, EXP/Cult/RC (60) 24). 36 Ibid, p. 4.

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The Festival du Film Sidérurgique Européen in Luxembourg

In parallel to the Council of Europe, the Press and Information Service of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community as well as the subsequent European Communities agreed on a similar film policy. This media campaign comprised the production of over 30 information films along with a new film festival which was inaugurated in 1963. The European films commissioned by the ECSC and the EC displayed a broad spectrum of topics. Nearly all illustrate the functioning of the European institutions as well as their aims and achievements. But the intention to convince the European populace of the advantages of the European integration process is linked more enthusiastically to positive tropes of general economic growth, improved living and working conditions, overall prosperity and prospects of a secure future. Thus, supranational cooperation on a European level is presented less as a historical or cultural obligation toward Europe’s belligerent past, but explained in more detail as a rational decision for the citizens of the six member states.

Festival du film sidérurgique européen, 18.3.1963, Poster draft by Gusty Mersch for the 1er Festival du Film sidérurgique européen (CEAB 08100, 1962–1964, fol. 0045).

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Accordingly, the ECSC’s own film festival, celebrated for the first time in Luxembourg in March 1963, put more emphasis on films portraying the economic and industrial aspects of the coal and steel sector in Western Europe.37 The Festival du Film Sidérurgique Européen was also meant to disseminate more information about the ECSC for a wider audience and encourage improved mutual understanding between the European citizens. Precisely for this reason, thirty applications from the ECSC member states were accepted and four film categories defined: films of general interest, films of special interest, tv documentaries, and art films. The film festival jury, consisting of representatives from the High Authority and industrial associations along with film critics,38 awarded prizes in all categories; only the Special Award for Best Cinematic Contribution Towards European Understanding was not endowed with a cash prize.39 The jury expressed its hope that more films on this subject would be submitted at the next festival; but the special award was not presented at the following festival in 1965. Although the festival’s two iterations were hailed as a great success, given the positive attention they received from film critics, and as a promotional asset for the High Authority and industrial associations,40 the “Festival du Film Sidérurgique Européen” was not meant to be continued. There were several reasons for this decision. Firstly, the quantity of potential festival entries taking up the issue of coal and steel production was too limited for a biennial festival. Secondly, educational and vocational training films for coal mining and steel production emphasized the didactic over the artistic aspect of cinematography; and very often these kinds of industrial films turned out to be blatant promotional films.41 Thirdly, the information budget of the European Communities was not substantially increased, nor was the issue of information developed any further.42 Finally, the 37 The film festival was initiated on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the ECSC. Festival du film sidérurgique européen, 18.3.1963 – Festival du documentaire sidérurgique européen. Projet de reglement, Luxembourg 1962 (CEAB 08-100, 1962–1964, fol. 0011). 38 The film critics were representatives of Le Figaro Littéraire (Paris), De Standaard (Brussels), and the Centro sperimentale di cinematografia (Rome). Festival du film sidérurgique européen, 18.3.1963 – Europäische Gemeinschaft für Kohle und Stahl, Hohe Behörde, Erste Schau der Dokumentarfilme ueber die Europaeische Eisen- und Stahlindustrie, Luxemburg, 16.3.1963 (CEAB 08-100, 1962–1964, fols. 0041–0042). 39 Ibid. 40 2e Festival du film sidérurgique européen à Luxembourg, 24.–25.10.1965, organisation, participants, présélection, etc. Volume 3, Europäische Gemeinschaft für Kohle und Stahl, Hohe Behörde, Zweite Dokumentarfilmschau der Europaeischen Gemeinschaft fuer Kohle und Stahl fuer Filme ueber die Eisen- und Stahlindustrie, Luxemburg, 15.6.1965 (CEAB 08-1555, 1965–1965, fol. 0027). 41 Vinzenz Hediger/Patrick Vonderau, Record, Rhetoric, Rationalization. Industrial Organization and Film. In: idem (eds.), Films that Work. Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media, Amsterdam 2009, pp. 35–49. 42 In this regard, Alexander Reinfeldt refers to the “empty chair” crisis in 1965/1966. Reinfeldt, Unter Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit?, p. 16.

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festival’s audience was rather exclusive. The European institutions and industrial associations sent their representatives to the Cinéma Marivaux; and additional executives, journalists, as well as film experts required an official invitation.43 The wider public was more or less excluded from the festival in both years it took place. As a result of this ineffective concept, the European Association of Teachers, which had been launched in 1956, approached the Press and Information Service of the European Communities in 1963 in order to establish a Journées d’Études du Film Européen. According to one report, this event was intended not as another festival, but as a working session for representatives of the CoE and the EC as well as experts from the fields of education and film.44 Subsequently, the preparatory committee not only drafted the above mentioned definition of the genre “European film”, but scheduled several tasks for its board members. These included an inventory of all existing European films, an examination of the reasons why there were not as many European films for the classroom, proposals for how this problem could be solved, and further encouragement for film producers to make such films in the form of film awards and funding.45 In November 1964, the participants of the Film Week met in Brussels and attended a special screening of twenty pre-selected films46 that were later recommended for educational purposes. But unfortunately the work of the Journées d’Études du Film Européen was not continued in the following years. Its only result was a printed film catalogue listing a number of “European films” together with some guidelines for the use of films in the classroom.

Conclusion When the press and information services of the Council of Europe, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Communities, decided to extend their information policy to include the mass medium of film, their representatives believed that film policy was an efficient means for overcoming a perceived information deficit. The use of European films was therefore seen as an essential mechanism for creating a genuine “European spirit” among young people, who

43

Organisation du 1er Festival du Film sidérurgique européen (Luxembourg, 16.–18.3.1963): organisation, règlement, prix du Festival, liste des participants, liste des présidents des associations professionnelles de la sidérurgie. Volume 2 (CEAB 08-1108, 1963–1963). 44 Film européen, Bericht ueber die 1. Sitzung des Europäischen Aktionskommittees zur Vorbereitung der “Woche des Europäischen Films und Fernsehfilms” am 13.9.1963 in Brüssel, p. 1 (AEDE 2004, 1963–1964). 45 Ibid, p. 2. 46 Film européen, Réunion du Comité des Journées d’Études du Film Européen, 23.–24.3.1964, p. 2 (AEDE 2004, 1963–1964).

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were expected to be the “future of Europe”.47 Accordingly, the European officials initiated similar media campaigns involving films, awards and festivals. However, a considerable number of films either presented Europe as a remarkable source of high culture, with almost no reference to other civilizations, or portrayed European integration as an opportunity for prosperity and a peaceful future. In general, the European films tried to avoid obvious Cold War rhetoric and put more emphasis on a rather subtle approach in order to elude any accusation of propaganda. Consequently, while the film prizes and film festivals awarded and organized by the European institutions were indeed meant to galvanize European understanding and solidarity, they were not intended to provoke any serious discussion about the political design of a united Europe. And although these new public information efforts were ostensibly aimed at a wider audience, their coordinators again reached only a small group of European representatives and officials with their exclusive events. The general public did not attend such award ceremonies and film festivals; and a real modification of the elite-orientated information concept was never effected – regardless of their intentions. Instead, their film policy served to foster transnational cooperation between European institutions, national governments, and pro-European non-governmental organizations. In addition, these European films – which included both information and industrial films – were generally not part of the regular film distribution circuit.48 They were mostly screened at political events, in cinema clubs, or in classrooms. Despite their desultory efforts, however, all of the participating information representatives, film directors, historians, and politicians did actively discuss the difficult question of what characterizes Europe; and they also engaged the challenge of visualizing the intangible process of European integration for a general public. Information was indeed disseminated. Therefore, the doors of the supranational information policy were not closed anymore, but already opened to a considerable extent.49

47 Film européen, Bericht ueber die 1. Sitzung des Europäischen Aktionskommittees zur Vorbereitung der “Woche des Europäischen Films und Fernsehfilms” am 13.9.1963 in Brüssel, p. 4 (AEDE 2004, 1963–1964). 48 Up to a few years ago, these information films were generally regarded as of no archivial value. Only recently more and more national (film) archives started to collect visual images and films. The project “Werben für Europa” holds the largest corpus of “European films” which consists of more than 450 films. For further information, please contact [email protected]. 49 For further discussion, see also Jackie Harrison/Stefanie Pukallus, The European Community’s Public Communication Policy 1951–1967. In: Contemporary European History, 24 (2015) 2, pp. 233–251.

Yulia Yurtaeva “Jetzt ‘festivalt’ auch die Television”: Television Festivals in the 1960s

Throughout Europe in the late 1950s and until the mid-1960s, not only did television programming increase, but a number of television festivals developed in parallel with the major international film festivals. These developments were based on the newly inaugurated cooperation of television organizations and the subsequent resumption of television operations in both East and West after the Second World War. While the two power blocs were politically hostile to each other, the emerging media on both sides of the Iron Curtain were slowly but steadily on the rise. Nevertheless, the road to primacy among media was a long one, mainly due to limits to broadcasting range and volume of programs.1 It was only in the late 1960s that television came to have influence as a mass medium, both quantitatively in terms of its spread in the population and qualitatively in terms of the improved quality of programs offered. This last point was confirmed by television festivals on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The need for new programs exceeded the domestic capacities for regular program production in both East and West. The emerging television festivals thus became not only venues for presenting a medium on the rise, but at the same time gave rise to a decades-long functioning network, which extended across the Iron Curtain, of (program) exchange relations in the field of television broadcasting. In the West, the most famous television festivals still in existence today are the Prix Italia International Competition for Radio and Television Programs (Capri, 1948),2 the Rose d’Or International Television Festival in Montreux (1961), the International Television Festival in Monte Carlo (1961),3 and the Prix Jeunesse 1 2 3

See Bernd Stöver, Der Kalte Krieg. Geschichte eines radikalen Zeitalters 1947–1991, München 2010, p. 272. See Amelia Belloni Sonzogni, Cultura e qualità di rete. Storia del Prix Italia 1948–2008, Trento 2008. See Geraldine Poels, Le festival international de télévision de Monte Carlo, à la recherche du 8e art. In: AnaÏs Fléchet et al (eds.), Une histoire des festivals. XX–XXIe siècle, Paris 2013, pp. 265–278.

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International Television Competition for Children’s and Youth Programs (Munich, 1964). The MIFED television exposition in Milan (1960) and the MIP-TV in Cannes (1965) may also be included in this initial period, though these are industry trade fairs, not festivals. In the East, the first and foremost of such festivals was the International Television Festival in Prague (1964), which survived the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc and continues to take place today. Other significant television festivals founded in Eastern Europe in the 1960s include the International Health Film Festival (Varna, 1964), the Golden Chest International Television Theatre Festival (Plovdiv, 1965), and the Man and the Sea Television Festival (Riga, 1966). The Egon Erwin Kisch Competition for TV Documentaries and Reporting was launched in 1964 as part of the Leipzig Cultural and Documentary Film Week, which had been founded in 1955.4 One of the most famous Eastern European television exhibitions was the Teleforum, which was held regularly since 1966, first in Prague and then in Moscow. In both East and West, the new television festivals were viewed favorably by the press. As one reviewer in the Stuttgarter Zeitung remarked on the occasion of the first International Television Festival in Monte Carlo in 1961: “Until now, there have only been film festivals and not a single international event dedicated to television, which is no less important and prominent than film and may even overtake it in the foreseeable future.”5 Further, despite the restrictions of the Cold War, there were many instances of transference and cooperation between the socialist and capitalist camps that highlighted both the unique dynamics of television and film media and the efforts made by festival organizers to achieve cultural foreign policy goals. What role can be ascribed to the newly founded Eastern European television festivals in the 1960s? Did they also serve as political battlegrounds, as was often the case with film festivals,6 or did they merely provide a first glimpse into an art form that was still in its formative years? Television festivals have proven to be a very illuminating field for the purpose of analyzing the numerous implications of cultural foreign policy during the Cold War. This paper analyzes the press reporting on television festivals in newspapers of the 1960s in East and West Germany, gathered in the German Broadcasting Archive in Potsdam. This analysis is complemented by original documents such as festival reports and resolutions of the Intervision Council meetings from the Czech Television Archives, Prague.

4 5 6

The competition took place in Moscow for the first time in 1962 and again in 1963. Ludwig Thomé, Jetzt “festivalt” auch die Television. Zu den 1. Internationalen Fernseh-Festspielen in Monte Carlo. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung, 27.1.1961. Unless otherwise indicated, translations of quoted passages originally published in German are by me. See Andreas Kötzing, Kultur- und Filmpolitik im Kalten Krieg. Die Filmfestivals von Leipzig und Oberhausen in gesamtdeutscher Perspektive 1954–1972, Göttingen 2013, p. 11.

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Media and Politics in the Postwar Period The end of the war presented an opportunity for European broadcasting to normalize and resume its activities, yet new institutional frameworks needed to be created first. Here, the path that European political and media organizations were taking split in two: In the West, it branched into the collaboration between Western democracies in the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the Eurovision network; in Eastern Europe it followed the Soviet-dominated Organisation Internationale de Radiodiffusion (OIR; after 1960 OIRT7) with its Intervision network, which coordinated international relations in the media. The division between these two organizations can be seen as a fracturing of the television landscape which, as a kind of “halved globalization”,8 mirrored the antagonism of the Cold War. This development in the media took place parallel to the creation of the Warsaw Pact and NATO in politics and the formation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) in economics. This global political confrontation came about immediately after the end of WWII; yet parallel to it, from the very beginning of Europe’s post-1945 re-organization, an inter-regional union of radio and television broadcasters emerged, which followed its own logic while remaining part of the dominant political framework. With the OIRT and Intervision, which was founded in 1960, the Warsaw Pact nations now had a functioning instrument of communication, regulation, and propaganda for their international media communications, one with which they could produce their own form of a public political “stage” through the controlled use of selected images. In this phase, television became not only a mass medium, but unequivocally the leading medium of the time. The numerous television festivals subsequently founded throughout Europe functioned as both a measure of power and a platform for cultural exchange between the two political systems; and they represented a political stage as described above. While the OIR(T) was primarily concerned with radio broadcasting until the mid-1950s, television rose to the fore with its growing importance as the new leading medium for information, entertainment, and education. For OIRT and Intervision in the 1960s, it was of utmost importance for their political positions on the international stage to inaugurate new festivals and in being the dominant force at existing festivals, such as the International Television Festival in Prague, in order to compete with Western European television festivals like the one in Monte Carlo or the Prix Italia in Venice. 7 8

In 1960, et de Télévision was added to the name. Jürgen Osterhammel/Niels P. Petersson, Geschichte der Globalisierung. Dimensionen, Pro­ zesse, Epochen, München 2003, p. 86.

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Furthermore, both Western and Eastern European television organizations strove to offer up-to-date and diverse program offerings, which their own production capacities could not yet sustain. In order to compensate for internal production deficits, European television broadcasters actively exchanged programming and participated in competitions with one another.9 The television festivals can therefore be seen not only as a showcase for artists’ works, like film festivals, but above all as a platform for acquiring new programming; in this they resembled television exhibitions created specifically for this purpose, such as the MIFED in Milan (1960), the MIP in Cannes (1965), or the Teleforum in Moscow (1967).

Intervision as a Driving Force As a joint effort of the Eastern Bloc countries,10 Intervision saw as its primary task the international exchange of television programming. The association also oversaw other activities, including numerous cultural events. Among them were Eastern European song contests such as the Schlager music festival in Sopot, Poland, the most famous music event in Eastern Europe. It went down in the annals of European history as the Intervision Song Contest, although it was held under that name only from 1977 to 1980.11 Usually a television station belonging to Intervision was responsible for organizing (and broadcasting on Soviet Bloc TV) music events such as the one in Sopot. The ideas and concepts, however, as well as the later resonance of the events, were introduced, discussed, and voted on at the regularly occurring meetings of Intervision’s advisory council. Using this framework, member countries’ cultural events were also considered Intervision events and were perceived as such in Western Europe. From the very beginning, the organization of the television festival also took place under this premise. Western countries, or Eurovision members, also participated in the majority of Intervision’s cultural events, which can thus be seen as a form of cultural dialogue between the two sides within the bounds of the media networks. However,   9 For the frame conditions of media relations in Europe after the Second World War, see Yulia Yurtaeva, Programmaustausch zwischen Ost- und Westeuropa. Institutionelle Rahmenbedin­ gungen von 1945 bis 1990. In: Susanne Eichner/Elisabeth Prommer (eds.), Fernsehen: ­Europäische Perspektiven, Konstanz 2014, pp. 257–268. 10 The original founding members of Intervision (1960) included Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, and Hungary. Soviet TV was added in 1961, Bulgaria and Romania in 1962, and Finland in 1965 as the only Western European country and only simultaneous member of Eurovision. Membership in Intervision continued to grow throughout the 1970s and 1980s. 11 The festival is often also described as the Eastern European answer to the Eurovision Song Contest. For the history of the Intervision Song Contest, see Yulia Yurtaeva, Ein schwarzer Rabe gegen Conchita Wurst oder wovor hat Russland Angst? In: Christine Ehardt/Georg Vogt/Florian Wagner (eds.), Eurovision Song Contest. Eine kleine Geschichte zwischen Camp, Trash, Geschlecht und Nation,. Wien 2015, pp. 111–135.

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this dialogue in the form of song contests was so shaped that while Western artists regularly participated in Eastern European festivals, Eastern European artists never performed in the Eurovision Song Contest.12 International television festivals, however, presented a very different picture. At the first festival in Monte Carlo in 1961, for example, Soviet TV came with multiple programs and East Germany submitted Hans-Joachim Kasprzik’s television drama Gerichtet bei Nacht (GDR 1960).13 Press reviews of the event varied widely. In particular the participation of “Soviet-zone television,” as East German TV was called in the West German press,14 incited a wave of negative reactions; but the press in both West and East Germany were united in their appraisal of the Soviet contributions: “Today we know, for example, that the Soviets’ televisionaries have given us the best the world has to offer”,15 the Stuttgarter Zeitung proclaimed. The Hamburger Echo followed suit by accusing the jury of “unimaginably inaccurate judgments” of the Soviets, “who attended with not only the best selection, but also the best presentations in the individual categories, like TV dramas or documentaries, as well as the best single achievements in directing, interpretation, etc.”16 East Germany’s Nationalzeitung joined in by echoing the French press: “The two darlings of the television festival in Monte Carlo are the Soviet Union and Japan.”17 But while the author of the Nationalzeitung article was certain of the success of Kaltofen’s “exciting film” at the festival (“The achievements of East German television have made an extraordinary impression on the experts gathered in Monte Carlo”18), and while the leading East German newspaper, Neues Deutschland, quoted the congratulatory statements made by Monaco’s Prime Minister Pelletier on the achievement of German television broadcasting,19 the Hamburger Echo referred to it as “a weak, tendentious play brimming with improbabilities”20 and as an embarrassing mixup for West German broadcasting, which was not represented at the festival. As the West German Westfälische Rundschau put it: “Practically everyone in Monte Carlo thought it was a West German production. It was a complete disgrace.”21 12 13 14

Or via “detours”: Czech singer Karel Gott competed for Austria in the 1968 ESC. The film depicts the fate of seven people shaken by a bomb attack in Vienna. Ludwig Thomé, Jetzt “festivalt” auch die Television. In the East German press a similarly delegitimizing term, “West-Zone”, was used in referring to West German broadcasting. 15 Ibid. 16 Televisor, Das große TV-Bombardement. 1. Fernseh-Festival, ohne Bundesrepublik, mit DDR. In: Hamburger Echo, 27.1.1961. 17 adn-korr., “Gerichtet bei Nacht” in Monte Carlo. DDR-Erfolg beim Fernsehfestival / USAFilme nach Schablone. In: Nationalzeitung, 22.1.1961. 18 Ibid. 19 Anerkennung für DDR-Fernsehfilm in Monte Carlo. In: Neues Deutschland, 26.1.1961. 20 Televisor, Das große TV-Bombardement. 21 Ludwig Thomé, Von der Bibel bis Red Skelton. Kritische Randbemerkungen zu den ersten Fernseh-Festspielen in Monte Carlo. In: Westfälische Rundschau, 3.3.1961.

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Eastern European television productions were exhibited in another European festival that same year – the first Rose d’Or Festival in Montreux in May 1961. Here, too, a battle of the press took place between East and West German reporters. Under the headline “Naked Envy”, Neues Deutschland cited the Hamburger Abendblatt, which faulted German broadcasting for having made a “propaganda film” and called East German Tilo Philipp’s light program Sprünge, Tricks, und Melodien [Jumps, tricks, and melodies] a “baffling flick”.22 Responding to West Germany’s absence among the winning entries, on the other hand, East German news gave it a “booby prize” because it lagged just three points behind East Germany (which garnered ten points), as well as Czechoslovakia (which won the “Bronze Rose”, i.e. third place in the main competition), Belgium, Switzerland, and the United States.23 Subsequent iterations of festivals in Monte Carlo and Montreux confirmed the success of East German television and established its competitive edge in the international arena. For example, until 1970, the USSR and Czechoslovakia took home prizes every year in various categories from Monte Carlo. Hungary, Poland, and Romania were also frequent winners.24 In Montreux, the picture was similar, with Czechoslovakian TV shows often winning throughout the 1960s.25 Eastern European submissions were somewhat less successful in the Prix Italia competitions during the same period: In 1966 and 1970, only Polish television took home prizes, and in 1968 and 1969 only Czechoslovakia did.26

The International Television Festival in Prague Among the socialist television festivals, the OIRT International Television Festival in Prague soon became the most prominent and most important. By introducing a large self-organized event, the Intervision network provided the international television landscape an exchange forum on par with anything in the West, and not least a successful television market in Eastern Europe. However even here, a

22 23

Nackter Neid. In: Neues Deutschland, 12.10.1961. Ibid.; see Peter Schön, Der DFF unter den ersten. Das Fernsehfestival in Montreux. In: Neues Deutschland, 12.6.1961. 24 For example, the United States were also annual winners. See the list of festival winners in the Monte Carlo festival archives (online): http://www.tvfestival.com/index.php?p=136 (last accessed May 2015). 25 See the list of festival winners in the Rose d’Or festival archives, Montreux (online): http://2012. rosedor.com/history/ (last accessed June 2015). 26 See the list of festival winners in the Prix Italia festival archives (online): http://www.prixitalia. rai.it/grids/Storia_e_futuro.aspx?lang=eng (last accessed May 2015).

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political and ideological agenda was pursued – as with all socialist events open to the West – similar to that in the aforementioned Eastern European Song Contest. The Prague television festival also manifested traces of a “negotiation” with the “German question”. As yet unrecognized outside the Eastern Bloc as a sovereign state, the GDR was invested in establishing a permanent presence at the festival and in distinguishing itself by comparison with Western, especially West German, festival entries in assessments of the festival after the fact. As both East and West German press on Montreux and Monte Carlo had already demonstrated, the two countries pursued their rivalry into festival reports.

Founding and Development The first International Television Festival in Prague was held from 22 to 28 June 1964. The idea for the festival was first discussed in 1963 at the fourteenth and fifteenth meetings respectively of the Intervision advisory council in Berlin and Kiev, based on a proposal presented by Czech TV; and the organization of the festival was decided at the sixteenth Intervision conference in Prague.27 The resolution of the eighteenth Intervision conference in Bucharest in May 1964 described the festival’s organization as “one of the most important international cultural and political events in television, to which a good deal of attention should be paid on the part of Intervision participants”.28 At that time, the proposal called for the festival to be moved between Moscow, Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), and other Soviet and Czech cities. Holding the festival close to the time of the larger film festivals in order to attract larger audiences was also planned from the very first drafts of the festival’s design.29 Under the slogan “Screens for Peace and Understanding”, 92 representatives of 35 international television broadcasting organizations – 39 of whom were from socialist countries, 53 from the West – gathered in Prague. In total, 73 entries 27

Entwurf der Ordnungsprinzipien des ersten Fernsehfestivals der Intervision, Punkt 5 der Tages­ ordnung: Organisation des Fernsehfestivals der Intervision, Programmsektion, 14. Tagung des Intervisionsrates, Berlin, 28–31 Mai 1963 (Czech Television Archives, Prague, Box 18); see Resolution Nr. 1 zum Punkt 1 der Tagesordnung der Programmsektion der 16. Tagung des Intervisionsrates: “Die Organisation des ersten internationalen Fernsehfestivals der Intervision,” Programmsektion, 16. Tagung des Intervisionsrates, Prague, November 1963 (Czech Television Archives, Prague, Box 19). 28 Resolution Nr. 2 zum Punkt 2 der Tagesordnung: “Bericht über die Organisation des 1. internationalen Fernsehfestivals in Prag”, Programmsektion, 18. Tagung des Intervisionsrates, Bucharest, May 1964 (Czech Television Archives, Prague, Box 19). 29 Entwurf der Ordnungsprinzipien des ersten Fernsehfestivals der Intervision, Punkt 5 der Tages­ ordnung: Organisation des Fernsehfestivals der Intervision, Programmsektion, 14. Tagung des Intervisionsrates, Berlin, 28–31 Mai 1963 (Czech Television Archives, Prague, Box 18).

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were submitted, of which 53 appeared in the festival’s program, making for 48 hours of television broadcast over five days.30 Two categories took center stage at the first competition: “entertainment programs” and “serious artistic programs.” The international juries for each of the two categories consisted of seven representatives from participating broadcasting organizations from both sides of the Iron Curtain. Works that did not meet the submission criteria could be exhibited outside the competition. Five prizes were awarded, with special consideration given to works that were internationally understandable and were medium-specific (with regard to screenplay and performance). These were: the main prizes for the categories “entertainment programs” and “serious artistic programs”, the City of Prague prize, a critics’ prize, and an audience prize. There were also several honorable mentions.31 The competition’s primary goals included “the founding of a tradition of television festivals in the socialist spirit, the creation of a framework for the exchange of opinions and experience in questions of television art in the world, and hence the intensification of collaboration between socialist television and television in other broadcasting countries, including developing countries”.32 At the same time, the festival followed “socialist television propaganda and the interest it ought to evoke in the culture and lifestyles of socialist countries”.33 And although the festival’s statutes and competition categories were changed a number of times over the next few years, the creation of a public political stage in the media – here a socialist one in the form of television propaganda – was part of the original design of this first television festival in the Soviet Bloc.34

The Winners Taking a look at the prizewinners from the first six festival competitions up to 1969, it is clear that the international jury made explicit efforts to cater to both Cold War camps and to distribute prizes almost equally between East and West. 30 Bericht über die Durchführung des 1. Internationalen Fernsehfestivals in Prag, Punkt 3 der Programmsektion, 19. Tagung des Intervisionsrates, Sofia, 26–29 August 1964, p. 1 (Czech Television Archives, Prague, Box 19). 31 Ibid.; see OIRT-Festival in Prag. 34 Fernsehstationen aus 25 Ländern nehmen teil. In: Tribüne, 20.6.1964. 32 Bericht über die Durchführung des I. Internationalen Fernsehfestivals in Prag, Punkt 3 der Programmsektion, 19. Tagung des Intervisionsrates, Sofia, 26–29 August 1964, p. 1 (Czech Television Archives, Prague, Box 19). 33 Ibid. 34 However, it should be noted that Czechoslovakia already had cultural activities in this area, mainly in the cinema film festival of Karlovy Vary, that reflected the official cultural policy of the state; and generally, competitions of various kinds in the Eastern Bloc were popular. For Karlovy Vary during the Cold War, see Caroline Moine, From Karlovy Vary to West Berlin and

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The third festival in Prague will be considered here in greater depth as a prime example of this. The third International Television Festival in Prague took place from 21 to 29 June 1966.35 By this time, Intervision was in its sixth year; and so far there had been 4941 broadcasts, and 5413 hours of programming over the Intervision network. Intervision exchanged active television programs among its members and with the Western European Eurovision. In 1966 the two networks began exchanging news on a daily basis.36 The permanent “Program Hunger” on both sides of the Iron Curtain promoted a media policy pragmatism that simply ignored the political division in Europe. Fifty-five broadcasting organizations from 33 countries participated in this third iteration of the festival, with 207 foreign festival guests in attendance, including 58 reporters. A handful of countries were represented at the festival for the first time, not only European countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Spain, but also Tunisia, Kuwait, and Sudan. The program comprised 91 hours on air, with 48 entries submitted to the competition and 31 additional shows.37 The main prize was awarded to the Soviet burlesque show The Letter (Paket, USSR 1965) by Mosfilm, which depicted the adventures of a young Red Army soldier during the Civil War in Russia. Again East and West German reporters faced off over a hotly debated decision: The East German Berliner Zeitung called the film “by far the most lovable entry” and “a true piece of colorful Russian folk poetry, without pathos, full of life…” and wholeheartedly approved of the decision.38 The Frankfurter Rundschau, on the other hand, criticized the submission first and foremost on account of its form, calling it “a confected cinematographic product and not a screen production”, and lamented the jury’s decision: “To err is

Venice. International Film Festivals in the Turbulent Year of 1968, In: Illuminace. The Journal of Film Theory, History and Aesthetics, 1 (2014), pp. 39–48, and Caroline Moine, Blicke über den Eisernen Vorhang. Die internationalen Filmfestivals im Kalten Krieg 1945–1968. In: Lars Karl (ed.), Leinwand zwischen Tauwetter und Frost. Der osteuropäische Spiel- und Dokumentarfilm im Kalten Krieg, Berlin 2007, pp. 255–278. For general competition culture in Eastern Europe, see Katalin Miklóssy and Melanie Ilic (eds.), Competition in Socialist Society. London/ New York 2014. 35 Another component of the 1966 festival was the second Golden Bowl Schlager competition, which took place in parallel that year in Bratislava. 36 See Yurtaeva, Programmaustausch zwischen Ost- und Westeuropa, p. 263. 37 Bericht des Vertreters des tschechischen Fernsehens über die Durchführung des III. Internationalen Fernsehfestivals in Prag und des Liederwettbewerbes “Goldener Schlüssel” in Bratislava, Punkt 3 der Tagesordnung, Programmsektion, 27. Tagung des Intervisionsrates, Helsinki, 16–19 August 1966 (Czech Television Archives, Prague, Box 21). 38 Ibid.

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human.”39 This criticism, according to the report, also held for most of the festival entries, which “were to be seen as non- or even anti-television”.40 Additional prizes were handed out to the following countries: Belgium (best screenplay and Critic’s Prize), Romania (best director), Poland (best cinematography), West Germany (best acting), Czechoslovakia (best production design), and Great Britain (best original score). Honorable mentions went to entries from Great Britain, Norway, and Belgium, while the audience award went to the Czech entry.41 Subsequent years likewise saw attempts to keep the prize distribution neutral.42 In 1967, for example, Great Britain and France won the main prizes, as did Czechoslovakia in 1968, with three honorable mentions given that year to West Germany in various categories and further awards going to Great Britain and Japan. In 1969, the jury again kept an eye on both East and West, honoring Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, and both West Germany and East Germany, among others. Despite such seemingly objective and politically unbiased judging, every festival report in the 1960s became the object of heated debate in the press in both Germanies, serving first and foremost as a battleground over the “German question”.

Olympic Spirit? “This year, however, the practically unbearable march of a closed phalanx of class struggle fighters from the ‘German Democratic Republic’ thwarted any attempts to create an atmosphere deserving of the festival’s motto, ‘The screen connects people’”,43 lamented the West German Frankfurter Allgemeine after the end of the fourth television festival in Prague. For the first time in the 1960s, events at the festival had indeed incited particularly strong reactions in the West German press. One driver of the uproar was the reaction to two West German entries,

39

Fast nur Filme auf dem Bildschirm. Bericht vom III. Internationalen Prager Fernsehfestival. In: Frankfurter Rundschau, 8.7.1966. 40 Ibid. 41 Bericht des Vertreters des tschechischen Fernsehens über die Durchführung des III. Internationalen Fernsehfestivals in Prag und des Liederwettbewerbes “Goldener Schlüssel” in Bratislava, Punkt 3 der Tagesordnung, Programmsektion, 27. Tagung des Intervisionsrates, Helsinki, 16–19. August 1966, p. 2 (Czech Television Archives, Prague, Box 21). 42 Winners of the first two 1964–65 television festivals included West Germany, the US and Japan (main prize, 1965) in addition to the Eastern European entries. 43 Andreas Razumovsky, War das ein Festival? Zu den Vorgängen auf dem vierten internationalen Fernsehfestival in Prag. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 27.6.1967.

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Peter Schlemihl (FRG 1955)44 and The Reichstag Fire Trial (Der Reichstagsbrandprozess, FRG 1967) by Tom Toelle, which were rejected from the competition on the grounds that they did not sufficiently express the festival theme of connecting people.45 Tom Toelle’s film was only supposed to be shown outside the competition, yet was denied exhibition “without further justification by the organizers”,46 which in turn reportedly incited “significant scorn” by Czech participants as well.47 West German reporter Andreas Razumovsky, writing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, blamed the rejection on the East German delegation, who, he argued, acted more as “a special-operations task force than a delegation”48 and took advantage of the “naive, clueless representatives”49 of West Germany. This even led to the abrupt departure of a West German commissioner, who had been snubbed by a “socialist class fighter”.50 Further, the festival report repeated the statements of some unnamed Czech journalists responding to the above events: “We are well-nigh fed up with this unending annoyance called the ‘German question’”,51 and “Of course we all voted against the East Germans; they are behaving once again like occupation troops.”52 Razumovsky pointed to the newly created “friendship contract” between East Berlin and Prague and its all too intensive implementation as one cause of the controversy.53 With respect to the festival’s theme, he brusquely remarked, “what connects people is obviously a question of ‘proletarian internationalism’.” The report called into question the festival’s status as a so-called “olympics of television shows” and an “oasis of olympic spirit”,54 referring, among other things, to the fact that the Czech jury members had voted against the result that year. Also noted in the same article was the implicit anti-Semitic tone of the festival’s organization. The prize for best actress, for example, was not awarded as deserved to the well-known Polish actress and director of the Yiddish theater in Warsaw Ida Kaminska, but instead to her “deliberately selected and purely Aryan” colleague from the same entry, Alexandra Śląska. Moreover, the famous Slovakian chanson singer Hana Hegerová was denied the prize for her successful number 44

This was due either to Günter Hesse’s TV drama (FRG 1955, production firm SFB) or to a production from the festival year by Peter Beauvais, Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte (FRG 1967, commissioned by ZDF). 45 Andreas Razumovsky, War das ein Festival? 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. The leading role in this film was played by the famous Prague actor Václav Voska. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 The “German question” put a heavy burden on film festivals in both parts of Germany throughout the 1960s. See Kötzing, Kultur- und Filmpolitik im Kalten Krieg, pp. 380–388. 52 Andreas Razumovsky, War das ein Festival? 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid.

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“Meine jiddische Momme” at the Golden Bowl awards taking place at the same time in Bratislava.55 The East German Neues Deutschland made no mention of any of these events in its festival report. There was only talk of political and ideological differences among the entries.56 The East German press was much more critical of the following year’s program, the fifth television festival in Prague, which took place in June 1968. While the West German press spoke of a “critical stage for international television films” and of brave, dedicated Czechoslovakian entries,57 no doubt with reference to the political atmosphere in Czechoslovakia, Neues Deutschland played with the new festival motto of “Man today and his world”, asking, “Which man, which world?”58 Above all, the predominance of politically neutral shows was highlighted at that year’s festival, with only a few entries taking on a political or intellectual confrontation with the important questions of the day.59 Neues Deutschland journalist Katja Stern accused West Germany of intellectual manipulation when she referred to “the contrived program selection of West German television”; and by way of justification drew parallels to the content of East Germany’s submission, the film I – Axel Cäsar Springer (Ich – Axel Cäsar Springer, GDR 1968) by Karl Georg Egel and Harri Czepuck, which also treated the manipulation of a (newspaper) audience on a large scale. While West Germany’s submissions were among those with the least political relevance, Stern cast aspersions on the works of progressive authors like Max von der Grün, Rolf Hädrich, and Christian Geißler as “a hypocritical signpost for the ‘new Ostpolitik’ as a sheepskin for the wolf to hide in […]”.60 Her article was not entirely mistaken with respect to the explosive content of East Germany’s own entries; Pilots in Pyjamas (Piloten in Pyjama, GDR 1968), for instance, a documentary by Walter Heynowski and Gerd Scheumann, actually put the Vietnam War on the festival program. The West German daily Die Welt had this to say about the East German entries: “East Berlin’s Deutsche Fernsehfunk temporarily transformed the festival […] into an agitprop showcase through mountains of nicely bundled propaganda materials […].”61 The author, Anneliese de Haas, further bristled at the clearly manipulated interviews, arbitrary editing, and abuse of filmed objects. The film, she said, was “a perfect example of how documentaries can be misused, 55 Ibid. 56 Elvira Mollenschot, 58 Stunden bei Wallenstein. Rückschau auf das IV. Internationale Fernseh­ festival in Prag. In: Neues Deutschland, 26.6.1967. 57 Anneliese de Haas, Prag – kritische Bühne des internationalen Fernsehfilms. 5. TV-Festival – Tschechoslowakische Beiträge mutig und engagiert. In: Die Welt, 2.7.1968. 58 Katja Stern, Welcher Mensch, welche Welt? Zum 5. Internationalen Fernsehfestival in Prag. In: Neues Deutschland, 5.7.1968. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Anneliese de Haas, Prag – kritische Bühne des internationalen Fernsehfilms.

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mistreated, and manipulated”.62 The Frankfurter Rundschau also went in the same direction concerning East Germany’s intentions, pointing to its desire to criticize and call for reforms everywhere except in its own society. In contrast to Die Welt, however, it described Pilots in Pyjamas as a “considerable journalistic achievement”.63 Nevertheless, the two West German reports made no mention at all of the core concern of Heynowski’s and Scheumann’s documentary, which, despite the undisputed political use of the material, parallelled Western protesters in its condemnation of the Vietnam War. By way of this omission, the West, which the Frankfurter Rundschau claimed was the unchallenged leader in self-critical programs,64 presented itself in a no less politicized manner than did the East German press.

An Irony of Global History In August 1968, two months after the fifth International Television Festival in Prague, Soviet tanks rolled through the city and the political situation in the country worsened. “The concept of a true socialism with a human face found its home henceforth above all in the declared enmity towards the communist ruling system of the Soviet kind”,65 and the fighters of the Prague Spring were left with only “Karl Marx’s grand vision for humanity”.66 The television festival survived the Prague Spring and took place for the sixth time and with new statutes in June 1969, with participants coming from 33 countries. The political situation at home, however, had its way with the organization of the competition. Instead of a critical platform, as in the previous year, Prague presented a rather cautious festival program. Die Welt described it as a festival “of slightly intimidated, forewarned visitors” and “a festival in a state of emergency. In transition – but towards what, into what?”67 Festival brochures from before August 1968, however, show that the Prague Television Festival was fraught with politics from the beginning.68 62 Ibid. 63 Gert von Paczensky, Zuviel von Opas Fernsehen. Bericht vom 5. Prager Internationalen Fernseh-Festival. In: Frankfurter Rundschau, 2.7.1968. 64 Ibid. 65 Martin Sabrow, Sozialismus. In: Martin Sabrow (ed.), Erinnerungsorte der DDR, München 2009, p. 190. 66 Heinz Brandt, Ein Traum, der nicht entführbar ist. Mein Weg zwischen Ost und West, München 1967, p. 360. 67 Anneliese de Haas, Ein leises Festival, das keine Antwort gab. Querschnitt durch den TV-Alltag – Schlußbericht aus Prag. In: Die Welt, 3.7.1969. 68 For more insights on this topic see also Paulina Bren, Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring, New York 2010.

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In the 1960s, television was still a relatively new medium and not yet widely accepted and distributed; European culture had yet to recognize the importance of television, as it had with established film art. Television festivals were not places of interest for public protests, like the Cannes Film Festival, for instance, in 1968.69 The effectiveness of television and its corresponding competitions were to be found in the broader international cultural scene, where during the Cold War film festivals gave little attention “to scenes of confrontation and interference”.70 During this time, however, all television festivals, just like cinema festivals, were informed by social and political conditions.71 In the case of the Prague Television Festival, as an interface of ideologies and cultures, it was therefore even more difficult to maintain the balance between socialist and Western camps. Czech television, which was responsible for these events, and the international juries were often frequently exposed to political pressure and diplomatic coercion in the 1960s. Another aspect of such political saturation was the constant presence of the “German question” during the festival. Both German republics chose the Festival in the 1960s as the ultimate venue for their conflicts, which were more ideological than cultural. Both systems saw television mainly as a political mass medium. In this regard, one can understand the comment made by GDR journalist Katja Stern: “Ideological vagueness of the screen – what an irony of global history”.72 Intervision prepared and carefully maintained the political discourse in the television festivals in Prague over the years, just as it did with the Eastern European Song Contest.73 The principles of neutrality in organized Eastern competitions represented a space around which the ideologies revolved. In the future the festival was to be so structured as to “completely serve the party”. Intervision members were therefore to be “given the opportunity to compare and evaluate works that help to advance the development of socialist society and the formation of socialist people”.74 Nevertheless, apart from ideological struggles, the Prague festival was equally involved in creating, like other television festivals in Europe, a marketplace for the acquisition of television program content and thus exerted an influence on television programming in both camps, East and West. The European Television Festivals of the 1960s form a significant part in the development of the media history of the postwar period. And in both East and 69 70 71 72 73 74

Caroline Moine, Blicke über den Eisernen Vorhang, p. 273. Ibid., p. 271. Kötzing, Kultur- und Filmpolitik im Kalten Krieg, p. 391. Katja Stern, Welcher Mensch, welche Welt? As of 1971, Intervision also awarded its own prize at the festival. Peter Berger, Parteinahme auf dem Bildschirm. Während des 8. Internationalen Filmfestivals in Prag sprach unser Mitarbeiter Peter Berger mit dem Festivaldirektor Dr. Gennadij Codr. In: Neues Deutschland, 27.6.1971.

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West, this had everything to do with efforts to make the competitions politically neutral. So one can indeed state, on the one hand, that the television cultural landscape did not follow the dichotomy of the Cold War in every respect, as its extensive interconnections on either side of the Iron Curtain were no longer a problem. But inasmuch as television was the primary presentation platform for state broadcasters and state media authorities, these television festivals served both as propaganda tools of political systems and as venues for presenting and fostering content created by political television professionals and by artists living in those systems, and as such they could not help but become political instruments in the struggle of ideologies.

III. Festivals as a Stage for National and Transnational Politics

Maria A. Stassinopoulou Scenes from A Marriage: The Thessaloniki Film Festival Between Mainstream and Art Cinema From its Beginnings to the 1970s

First Steps The 1950s and 1960s witnessed the founding of a number of film festivals in southeast European countries. While these festivals aimed primarily to promote the national film industries in their respective countries, they also sought to establish themselves in the postwar European cultural order1 and to appeal to international participants in order to attract them as producers to local filming locations, which combined attractive landscapes with cheap production costs.2 Following the examples of Venice, Cannes, and Karlovy Vary, side attractions were combined with the film festival program. Yugoslavia promoted the Pula film festival (1954), and Turkey followed ten years later with the Antalya Film Festival (1963, first held in 1964), both of which were held on their countries’ respective “Rivieras”. The two cities also made use of local antiquities, staging the festivals on impressive sites dating from the Roman Empire. In Pula, this was the case from the very beginning; in Antalya, the festival was moved to the Aspendos amphitheater in 1974.3 Greece considered the island of Rhodes as a festival venue in the 1950s. In 1955, local authorities began making public announcements and inviting international film stars, but financial support was postponed.4 Rhodes, with its already 1 2

3 4

For a concise timeline of the emergence of film festivals in Europe, see Jesper Strandgaard Petersen/Carmelo Mazza, International Film Festivals: For the Benefit of Whom? In: Culture Unbound. Journal of Current Culture Research, 3 (2011), pp. 139–165 and 145–47. On festivals as an instrument of European national cultural politics, see Marijke de Valck, Film Festivals: From European geopolitics to Global Cinephilia, Amsterdam 2007, p. 47 ff. For a thoroughly documented case study of a film festival as a terrain of cultural diplomacy, see Stefano Pisu, Stalin a Venezia. L’Urss alla Mostra del cinema fra diplomazia culturale e scontro ideolo­ gico, 1932–1953, Soveria Mannelli 2013. On the promotion of Pula as an attractive location, see e.g. the 1955 and 1961 news and advertising reels, URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMMUfU__nmM; https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=JEvySfLCxwE. Ta Nea, 2.8.1955, p. 6; 10.9.1955, p. 6.

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booming tourist economy, showed interest in hosting the festival. With the decision to film parts of the Guns of Navarone (UK/USA 1961) on Rhodes in 1960, the island came to the attention of the international film industry. Rhodes could offer low costs due to the special tax regulations for the Dodecanese Islands, which had been turned over to Greece by Italy in 1947. The antiquities of Lindos, the impressive castle of the city of Rhodes, and the urban infrastructure of the interwar Italian period, which included a monumental theater and cinema built in 1937, all helped to make the site attractive for a film festival. Rhodes was also a central point of NATO and US strategic infrastructure in the region. Voice of America had broadcasted from the US Coast Guard cutter Courier, off the coast of Rhodes, since 1952.5 In October 1958 the island hosted a seminar of the Congress of Cultural Freedom funded by the Ford Foundation in co-operation with the Panteion School of Political Science.6 While this tourist destination near the Turkish coast seemed to be a perfect venue not only for the international film community, but also for the Greek Ministry of Industry and Greek critics and filmmakers,7 the plan never took off, and the Greek Cinema Week would be hosted by Thessaloniki. During the preparation of the celebrations for the 25th Thessaloniki International Trade Fair, the cinema club under the name of Techni (Art), a well-regarded, private cultural institution of Thessaloniki submitted a proposal that led to the decision to hold the first Greek Cinema Week in 1960 in Thessaloniki as part of the annual trade fair in September.8 The reasons for deciding in favor of Thessaloniki are manifold and related to economic and international politics. 5

6

7 8

On the USIA in Greece see Ioannis Stefanidis, Telling America’s Story: US Propaganda Operations and Public Reactions. In: Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora, 30 (2004) 1, pp. 39­–95; for details on the Aegean period of the USCGC Courier see URL: https://www.uscg.mil/tcyorktown/ info/History/Cutters/courier.asp (last accessed 13.2.2017). “Voice of America Broadcasts From Coast Guard Cutter”, Modesto Radio Museum, URL: http://www.modestoradiomuseum.org/ voa%20courier.html. Giles Scott Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture. The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA and Post-war American Hegemony, London/New York 2002, p. 157; UCL Special Collections, The Gaitskell Papers, CCF International Seminar, “Voice of America Broadcasts From Coast Guard Cutter”, Modesto Radio Museum, http://www.modestoradiomuseum.org/voa%20courier.html. Giannis Soldatos, Istoria tou ellinikou kinimatografou (History of Greek Cinema), vol. 3, Athens 1990, p. 105. On the festival, see Toby Kim Lee, Public Culture and Cultural Citizenship, unpublished Ph. D.  dissertation, Harvard 2013, an anthropological discussion of the participants and public at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in recent years, particularly after 2008. Soldatos (see footnote 7) includes materials on the festival in several volumes. A collection of texts on and photographs from the festival is available in the commemorative volume 50 Chronia Festival Thessalonikis, Thessaloniki 2009. For a succinct discussion of the festival, focusing on the international section, see Lydia Papadimitriou, The Hindered Drive Toward Internationalization: Thessaloniki (International) Film Festival. In: New Review of Film and Television Studies, 14 (2016) 1, pp. 93–111.

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Greece’s relationship with its northern neighbors was of major importance to Greek foreign affairs during this period.9 Although the countries belonged to different Cold War blocs, relations with Yugoslavia and Bulgaria had improved, enabling economic cooperation and joint bilateral political communiqués on the highest level. Nevertheless, smaller crises would emerge in regular intervals, often related to the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia as a constituent part of the Social Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945.10 Choosing Thessaloniki, with its short distance to the northern frontier and considerable historical relevance for all peoples of the region, allowed the Greek government to make use of the city’s substantial symbolic capital on the one hand, and on the other to reinforce its development as an economic hub of the region. For Techni, and in particular for its president, Linos Politis, and the director of its film section, Pavlos Zannas, it meant bringing an important cultural institution to Greece’s second largest city, which also boasted a rapidly expanding university.11 During the inauguration of the first Greek Cinema Week in 1960, Rhodes was mentioned again by the Minister of Industry as a possible venue for an international film festival, particularly due to its touristic infrastructure, while the General Secretary of the Ministry of Education emphasized his ministry’s preference for Thessaloniki,12 while making clear the festival’s ambivalent position between culture and commerce. At the end of the first Greek Cinema Week, Pavlos Zannas once more claimed the new institution for Thessaloniki.13 On 19 September 1961, shortly before the second Greek Cinema Week in Thessaloniki, the Karamanlis government passed parliamentary law 4208/1961 “On measures for the support of cinematography in Greece”. The law had been in the making for years and despite shortcomings was welcomed by all sides of the film community. It provided the film industry with an encompassing legal framework for the first time and located central decision-making in the Ministry of Industry. Its main source of inspiration was Italian legislation on film production.14 Like the promotion of tourism and the rapid electrification of rural Greece, the law on cinematography was seen as part of economic policies and related

  9 Evanthis Hatzivassiliou, Greece and the Cold War. Frontline State, 1952–1967, Routledge 2006. 10 Adamantios Skordos, Griechenlands Makedonische Frage. Bürgerkrieg und Geschichtspolitik im Südosten Europas 1945–1992, Göttingen 2012; Sotiris Valden, Ellada-Giougkoslavia, genesi kai exelixi mias krisis kai oi anakatataxeis sta Valkania, 1961–1962, Themelio 1991. 11 On Zannas and his contribution to the festival, see Lefteris Xanthopoulos, Pavlos Zannas, Athens 1999. 12 Ta Nea, 21.9.1960, p. 2. 13 P. A. Zannas, Na gini monimo kai diethnes to festival kinimatografou. In: To Vima, 9.10.1960, p. 3. 14 Intervention by Nikolaos Arvanitis, the Ministry of Industry’s supervising officer, during the 15th Thessaloniki Film Festival (1974), quoted in Soldatos, Istoria, vol. 4, p. 221.

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lawmaking to attract foreign investment in Greece.15 Both the legal framework of law 4208/1961 and the film festival were considered a boost for the film industry, which after continuous but slow development in the forties and fifties had entered a period of rapid expansion.16 Greek Cinema Week, as the festival in Thessaloniki would be called until 1965, became the meeting point during the last week of September for representatives of the Greek film industry, film socialites and aspiring cinematographers. The program structure and general participation rules were similar to other festival venues, e. g. screening national productions before the launch of commercial distribution or trying to combine representation of the mainstream film industry and star culture with the atmosphere of film clubs, which was characterized by debates over art films. Despite somewhat deprecating criticisms, mostly by Athenian film critics, of mainstream productions in particular, filmmakers with art-cinema aspirations frequented the event from the beginning and participated primarily with shorts and documentaries. The festival committee included film industry representatives, authors, critics, a member of the government, and an executive from the International Thessaloniki Trade Fair, the host of the event. Organized for the first Greek Cinema Week in 1960, a retrospective section attempted to construct a Greek feature film canon based on nine films that had been successful both on the international film festival circuit and at the box office at home. These included The Counterfeit Coin (Kalpiki Lira, Greece 1955), Stella (Greece 1955), and The Ogre of Athens (Drakos, Greece 1956), among others.17 In 1962, the Greek Union of Critics began awarding its own distinctions. Athenian film critics, however, remained ambivalent as to the perfect site for a successful festival. Marios Ploritis of the daily Eleftheria, mentioned by Soldatos as one of the early advocates of a festival in Rhodes, seemed to warm up to Thessaloniki and even became a member of the committee of the first Greek Cinema Week; but other journalists maintained their critical stance.18 In the following years, Rhodes would come up in the media as an alternative to Thessaloniki whenever the festival’s flaws were discussed collectively or individually by filmmakers – whether 15

See for example the encompassing economic data on the possibilities of cinema as industry in T. Mirkos, I Elliniki Viomichania Kinimatografou (The Greek Film Industry). In: Oikonomikos Tachydromos, 4.6.1959, pp. 8–9. 16 Chrysanthi Sotiropoulou, Elliniki kinimatografia 1965–1975. Thesmiko Plaisio-Oikonomiki katastasi, Athens 1989. 17 The difficulties of national film canons with popular films are discussed in Dimitris Eleftheriotis, Popular Cinemas of Europe. Studies of Texts, Contexts, and Frameworks, New York/London 2001, in particular pp. 25 ff. 18 Soldatos, Istoria, vol. 3, p. 106; Ploritis’s positive report on the new festival appeared in Eleftheria, 30.9.1960, pp.1 and 4. For an opposite view of the festival (“a fiasco”), see the detailed description of the problems of the new institution in G.K. Pilichos, Exelissetai se “fiasko” to festival Thessalonikis. In: Ta Nea, 24.9.1960, p. 2.

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producers, technicians, or actors – or film critics. After the 1965 festival, Nikos Koundouros considered a transfer to Rhodes to be a solution to the problem of excessive control by the various ministries involved, and as an opportunity to promote art cinema; the Greek-American James Paris (né Dimitrios Paraschakis) also thought Rhodes would be an ideal venue for an international film festival, one with distinct marketplace features.19

National or International Festival?20 International participation was initially conceived in accordance with the regulations of the International Thessaloniki Trade Fair, which functioned as the festival’s host. Only films from countries taking part in the fair were allowed to participate in the non-competitive international section, which awarded honorary distinctions. As the Thessaloniki festival had not yet been internationally accredited, it still was not an attractive station on the continually growing European festival circuit. The organizers were thus obliged to screen mostly international films that were already on the import lists for Greek distribution and had already passed censorship procedures.21 The films were official national submissions as was the standard in European festivals until the 1980s.22 In 1961, the first non-competitive international section included five features and five short films. Distinctions were awarded to The Adventure (L’Avventura, Italy 1960), Splendid Days (Seryozha, USSR 1960), and A Ship is Born (Narodziny Statku, Poland 1961). The steady presence of Eastern European entries reflected not only Greece’s special position on the European landscape of the Cold War, but also the strong presence of those countries at the trade fair and in Greek commerce generally; sometimes, however, this was a problem for Greek diplomacy.23 In 1962, a film from a Balkan country was shown in the international section for

19 G.K. Pilichos, O Koundouros antepitithetai. In: Ta Nea, 7.10.1965, p. 2; K. Stamatiou, Festival tainion to Maio sti Rodo. In: Ta Nea, 2.10.1965, p. 2. 20 On the conflicting interests that hindered the development of an international festival, see Papadimitriou, The Hindered Drive. 21 K. Stamatiou, To festival Thessalonikis tha diethnopoiithei i tha mataiothei. In: Ta Nea, 25.6.1965, p. 2. 22 Dorota Ostrowska, Polish Films at the Venice and Cannes Film Festivals: The 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. In: Ewa Mazierska/Michael Goddard (eds.), Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context, Rochester 2014, pp. 77–94, in particular pp. 79–82. 23 Hatzivassiliou, Frontline State, pp. 101–102. The GDR’s attempt to organize a DEFA film week in April 1959 in Athens was thwarted following an intervention by the Greek government; see the West German embassy report, 17.4.1959 (Political Archive of the German Federal Foreign Office, B 26, 131), published in Dionysios Chourchoulis et al. (eds.), Greece during the early Cold War. The View from the Western Archives: Documents, Thessaloniki 2015, pp. 31–32.

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the first time. It was Ion Popescu-Gopo’s dialogue-free A Bomb Was Stolen (S-a furat o bombă, Romania 1961), which had participated in Cannes in May of the same year. In 1966, Zannas launched an official separate international festival called International Film Festival.24 The films shown in the international section during these early years were a combination of US and New Hollywood, European mainstream, and New European Cinemas. Films from neighboring countries do not seem to have been chosen systematically, but instead would catch the organizers’ attention after earning international success at A-list festivals. I Even Met Happy Gypsies (Skupljači perja, Yugoslavia 1967) for example, which had won the Grand Prix du Jury at Cannes in 1967, was shown in Thessaloniki in 1968. How precisely Cold War politics influenced decision-making regarding the distinctions awarded in the international section has not yet been studied,25 but according to annual lists of distinctions, at least one film from Eastern Europe received an award every year. In the 1965 festival, actor Sergo Zakariadze was present and received the distinction for his role in the film Father of a Soldier (Jariskatsis Mama, USSR 1964); this appears to be the film’s first international distinction after its entry in the 4th Moscow Festival in 1964. Hollywood stars were sometimes attracted to the festival (e.g. Anthony Quinn in 1971), but Thessaloniki remained behind Pula, which managed to attract the attention of international media with the help of Tito.26

Conflicting Narratives About the Festival In 1965 the festival was again targeted from all sides. While Athenian media staged the debate as a conflict between commercially oriented producers and art cinema-oriented filmmakers and film critics, the tensions primarily reflected the political crisis of the summer and spring of 1965, after prime minister Georgios Papandreou stepped down and King Constantine II dismissed the government.27

24

Makedonia, 15.9.1966, p. 1 and p. 6; Brochure on the first 10 festivals, quoted in Soldatos, vol. 4, p. 90. 25 Archival sources have been published in an extremely selective way (see e. g. here fn. 8). An historical study on the Cold War Years would have to focus on the material of the Ministry of Industry, which is currently being inventoried at the General Archives of Greece. 26 See e. g. diary excerpts in: Richard Burton, The Longest Days. Harper’s Magazine Archive, October 2012, URL: http://harpers.org/archive/2012/10/the-longest-days/; for an introduction to Yugoslav cultural politics of the 1960s and 1970s, see Zoran Janjetović, Od ‘Internacionale’ do komercijale. Popularna kultura u Jugoslavii, 1945–1991, Belgrade 2011; on the 1960s and early 1970s in Yugoslav cinema, see Daniel J. Goulding, Liberated Cinema. The Yugoslav Experience, 1945–2001. Bloomington/Indianapolis 2002, pp. 62–142. 27 Letter by Takis Sinopoulos, committee member, and festival report by Giorgos Pilichos. In: Ta Nea, 24.9.1965, p. 2.

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But it is the following year’s festival that stands out in all timelines and national film histories. It is remembered as a year when the festival featured particularly strong art cinema entries and when the official name was changed to Thessaloniki Film Festival.28 Reports on the 1966 festival point to the growing political tensions caused in part by the fact that Pavlos Zannas, who had brought the festival to Thessaloniki in 1960, had been appointed director of the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair in 1965 by the Papandreou government, which was no longer in power. The 1966 festival was perceived by contemporaries, and later by film historians as well, as the moment when the institution came of age, because it featured a number of films with nouvelle vague characteristics.29 Despite the media debates there was a general consensus that this was the central site of communication for the Greek film industry in general and for filmmakers aspiring to make their mark in art cinema. It coincided with the opening of the Greek film season, which started in September, and symbolically introduced the new season following the summer break. The term “coming-of-age” would nevertheless be applied to a number of the festival’s other iterations during the dictatorship of the colonels (1967–1974), in particular those of 1970, 1972, and 1973, which saw the emergence of hitherto marginally known filmmakers. This repetitive use of a narrative trope calls for some attention to the ways in which political and economic change accelerated the change of agents in the art cinema scene in general, and more specifically at the festival. With the beginning of the dictatorship, Zannas, a committed cinephile and organizer, was sacked from his post as director of the Thessaloniki festival(s). Despite being asked to return to the position, he refused and would be tried and incarcerated in 1968 for participation in the Democratic Defense resistance group. Just five months after the colonels’ coup and in a general climate of political oppression, heightened censorship controls, and persecution of opposition activists, the 7th Greek Film Festival took place from 18 to 24 September 1967. The feature film section was particularly meager. The only entry with any artistic ambition, Silhouettes (Greece 1967) by Kostis Zois, received the prizes for best art cinema film, cinematography, and best actor. Some of the protagonists of former festival iterations, in particular of the 1966 festival, observed the 1967 festival from afar. The director Roviros Manthoulis,

28 29

Epitheorisi Technis, 141 (1966), p. 199. On the New Greek Cinema, see Maria Chalkou, Towards the Creation of “Quality” Greek National Cinema in the 1960s, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Glasgow 2008, URL: http:// theses.gla.ac.uk/1882/; Stathis Valoukos, Neos Ellinikos Kinimatografos, 1965–1981. Istoria kai politiki, Athens 2011; Maria A. Stassinopoulou, The “System”, “New Greek Cinema”, Theo Angelopoulos: A Reconstruction, 1970–1972. In: Lucile Dreidemy et al. (eds.), Bananen, Cola, Zeitgeschichte. Oliver Rathkolb und das lange 20. Jahrhundert, Vienna 2015, pp. 832–847.

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who had been at Cannes on 21 April 1967, remained in Paris, as did the writer, film critic, and director Ado Kyrou, who was already a French resident before the coup. Dimos Theos, who was shooting Kierion at the time, moved after the coup to England, where he rapidly completed the editing of his film in order to be able to submit it for the 1968 Mostra, where it received a special mention. Nikos Koundouros, a veteran of the international festival circuit, but also of the Thessaloniki festival, continued work on his experimental film Vortex outside of Greece. Nikos Papatakis, who had formerly worked in France and in 1967 had started a Greek production, The Shepherds (Oi Voskoi), returned to France to finish his film, where it was distributed in 1968 as The Shepherds of Calamity (Les Pâtres du désordre). Some film directors who had achieved artistic recognition in the pre-1967 festivals and who stayed in Greece after the coup – like Takis Kanellopoulos (Thessaloniki 1961, 1962, 1966; Cannes 1962), Kostas Manousakis (Thessaloniki 1964, 1966), and Pantelis Voulgaris (Thessaloniki 1966) – also did not participate in the 1967 festival. It is not clear if this was due to political precautions or to the financial difficulty of producing in such short intervals. Non-participation was also consistent with silence as a form of passive resistance, a widespread strategy adopted among intellectuals and artists in the first years of the dictatorship. The period immediately following the coup saw the stricter application of existing pre- and post production censorship rules and blunt interventions by state representatives in festival decisions; it coincided with the beginning of a decisive economic downward trend for the whole of the industry, which in 1966–1967 had just seen the highest number of tickets sold for Greek productions in a single season. This trend, which reached its nadir after 1970, resulted mainly from the late appearance of television in Greece. It influenced the film and cinema economy as a whole and led to the closing of cinemas all over Greece. Its effects were felt even more strongly by those with independent ambitions outside mainstream production. Companies had until then offered survival jobs to artistically ambitious filmmakers, and at times even provided financing and distribution support for “difficult” side projects. The transfer of mainstream entertainment from the big screen to the television set provided new jobs, but adapting to the new structures was a slow process and members of all groups, from directors to lighting technicians, found themselves confronted with fewer and fewer opportunities to work.30 The downward trend of the industry and the crisis at the box office meant that the festival, now more than before 1967, became the central focal point of filmmakers, film critics, and audiences, but also of state intervention and strategies.

30

On film and television production during the colonels’ regime, see Stephane Sawas, Les écrans Grecs sous la dictature des colonels: la grande rupture. In: Raphaël Muller/Thomas Wieder (eds.), Cinéma et régimes autoritaires au XXe siècle. Ecrans sous influence, Paris 2008, pp. 213–237, 237 ff., 262–265.

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On the one hand, the idea of an international festival was reintroduced, leading in 1972 to the 1st Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which was accredited by the FIAPF.31 On the other hand, international filmmakers seemed to warm up to the idea of participating in such a festival as early as 1968, while its official organizer, the Trade Fair, was eager to support it, as it could provide an additional attraction for visitors. In 1968, Theo Angelopoulos participated in the short film competition of the Greek Film Festival for the first time with Broadcast (Ekpombi, Greece 1968), which received first prize. Of former acclaimed participants, Takis Kanellopoulos entered a film based on Noel Coward’s play Still Life – which had previously been adapted by David Lean in the successful film Brief Encounter (GB 1945) – and won several prizes. A number of filmmaking protagonists of the pre-1967 festivals remained outside the country. Access to the festival was thus made easier for those who were able to find a filmic language that circumvented censorship difficulties. New entries and fresh participants were greeted warmly by an expectant and avid cinephile public, which had been built up during the postwar decades in ciné-clubs and media and which keenly felt the silence of artists and writers during the first years of the dictatorship. The first feature film entry by Angelopoulos, Reconstruction (Anaparastasi, Greece 1970), was hailed in all the main newspapers as an important event for revitalizing the festival and carrying away five prizes in 1970. The following year’s festival, however, was to become the last to feature memorable mainstream productions that were box office successes at the same time. Two 1971 films that celebrated Greek heroism nevertheless featured antithetical ideological content. What Did You Do in the War, Thanasis? (Ti ekanes ston polemo Thanasi, Greece) by Dinos Katsouridis, is a low-budget, black-and-white film satire set during the German occupation in WWII, but with a contemporary political message – personal integrity and resistance to authoritarianism. It was based on popular mainstream recipes and outstanding acting, and featured cameos by a number of well-known actors as well as a crew that included Giorgos Arvanitis, who would become famous as Angelopoulos’s cameraman, and the later director Pavlos Tasios. Papaflessas (Greece 1971) by Errikos Andreou, on the other hand, an historical film commemorating the sesquicentenary of the Greek War of Independence, was a color blockbuster (for Greek production dimensions).32 It brought together not only well-known film stars and the major Greek production company Finos Film, but also the Greek-American producer James 31

Papadimitriou, The Hindered Drive, p. 99; the decree establishing the International Thessaloniki Film Festival was published nevertheless in the Official Gazette on 19.7.1973 (149/1), Decree Number 58, Paragraph 18 (p. 1369). 32 On war-related films during the colonels’ regime, see Foteini Tomai (ed.), Anaparastaseis tou polemou meta ton emfylio, Athens 2006, pp. 191–287.

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Paris (né Dimitrios Paraschakis), who had been active in pre-1967 festivals, as well as a new player in production and distribution finance, General Film Enterprises (GFE). The nationalistic historical films with anticommunist content made during the dictatorship have been discussed extensively in later film histories. But interestingly enough, there was no increase in the number of historical films at the festival as compared with the period before 1967. It should be noted that the history film genre, despite the fact that it represented only a small segment of overall Greek film productions, was a steady presence among award-winning films between 1960 and 1974. Historical themes seem to have been a safe ticket to festival distinctions. While film critics continued the polarized discussion of the 1960s on mainstream versus art cinema – the former being considered commercial or escapist, the latter invested with hopes for cultural and social change – two new economic players emerged in the early 1970s as direct or indirect financial supporters of film production and distribution in the vacuum left by the rapid retreat of the older production companies. General Film Enterprises (GFE) was a company planned in the late 1960s and founded in 1970 by the Bank for Industrial Development (ETBA) and was closely connected with state economic policies. Plans for the company had emerged as a reaction to the legal impetus given by the state under the Association Agreement between Greece and the European Community in 1961. Following this agreement, the monetary commission of the Bank of Greece, then in control of the closely monitored bank loan system, permitted banks to provide loans to film producers, a measure that was initially met with distrust by bank boards in the period of uncontrolled and rapid expansion of Greek film production up to 1967.33 Having previously subsidized industrial film productions, the ETBA began setting up the General Film Enterprises company (GFE) in 1968. Two years later, a company directly affiliated with a state-controlled bank began for the first time to provide substantial financial support for mainstream films while closely monitoring content. The board discussions of the GFE in its early period demonstrate the importance of the festival for the choices of the financiers.34 Angelopoulos’s Reconstruction, which had already been discussed as a potential investment project on the basis of newspaper reports after the preview in Athens in August 1970, became the object of specific interest after its success at the Thessaloniki Greek Film Festival of 1970. A board member initiated talks during the festival, and the project of financing extra copies was pursued until both the producer, Giorgos Samiotis, and Angelopoulos decided not to cooperate with the GFE.35 The ETBA’s primary 33 34 35

Soldatos, Istoria, vol. 4, p. 222. Stassinopoulou, The “System”, “New Greek Cinema”, Theo Angelopoulos. GFE Board meetings, 12.10.1970 and 1.12.1970 (Historical Archives Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation, file Φ70, 1a).

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aims when founding the company had been to attract international productions and to develop technical infrastructure, but gradually the GFE came to back primarily Greek films while rapidly becoming a substantial presence in the festival. In 1973, the company staged an official dinner to celebrate the end of the 14th festival and to announce future plans, thus explicitly presenting itself as a major festival stakeholder.36 The second supportive structure, the Ford Foundation, acted more discreetly, but was equally interested in the proceedings of the festival. Mostly on the initiative of Kaiti Myrivili, its officer in Greece from the end of 1969 on, the Ford Foundation had developed a substantial financial support umbrella for independent filmmakers, who could apply either as individual grantees or as members of a private company founded by the editors of the sole specialized Greek film journal, Synchronos Kinematografos (Contemporary Cinema). The journal served as the primary platform for representing this group of filmmakers. Its reporting on the festival and on films made by members of the group or financed through the Synchronos Kinematografos company or other Ford Foundation grants inevitably created a complex network of interests. This network was well known in the film community, but was not so evident at the festival itself. 37 In 1972, Theo Angelopoulos and Pantelis Voulgaris – two filmmakers supported by individual grants of the Ford Foundation and at the same time members of the Synchronos Kinematografos company founding committee – carried away the major festival prizes, at which Myrivili enthusiastically declared the festival “a triumph for the Society [of Synchronos Kinematografos]”. Myrivili felt the need to explain to Wilson McNeal Lowry, then head of the Division of Arts and Humanities of the Ford Foundation, that “although the Thessaloniki Film Festival is a provincial one by international standards, nevertheless the fact that it does exist, and is such an important outlet for young Greek filmmakers, makes it a very significant event”.38 She also mentioned in some detail the difficulties in passing through the festival preparatory selection instruments, which exercised, it was thought, content control under the pretext of applying quality criteria. In 1973, Giorgos Savvidis, an eminent literary and film critic and former festival committee member who had also been professor at the University of Thessaloniki before leaving it in 1971, presided over the committee of the 14th Thessaloniki Greek Film Festival. Savvidis gave an extensive interview to the newspaper Ta Nea, 36 Newsreel on the GFE dinner celebrating the end of the 14th Thessaloniki Film Festival, URL: http://mam.avarchive.gr/portal/digitalview.jsp?get_ac_id=2396&thid=8111 (last accessed 22.12.2016). 37 Stassinopoulou, The “System”, “New Greek Cinema”, Theo Angelopoulos. 38 Letter from Kaiti Myrivili to McNeil Lowry, 18.10.1972 (Gennadius Collections, Ford Foundation in Greece, Series III, Ford Foundation Grants in Greece, Box II, folder 2, Contemporary Cinema).

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entitled “Achievements and Problems of the Thessaloniki Film Festival: Midwife or Stepmother of the Greek Cinema?” in which he described the great progress of the festival and spoke of a phase of adolescence, as compared to earlier festivals, a phase that would hopefully lead to adulthood. Savvidis also discussed the festival’s selection committees. One should reduce selection, he suggested in a rather bold statement; let all films enter and thus avoid the risk of refusing entry to a bad film, which would then use the rejection as a political argument for promotion on the international festival circuit.39 With Savvidis’s statement, the festival’s coming-of-age was established as the achievement of its 1970–1973 editions and was taken up as such in Greek film historiography, despite the fact that the 1966 festival continues to be regarded as the great achievement of Pavlos Zannas. The political transition of July 1974 brought into the open the different paths of economic survival chosen by filmmakers during the second half of the colonels’ regime, as well as the passage of the Greek film economy from a profitable, popular moviehouse culture based on private companies to an equally profitable television culture based on state funding. In addition to the directors who had emerged in the Greek Film Festival between 1970 and 1974, the return of filmmakers who had remained outside Greece until the end of the dictatorship, and the re-appearance of previously acclaimed filmmakers who had remained outside the festival between 1967 and 1974, created an increase in potential projects seeking funding. The festivals from 1974 to 1977 were characterized by conflicts and accusations within the film community, disagreements between the Ministry of Industry and the filmmaker corporations, heated participation by the audience, intensive media debates, and finally an anti-festival in 1977, which resulted from the ministry’s introduction of new festival regulations without having sufficiently consulted with filmmakers. After 1974, the festival focused increasingly on Greek cinema; and the last international festival of this period was organized in 1981. International retrospectives did take place, however, e.g. one on Michelangelo Antonioni in 1987 and one on Jean Rouch in 1988. But it was during the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s that the international section was resuscitated, becoming the strong point of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival and the main marketplace for films from Southeastern Europe as well as for cooperations. With Greece then being the only EU country in the region and thus the only one with direct access to EU funding, Thessaloniki once again served to promote the country as a key player in Balkan cultural politics.40

39 40

Interview with Giorgos Savvidis. In: Ta Nea, 10.10.1973 and 11.10.1973. Papadimitriou, The Hindered Drive, pp. 104 ff; on strategies of access to EU funding, see Dina Iordanova, Feature Filmmaking Within the New Europe: Moving Funds and Images Across the East-West Divide. In: Media, Culture, and Society, 24 (2002) 4, pp. 517–536.

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In early 1975, following deliberations of the board, General Film Enterprises (GFE) changed its name to the Greek Film Center; in 1980, it was transferred from the aegis of the Ministry of Industry to that of the Ministry of Culture. The board was charged with developing strategies for film subsidies based on artistic criteria, while the Greek Bank for Industrial Development (ETBA) nominally retained financial control. In 1986, the Greek Film Center was nationalized (law 1597 of 1986, §16.3. as published in the Official Gazette No. 68). By that time, the group of filmmakers and film critics who had been supported by the Ford Foundation and had been mostly liberal or leftist in their politics, were either members of the board of the Greek Film Center or were supported by it. A new network thus gradually came to replace the pre-1970 system of production and distribution companies. It would dominate funding decisions in Greek film production and shape its major forum, the Thessaloniki Film Festival, well into the 1990s.

Stefano Pisu Transnational Mobilization and Domestic Political Exploitation: The 1977 Venice Biennale of Dissent

This essay aims to study the 1977 Venice Biennale – the so-called Biennale of Dissent – by focusing on related cinematic initiatives that had replaced the traditional Mostra after 1968. Firstly, we will briefly reconstruct the main stages of the Mostra from 1968 to the second half of 1970s within the broader institutional evolution of the Biennale. Later we will analyze the origins of the Biennale of Dissent and describe the diplomatic and domestic political tensions that it aroused. We will further focus on the different film initiatives that were organized – film exhibition and conferences – and that engendered many conflicts both in the international and domestic cinematic environments. Finally, the “Parajanov affair” will allow us to place the personal example of the imprisoned Soviet director within the broader framework of the transnational mobilization for human rights that manifested in the 1970s.

The Crisis of 1968 and the Reform of the Venice Biennale As an original and complex form of cultural, but also political and industrial mobilization, international film festivals were fully a part of twentieth-century history, having interacted with its main temporal stages due to their annual (or biennial) frequency as well.1 By 1968, film festivals were spaces of significant political, social, and cultural protest, in which national issues intersected with 1

See Marijke de Valck, Film Festivals. From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia, Amsterdam 2007. On the Cannes Film Festival in a historical perspective, see Loredana Latil, Le Festival de Cannes sur la scène internationale, Paris 2005. On the film festival as a source for the cultural history of Germany during the Cold War, see Caroline Moine, Cinéma et guerre froide. Histoire du festival de films documentaires de Leipzig, 1955–1990, Paris 2014, and Andreas Kötzing, Kultur- und Filmpolitik im Kalten Krieg. Die Filmfestivals von Leipzig und Oberhausen in gesamtdeutscher Perspektive, 1954–1972, Göttingen 2013. For a more general overview of festivals – not only film festivals – as sources for history, see Anaïs Fléchet et al. (eds.), Une histoire des festivals. XXe–XXIe siècle, Paris 2013.

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s­ upport for transnational movements, giving such initiatives a twofold dimension. It is interesting to note that in 1968 these events in different countries were not only media platforms from which to launch social protests, but also objects of such attacks. This double role led to different consequences for film festivals: from their interruption to their continuation, or to the implementation of significant organizational changes.2 Concerning the Venice Mostra del Cinema, the situation was even more delicate as it distinguished itself from other traditional international film festivals in its direct dependence on a larger public cultural institution, i.e. the Venice Biennale.3 From the beginning of summer 1968 there had been fighting between security forces and students who contested the Biennale. These protests led many artists to withdraw their own works from the exhibition.4 In July, the ANAC (National Association of Cinematic Authors), an organization that had been in a state of rupture since February, called on directors from around the world to boycott the Mostra. Critics were concerned by the fact that the festival’s charter dated from the Fascist period (1938) and by its implicit authoritarian, academic, and hermetic organization. It was also viewed as an emblem of world-wide capitalism’s hegemony in the cultural field. For its detractors, the Mostra embodied the idea of bourgeois superstructure, with its intentions to spread culture in the form of consumer goods, despite the reforms of previous years that had given it more artistic autonomy.5 Actually the model of a traditional “industry” film festival had already been challenged in the early 1960s by way of the so-called “anti-festival”, which pursued primarily cultural goals. Of these, the Rassegna del Cinema Latino-Americano di Santa Margherita Ligure and the Mostra del Cinema Libero di Porretta Terme were both established in 1960, and the Mostra del Nuovo Cinema di Pesaro in 1965.6 The latter was also held in May 1968 – at the same time as the Cannes Film 2

3

4 5 6

For a comparative approach to international film festivals in 1968 see Caroline Moine, De Cannes à Karlovy Vary, de Berlin-Ouest à Venise: les festivals internationaux de cinéma dans les tourmentes de 1968. In: Christian Delporte et al. (eds.), Images et sons de Mai 68, Paris 2011, pp. 235–249. On the Biennale’s history see Enzo Di Martino, Storia della Biennale di Venezia, 1895–2003. Arti visive, architettura, cinema, danza, musica, teatro, Venezia 2003, and Clarissa Ricci (ed.), Starting from Venice. Studies on the Biennale, Milano 2010. On the origin of the Venice Film Festival within the framework of the Biennale, see Marla Stone, Challenging Cultural Categories: The Transformation of the Venice Biennale International Film Festival under Fascism. In: Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2 (1999), pp. 184–208, and Francesco Bono, La Mostra del cinema di Venezia: nascita e sviluppo nell’anteguerra (1932–1939). In: Storia Contemporanea, 3 (1991), pp. 513–549. See Mario De Micheli, Gli artisti dal rifiuto all’azione. In: l’Unità, 29.6.1968. Daniele Ongaro, Lo schermo diffuso. Cento anni di festival cinematografici in Italia, Bologna 2006, pp. 149–150. Guglielmo Pescatore, Pesaro e i nuovi festival. In: Gianni Canova (ed.), Storia del cinema italiano. Vol. XI: 1965/1969, Rome and Venice 2002, pp. 520–525.

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Festival – and was harshly criticized by student protestors.7 Unlike the French case, in Pesaro the very same directors were attacked because they were members of the festival organization.8 The Pesaro Festival, however, was not interrupted, but instead became a meeting where its own organization and general goals were discussed. This discussion led to relevant organizational changes through forms of self-management.9 The so-called “Pesaro factor” affected the future of the Venice Mostra. The opening ceremony was suspended and the event was conducted in a very chaotic manner: Some jury members defected; some directors refused to show their films; Mostra director Luigi Chiarini resigned, but then changed his mind; self-managed meetings were broken up by the police.10 The festival nevertheless ended according to schedule with the award ceremony for Alexander Kluge’s Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed (Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos, FRG 1968), a film that featured a strong, far left-wing social critique. The Mostra and the Venice Biennale in general fell into a crisis that led to the search for a new organizational form. The Biennale was put under temporary receivership with a view to reforming it substantially as so many in the film world had called for.11 From 1969 to 1972 the Mostra did not feature a competition12 and this led to a minor appeal in the media.13 In 1972–1973, the associations of film authors organized in the center of Venice the Giornate del cinema italiano, which r­ epresented   7 See Antonio Medici, Un grande disegno riformatore. Conversazione con Mino Argentieri. In: Antonio Medici/ Mauro Morbidelli/Ermanno Taviani (eds.), Il PCI e il cinema tra cultura e propaganda, 1959–1979, Roma 2001, pp. 76–80.   8 Le battaglie degli autori. Conversazione con Francesco Maselli. In: Medici et al. (eds.), Il PCI e il cinema tra cultura e propaganda, pp. 95–96.   9 Daniele Ongaro, Lo schermo diffuso, pp. 145–148. 10 See Il ‘68 a Venezia: la XXIX Mostra e la contestazione. Documenti e testimonianze. In: Bianco e Nero, 2–3 (1998); Stefano Della Casa, La contestazione a Venezia. In: Gianni Canova (ed.), Storia del cinema italiano, p. 356. The same work also includes a collection of documents on the protests in Pesaro and Venice. For another account of protests in Venice and their consequences, see Giacomo Manzoli, Il carnevale di Venezia: 1968. In: Bianco e Nero, 563 (2009), pp. 41–49. For an account of the events by way of the documents held in the Biennale’s archives, see: Riccardo Triolo, Per una storia della Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica: Revisione e studio della Serie Cinema conservata presso l’Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee di Venezia, PhD Thesis, Università degli studi di Padova, ciclo XXII, pp. 251–260. On the disputes amongst filmmakers concerning the Mostra and the Italian Communist Party’s role in them, see: Medici, Un grande disegno riformatore, pp. 80–82; Le battaglie degli autori, pp. 96–98. 11 On the left-wing parties’ role in the debate that led to the ratification of the new charter of the Biennale, see: Qualità e pluralismo. Conversazione con Giorgio Napolitano. In: Il PCI e il cinema tra cultura e propaganda, p. 53. On the differences between the national officials of Italian Communist Party and the Venice branch of that party, see: Le battaglie degli autori, p. 99. 12 Luis Bunuel (1969), Orson Welles (1970), John Ford, Marcel Carné, and Ingmar Begmann (1971), Charlie Chaplin, Anatoli Golovnya, and Billy Wilder (1972). 13 Only special lifetime achievement awards have been awarded. Callisto Cosulich, Quel che resta del Sessantotto. Nuovi statuti per l’Ente Autonomo di Gestione per il Cinema e per la Biennale

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an alternative to the Mostra and was very successful.14 In 1973, there was no Biennale exhibition, nor did the Mostra take place. On 26 July 1973, the new Biennale’s charter was approved following a protracted debate.15 A “democratic” Board of Governors was created, composed of members chosen by the government and parliament, key local institutions, more prominent trade organizations, as well as a staff delegate. This board elected the president and chose the heads of different sections (visual arts, cinema, music, theater).16 The Board of Governors was appointed by the three main political parties (the Christian Democratic Party, the Italian Communist Party, and the Italian Socialist Party), as the new charter was approved by the whole parliament – both majority and opposition – and no longer by the government alone. In 1974, the Socialist Carlo Ripa di Meana was appointed first president of the new Biennale, a position he held until 1978.17 The Venice Biennale was to move from the exhibition and marketing of art objects (including films) to the organization of different activities – not only artistic – that focused on a single subject of cultural and political importance. However, both financial and organizational shortages as well as political pressures considerably changed the shape of interdisciplinary projects for the period 1974–1977.18

di Venezia. In: Flavio De Bernardinis (ed.), Storia del cinema italiano. Vol. XII: 1970/1976, Rom and Venice 2008, pp. 469–473. 14 Callisto Cosulich, Quel che resta del Sessantotto, p. 473. 15 See Legge 26 Iuglio 1973, no. 438. Nuovo ordinamento dell’Ente autonomo “La Biennale di Venezia”. In: Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee (ed.), Annuario 1975. Eventi del 1974, Venezia 1975, pp. 15–22. 16 See Decreto del presidente del Consiglio del Consiglio dei Ministri 21 febbraio 1974. Costituzione del Consiglio direttivo dell’Ente autonomo “La Biennale di Venezia”. In: Ibid., p. 41. 17 In his youth, from 1948 to 1958, Ripa di Meana (b. 1929) was a member of the Communist Party. From 1953 to 1956 he lived in Prague, where he worked as the editor of World Student News, the Journal of the Communist International Union of Students. After the Soviet invasion of Hungary, he finally left the Communist Party and moved to the Socialist Party. The 1956 events broke the front that had joined the two main Italian left-wing political parties: The Italian Communist Party did not officially condemn the Soviet repression, whereas the Italian Socialist Party did; the Socialists broke with the Communists and welcomed Communist political defectors, like di Meana. On Ripa di Meana, see Carlo Ripa di Meana/Gabriella Mecucci, L’Ordine di Mosca. Fermate la Biennale del Dissenso. Una storia mai raccontata, Roma 2007; Carlo Ripa di Meana/Stefania Marra, Sorci Verdi, Milano 1997; Carlo Ripa di Meana, Cane sciolto, Milano 2000. 18 In 1974–75, the Biennale’s main theme was Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship, and many Chilean directors in exile attended the film initiatives that year. It was not, however, a great success due to the fact that the event began in autumn. In 1976, the Biennale’s main theme was Spain under the Franco dictatorship. See Callisto Cosulich, Quel che resta del Sessantotto, pp. 474–475.

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The Biennale of Dissent’s Project: Diplomatic and Domestic Tensions In 1976, as a result of the world-wide growing interest for the phenomenon of dissent and of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, Ripa di Meana conceived a project for the following year that would focus on the phenomenon of dissidence in the USSR and the Soviet Bloc. This choice ignited a bitter controversy both in diplomatic relations between Italy and the USSR and in Italian domestic politics. In March 1977, the Soviet ambassador to Italy, Nikita Ryzhov, asked the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Arnaldo Forlani (Christian Democrat Party) to cancel the Biennale program on dissent. The ambassador argued that the USSR and other Warsaw Pact countries would boycott the Venice event and would withdraw from other international initiatives. One can explain the Soviet attitude not only by the fact that in late 1977 the USSR was preparing to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the October Revolution and the approval of the new constitution. The main issue Soviet officials were concerned about was the emergence of human rights discourse on the international agenda, both in Soviet Bloc countries and abroad. The Soviet reaction in turn worried the Italian government because the latter did not wish to damage the process of détente and Soviet-Italian relations, including commercial ones, by the Biennale.19 The Biennale of Dissent took place in a political situation characterized by the so-called “national solidarity” government. This was a moment of partial rapprochement between the two main rival political parties in Italy, the Christian Democratic Party and the Italian Communist Party. In the elections of June 1976, the latter had 34.4 % of votes, the best electoral result in its history. This project was in part realized due to the ideas of the two parties’ leaders, Aldo Moro, who spoke of a “third way”, and Enrico Berlinguer, who in 1973 launched the “historical compromise”. From 1976 to 1979, the Communists supported the Christian Democratic “national solidarity” government through their vote abstention.20 The Socialist Party, under the new leadership of Bettino Craxi, strongly opposed this situation because they took it as an attempt by the Communists to marginalize them.21 So the Biennale of Dissent was promoted primarily by the ­Socialists, who 19 20

21

Francesco Caccamo, La Biennale del 1977 e il dibattito sul Dissenso. In: Nuova Storia Contemporanea, 4 (2008), p. 123. On the “historical compromise” years, see Nicola Tranfaglia, L’Italia di Berlinguer e il compromesso storico. In: Francesco Barbagallo/Albertina Vittoria (eds.), Enrico Berlinguer, La politica e la crisi mondiale, Roma 2007, pp. 27–35; Pietro Scoppola, La Repubblica dei partiti. Evoluzione e crisi di un sistema politico, 1945–1996, Bologna 1997, pp. 381–422; Piero Craveri, La Repubblica dal 1958 al 1992, Torino 1995, pp. 635–804. On the international dimensions of the “historical compromise” and the “national solidarity” governments, see: Silvio Pons, Berlinguer e la fine del comunismo, Torino 2006, and Umberto Gentiloni Silveri, L’Italia sospesa. La crisi degli anni Settanta vista da Washington, Torino 2009. On Craxi’s leadership of the Italian Socialist Party and his role in Italian politics in the 1980s, see Simona Colarizi/Marco Gervasoni, La cruna dell’ago. Craxi. Il partito socialista e la fine della

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also saw it as a way to create trouble for the Italian Communist Party, emphasizing the Soviet repression of dissidents in the Eastern Bloc despite the Helsinki Accords.22 By thus arousing Moscow’s anger, the Biennale of Dissent was also testing the delicate political balance between the Christian Democrats and the Communists, who had the common goal of maintaining good relations with the USSR. The Italian Communist Party was divided between the desire to claim its autonomy from Moscow – this idea had led to Eurocommunism23 – and the need to maintain good relations with the Kremlin for financial reasons, among other things.24 After initially approving it, the same Italian Communists realized the potential controversies that this initiative could lead to in domestic and foreign politics. So they first attempted to reduce the Venice program to an academic conference, where Eastern Bloc dissidence would be contextualized with regard to the relations between political power and opposition in the West. But official diplomatic protest and pressure from the Soviet Union influenced the Italian Communist Party to boycott the event.25

Cinema in the Biennale of Dissent Following the 1973 reform, the Biennale’s film festival was put on ice until the 1980s. A “Cinema and Television Division” was created in order to organize conferences and film exhibitions on specific subjects and was composed of a president and a board of experts.26 This board of experts disassociated itself from B ­ iennale president Ripa di Meana’s project27 and resigned in the spring. As a result, Ripa Repubblica, Rome and Bari, 2005, and Andrea Spiri, La svolta socialista. Il PSI e leadership di Craxi dal Midas a Palermo (1976–1981), Soveria Mannelli 2012. 22 On the conflicts between Italian communists and socialists over the issue of dissent, see Valentine Lomellini, L’appuntamento mancato. La sinistra italiana ed il dissenso nei regimi comunisti, 1968–1989, Firenze 2010. 23 See Silvio Pons, The Rise and Fall of Eurocommunism. In: Melvyn P. Leffler/Odd Arne Westad (eds.), The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Vol. III: Endings, Cambridge 2010, pp. 45–65. 24 On financial links between the Italian Communist Party and the USSR, see Valerio Riva, Oro da Mosca. I finanziamenti sovietici al PCI dalla rivoluzione d’ottobre al crollo dell’Urss, Milano 2002. 25 On the changing position of the PCI (Italian Communist Party) regarding the 1977 Biennale, see Caccamo, La Biennale del 1977, pp. 119–132. 26 Initially the board of experts was composed of Giacomo Gambetti, Callisto Cosulich, Riccardo Napolitano, Bruno Torri, Paolo Valmarana, and Giorgio Tinazzi. 27 According to the document, Ripa di Meana had not taken into consideration the proposals made by the Cinema Division. Moreover, the Cinema Division, even though broadly agreed to dedicate the whole Biennale to the theme of dissent, was not asked about the corresponding cinematic initiatives. See Comunicazione del settore cinema e spettacolo televisivo della Biennale di Venezia al Segretario Generale della Biennale di Venezia, Riservato-Interno, Venice. 12 March 1977 (ASAC, Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee, Fondo Storico, Serie Cinema ex 42/4 1977, VARIE 1977).

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di Meana was obliged to fall back on an informal committee composed of Antonin and Mira Liehm, two Czechoslovak film scholars who had emigrated to the USA.28 In the summer, Ripa di Meana wrote to the film institutions of the Soviet Bloc countries inviting Eastern European film directors to take part in a conference that was scheduled to take place as part of the Biennale. The invitation announced the Biennale’s theme as “the challenge that art and culture mean for the status quo in the context of East European Countries”. In the opinion of the Biennale, “this challenge comes from the nature itself of Art and Culture and it is absolutely natural that it’s just so also [sic] in the Eastern countries”. Ripa di Meana pointed out that he wanted “to avoid this event’s being understood as an instrument against the art and culture of these countries whose best works and artists are deeply appreciated.”29 But the invitation was met with refusals or no response at all. At the beginning of November, the screening schedule was made public. It included Central and Eastern European films of the 1960s and 1970s. A new official protest arose. Some of the greatest Soviet directors signed an “appeal” against the “Biennale of Dissent”. According to this document, the event “clearly conflicts with the spirit of détente and collaboration, and it aims to turn this meeting of artists into a disgusting political farce….”30 A few days later the Soviet ambassador made public a telegram from the director of the USSR State Film Archives, in which he protested the screening of Soviet films at the 1977 Biennale: “Film State Archives of USSR, by answering for all the films, actively protests the fact that all the copies of Soviet films you hold can be screened within the 1977 Biennale. We consider as absolutely unacceptable that the films of famous Soviet directors will be used against Soviet cinematic art.” 31 The Soviet refusal of the invitation returned the Venice film event to the tensest years of the Cold War. From 1948 to 1952, the USSR refused to attend the Venice Film Festival, stating that the organizers aimed to cast the Soviet presence in the

28

For Liehm’s memoir, see Antonin J. Liehm, La Biennale del dissenso culturale. In: eSamizdat, 8 (2010–2011), pp. 311–315. 29 Letter from Ripa di Meana to the Secretary of the Union of Soviet Cinematographers (Aleksan­ der Karaganov), 11 August 1977 (ASAC, Fondo Storico, Serie Cinema [ex CM 42/TER, 1977], file “Personalità Straniere”). 30 Cineasti sovietici sulla Biennale. In: l’Unità, 10.11.1977; URSS, Cineasti sovietici contrari alla Biennale del dissenso, In: Il Messaggero, 10.11.1977. The appeal was signed by Grigorii Aleksandrov, Sergey Bondarchuk, Otar Iosseliani, Aleksander Mitta, Andrey Michalkov-Konchalovsky, Aleksander Karaganov, Gleb Panfilov, Andrei Tarkovsky, Marlen Khutsiev, Grigory Chukhrai, Rezo Chkheidze, Bolotbek Shamshiev, and Larisa Shepitko. 31 Denigrazioni URSS sulla Biennale. In: Avvenire, 13.11.1977; “Biennale dei rinnegati.” In: Il Giorno, 13.11.1977.

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international context in a bad light.32 There were more differences than analogies, however. For 1977, one can talk more of an anti-festival or an anti-exhibition, than of a traditional film festival or film exhibition. In fact, while film festivals aim as a rule to promote productions from different countries, in the case of the 1977 Biennale, the Eastern European state film producers, the Soviet directors (at least officially), and most of the Italian distributors fought so that their films would not be screened. Direct Soviet protests went along with a boycott campaign that also involved the institutions the Biennale turned to in order to obtain the copies of the programmed films. The state-controlled distribution agency Italnoleggio at first refused to send copies of anything, then provided the Biennale with only two films.33 The ARCI (Italian Cultural Recreational Association), which was connected to the Italian Communist Party, after an initial willingness to collaborate, stated that it was “technically unable” to provide the Biennale with copies of the films.34 According to the organizers, the “[Italian] distributors believed it is better not to collaborate with the Biennale in order not to damage economic relations with the East”.35 The official socialist newspaper openly criticized the Communist Party for not showing a real cultural autonomy from Moscow.36

The Film Series On 15 November 1977 the film series “Cinema and Eastern Countries” was launched. Curated by Antonin and Mira Liehm, it lasted one month and was considered the most extensive program of non-conformist cinema from Central and Eastern Europe ever organized by a Western nation. Finding the films was not easy because of the boycott just mentioned.37 Forty-nine films were screened in the series, most of them from Czechoslovakia (26 films) and the Soviet Union

32 See Stefano Pisu, The USSR and East-Central European Countries at the Venice International Film Festival, 1946–1953. In: Iluminace. Journal for Film Theory, History, and Aesthetics, 3 (2013), pp. 51–63. 33 C. M. Trevisan, Primo bilancio sul “cinema del dissenso.” In: Il Tempo, 16.12.1977. The only Italian distributor to provide film was Moris Ergas (5 films). Giovanni Grazzini, I film che non piacerebbero a Zdanov. In: Corriere della Sera, 24.11.1977. 34 C. M. Trevisan, Il cinema del dissenso. In: Il Tempo, 16.11.1977. 35 Grazzini, I film che non piacerebbero a Zdanov. 36 Vittorio Giacci, Pluralisti a parole ma allergici al dissenso. In: Avanti!, 12.11.1977. 37 Letter from Stanislav Milota to Carlo Ripa di Meana, 28.10.1977 (ASAC, Fondo Storico, Serie Cinema [ex CM 42/TER, 1977], file “Personalità Straniere”). Faccio un film e vado nel “gulag.” In: Il resto del Carlino, 26.11.1977. Other artists stated that they were not interested in the theme of the event, for example Miklos Jancsó and Andrzej Wajda. See Stefano Reggiani, Paradjanov, il cinema e il dissenso all’Est. In: La Stampa, 26.11.1977.

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(9 films).38 In addition, some films made in the West by Eastern European émigré directors were presented. Sources report a total audience of 6900 viewers with an approximate average of 95 viewers for each screening.39 The film that launched the event, however, was Costa Gavras’ French film The Confession (L’Aveu, France 1970), an adaptation of a novel by Arthur London, who was present at the screening. London was a former Czechoslovak communist politician who had been persecuted in 1952 in the show trial against the socalled “anti-state conspiracy led by Rudolf Slansky”. The decision to open the film series with a Western film about Stalinist persecution in postwar Europe, rather than with a film from the Eastern Bloc itself, underscores the ambiguity of the Dissent Biennale. It reveals the general character of the event itself, precariously positioned as it was between a willingness to foster a serious transnational cultural debate and the risk of domestic political and ideological exploitation of the discourse on dissent. Number of Films

Distributor

Country

Cinematheque Suisse de Lausanne

Switzerland

11

F.D.R.S. Zurich

Switzerland

1

Impact Film New York

USA

5

G.G.C. San Francisco

USA

2

Cineteca della Biennale

Italy

8

Morris Ergas (private distributor)

Italy

3

Italnoleggio (state distribution company)

Italy

2

V. Taborsky, Ottawa

Canada

2

Skvorecky

Canada

2

I.F.W.M. Mannheim

West Germany

2

F.F.C. Paris

France

3

Filmstudio Salzburg

Austria

2

Svenska Filminstituten Stockholm

Sweden

2

Collectiv Parajanov

London

1

38 39

Trevisan, Primo bilancio sul “cinema del dissenso”; other sources indicate 54 films. See: La Biennale Annuario 1978. Eventi 1976 1977, Venezia 1977, p. 553. Trevisan, Primo bilancio sul “cinema del dissenso”.

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Another interesting aspect is the channels of distribution through which the films made their way to the Biennale. The only Italian private distributor was Morris Ergas, who provided three films and participated in the main conference. The schedule of screening was not made public from the beginning, but gradually, in order to avoid any possible attempts to stop them as well as legal problems.40

The Cinema Conference On the eve of the cinema conferences, Tass (Soviet Telegraph Agency) openly involved the Italian government in controversy. According to Tass, the Italian Government “could have stopped this dirty political move ahead of time” by using its role as the Biennale’s financer: “The idea of organizing such an anti-Soviet exhibition was not born in Italy. The instigators in the background include international Zionist organizations and the press financed by the CIA as ‘Christian Russia’… The organizers are dustmen who have gathered the rubbish of so-called dissidents, that is, all manner of stateless people and renegades.”41 In addition to the month-long film series, three conferences were organized. The main conference, “Nationalized Cinema: Its Successes and Problems” was held 26–27 November 1977, and was attended by many experts from Western and Central and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, the absences at the conference might be viewed as more relevant than who was present. One notices immediately the absence of Central and Eastern European directors living in their own countries, who were refused the visa from their own governments to travel to Venice. Some directors, however, such as Andrzej Wajda of Poland, declined the invitation, stating that he was not interested in the theme of the conference. Another very relevant absence was that of most communist Italian cinema experts. They were accused of avoiding the conference for fear of annoying their own party. None of the communist media probed this aspect. According to the socialist newspaper, their absence was “unaccountable and unjustified (or justified, which is even worse)”.42 The Italian bishops’ newspaper asked why Italian communist filmmakers were missing: “Is it possible that communist ideology is so weak as to be afraid of dissent? Why be impeded by fear of a debate? And why do Italian filmmakers – who have no state to lead, no national interest to protect – take part in this same fear and deliberate abstention?”43 The comment printed in the main Italian liberal newspaper was even more critical: “The Italian filmmakers … 40 41 42 43

Trevisan, Il cinema del dissenso. “La Biennale avvelena i rapporti URSS-Italia.” In: La Repubblica, 24.11.1977. Mario Zoppelli, La “Tass” attacca il governo italiano. In: Il Giorno, 24.11.1977. Lino Miccichè, Quando lo Stato o il mercato vieta al cinema di esprimersi liberamente. In: Avanti!, 29.11.1977. Elio Maraone, Tanti registi col bavaglio. In: Avvenire, 29.11.1977.

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justified suspicions that they are being led blindly, that they lack that freedom of judgment that was once commonly held to be the foundation of culture.”44 Almost fifty papers were given at the conference. They reflected the ambivalence that had informed the Biennale from its inception, wavering as it did between the apparent desire to organize an honest international cultural debate and the risk of political and ideological deviation; as a result, the conference seemed very unsystematic. In his foreword to the proceedings, Vittorio Giacci, chief of the cinema department of the Italian Socialist Party, in fact admitted that the conference “was unable to overcome the ambivalent bipolarity by which a series of technical-professional papers, which also resulted directly from tragic experiences, were opposed to other papers that featured an exaggerated ideologization of the term ‘dissent.’”45 Most of the Italian presenters’ papers were shaped by the political and ideological controversies that the Biennale of Dissent aroused that year. On the one hand, some participants claimed that the conference was biased and addressed difficulties in defining the concept of dissent and of cinematic dissent (among them were the few communists present, such as Bruno Torri, Gianni Toti, Giorgio Gattei, Ugo Pirro, as well as the French film critic Marcel Martin). On the other hand, some participants, such as Vittorio Giacci, Giovanni Grazzini, Pio Baldelli, Lino Micciché, Ugo Finetti, and Morris Ergas, pointed to the almost total absence of Italian communist directors and to the great value of the conference. One of the most balanced papers was that of the film critic and scholar Lino Miccichè, who acknowledged the conference’s contradictory nature, but considered it a positive aspect: “Foreign friends, friends, and comrades … should understand the contradiction that the Biennale has put all of us in as something positive; and this is the greatest virtue of the Biennale this year. They must understand this … Because none of us is willing to accept the idea of Soviet socialism being accidentally distorted or that the Soviet Union itself has something to do with socialism; but neither is any of us, not me at least, willing to accept the alternative of being obliged to choose between the pleasures of the East and those of the West.”46 The emigré film directors took advantage of this occasion in order to describe their own experiences. They conducted a serious debate on the concept of dissent and a comparison between the situations of film directors in the East and West that was not banal. Radu Gabrea, a Romanian film director who had emigrated to West Germany, was against both the leveling effect of economic censorship in the West and political repression in the East. However, he claimed that he did 44 45 46

Giovanni Grazzini, Latitanti alla Biennale-cinema. In: Corriere della Sera, 28.11.1977. Vittorio Giacci, Introduction. In: M. Amiel, et al. (eds.), Il cinema nazionalizzato: i suoi successi e i suoi problemi. Atti del convegno il dissenso culturale, Venezia 1979, p. 12; Vittorio Giacci, Censure a Oriente, autocensure a Occidente. In: Critica Sociale, January 1978. Statement by Lino Micciché. In: M. Amiel, et al. (eds.), Il cinema nazionalizzato, p. 165.

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not succeed in working even in the West.47 Boleslaw Sulik, a Polish film director living in England, said that “the conflict between creative freedom and political or commercial control is implied in the nature of the medium,”48 referring to the inevitable control of financial resources had by the producer, whether state or private. Ján Kadár, a Czechoslovak film director living in the USA, argued against a simplistic and discriminating definition of dissent that was circulating at the conference.49 Eva November, a Hungarian director living in France, pointed to the absence of homogeneity in the socialist bloc and to the necessity of considering the different situations as individual case studies.50 A number of Soviet directors who had emigrated to Israel also attended the conference.51 The case of Mikhail Kalik was very peculiar. In the early 1950s he had been imprisoned in a “corrective-labor” camp in the Far North, having been sentenced for “Jewish bourgeois nationalism”. Although he had had problems with Soviet censorship after making the film Man Follows the Sun (Čelovek idet za solncem, USSR 1961), Kalik’s decision to emigrate to Israel was informed by his Jewish identity, not political exigencies.52 During the conference he unexpectedly expressed his preference for the role that the film director had in socialist societies: “Even if a director or an artist has to fight against ideological taboos and bureaucratic delays so that his projects will be accepted, in a socialist country he nevertheless has the perception that he is in the center of the world. There is no comparison between the respect that artistic work enjoys in Eastern Bloc countries and the way it is treated in the capitalist West. Paradoxically, the repression that artists may be subjected to by the authorities in an Eastern Bloc country is sometimes a form of respect, even if negative, for the importance and function that the work has in the society.”53 It is worth emphasizing that Kalik’s words were not reported in the conference proceedings published by the Biennale in 1979. It is not unlikely that his statement had been censored by the editors because it was so unorthodox, as compared with the otherwise tout court criticism of the state film industry system of the Soviet bloc. Western film experts mostly took care to give an account of the situation from the point of view of the film policies in their own countries. The director of the Swedish Film Institute, Harry Schein, talked about the “socialized” organization

47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Statement by Radu Gabrea. In: Ibid., pp. 123–124. Statement by Boleslaw Sulik. In: Ibid., p. 149. Statement by Ján Kadár. In: Ibid., p. 192. Statement by Eva November. In: Ibid., p. 195. They were Joseph Gernstein, Stanislaw Chaplin, and Mikhail Kalik. Peter Rollberg, Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema, Lanham 2008, pp. 316–317; Mikhail Kalik. In: Jewish Virtual Library, URL: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/­ judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10628.html. Registi e artisti in URSS sono dei privilegiati. In: Il Giorno, 28.11.1977.

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of cinema in his country.54 The director of the Mannheim Film Festival, Hans Maier, spoke about the organization of the film industry in West Germany.55 Herbert P. J. Marshall, a British writer who for many years had studied and worked in the USSR, discussed his experience of state-supported cinema in the UK before the Second World War.56 The president of Britain Independent Film Producers, Richard Craven, also talked about the situation in the UK.57 The director and producer Antonio De Cunha Telles, who was head of the Portuguese Cinema Institute, spoke about his experience in the film milieu of his country58; while Jaime Camino compared the repression of Eastern Bloc filmmakers with that in Spain under Franco’s dictatorship.59 Several critical remarks in the press pointed to the conference’s eclecticism. In the opinion of the press this was due to the absence of a clear underlying theme and to the exaggerated number of papers: “A meeting without a very clear spirit, fourteen hours of debates that involved denouncing absent directors, whether Italian or not … suspicion, mistrust of a topic formulated so ambiguously as to allow for political maneuvering, the game of alliances. Really talking about nationalized cinema? … Rather, the discussion of nationalized cinema served as a transparent cover for another about dissent, about pure ideology … The conference report confirms the presence of so many conference projects that the conversation appears to have crumbled into a series of private meetings….”60 In short, there were two points on which the participants agreed: on the one hand, the observation that true freedom of artistic expression in the cinema was becoming increasingly utopian because of state control in the East and capitalist market pressure in the West; on the other hand, the statement of international solidarity in the name of artistic creativity in order to help emigré directors continue their work abroad. These were the first two points of the resolution that the conference participants passed with a majority of votes.61

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Statement by Harry Schein, In: M. Amiel, et al. (eds.), Il cinema nazionalizzato, pp. 55–61. Statement by Hans Maier. In: Ibid., pp. 181–186. Statement by Herbert Marshall. In: Ibid., pp. 75–79. Statement by Robert Craven. In: Ibid., pp. 205–211. Statement by Antonio De Cunha Telles. In: Ibid., pp. 233–238. Statement by Jaime Camino. In: Ibid., pp. 251–254. Enrico Regazzoni, Ma si è parlato soltanto di dissenso. In: La Repubblica, 29.11.1977. Dario Zanelli, Rivendicata la libertà dell’artista, Il Resto del Carlino, 29.11.1977.

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The Parajanov Affair In addition to the nationalized cinema conference, the Biennale organized an International Workshop on the Work of Sergei Parajanov. Parajanov was an Armenian director who was born in Georgia in 1924 and then moved to Ukraine. He became popular in the late 1960s thanks to his film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Teni zabytych predkov, USSR 1965) and his visual masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates (Cvet granata/Sayat Nova, USSR 1969).62 At the end of 1973 he was arrested in Kiev on a series of charges, including homosexuality, which was considered a crime in the USSR. So the workshop was a good opportunity to bring to international attention the case of a brilliant director who had been in jail for four years. The case of Parajanov and his punishment for homosexuality created more friction between the USSR and Italy. On 15 November the Italian activist for gay rights, Angelo Pezzana, made a gesture of protest in a Moscow hotel for the rights of homosexuals in the Soviet Union. He was expelled from the country for the crime of “hooliganism” and “disturbing the public order”.63 On the eve of Parajanov’s workshop, the Soviet journal Literaturnaja Gazeta published a virulent and sarcastic article wherein the Angelo Pezzana was described as “a champion of the right to perversion, who came to Moscow at the express request of the Biennale’s president, Ripa di Meana”.64 Pezzana and other members of the gay rights movement Fuori! (“let’s come out!”), which was associated with the Italian Radical Party, protested outside the Biennale with placards calling for “Freedom for gays in the USSR”.65 During the workshop other facts emerged that helped to explain such harsh behaviour from Soviet officials towards Parajanov. According to the Armenian scholar Marco Carynnyk, Parajanov had been arrested “because he was one of the leaders of the opposition movement in Ukraine and was accused of liaising between Armenian and Ukrainian dissidents. Soviet officials began following him in 1968, when more than one hundred inhabitants of Kiev, including Parajanov himself, signed a letter denouncing Brezhnev’s repressive policies in Ukraine. In

62 See James Steffen, The Cinema of Sergei Parajanov, Madison 2013; Nikolaj Blochin, Izgnanie Paradzhanova, Stavrapol 2002; Galia Ackerman (ed.), Sergueï Paradjanov: Sept Visions, Paris 1992. 63 Per i sovietici Angelo Pezzana era un emissario della Biennale. In: La Repubblica, 24.11.1977. 64 Ibid. 65 Faccio un film e vado nel “gulag”. In: Il Resto del Carlino, 26.11.1977. On gay rights activism in Italy, see Gianni Rossi Barilli, Il movimento gay in Italia, Milano 1999.

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1971 Parajanov signed another appeal to Moscow officials, protesting the arrest of some dissidents. This act led to his arrest and incarceration.”66 The “Parajanov Collective”, a committee composed of Armenians fighting for his liberation, attended the conference. They described the copy of the film Sayat Nova that was scheduled to be screened at the Biennale “a real samizdat of the screen” because the movie was forbidden in the USSR and only a few copies existed, most of them damaged and incomplete.67 This screening of Parajanov’s film was its premiere in the West.68 At the end of the conference on nationalized cinema, the participants signed a transnational appeal for the release of Sergej Parajanov and for the free distribution of his films.69 A further appeal was sent by the French poet Louis Aragon directly to Leonid Brezhnev. On 31 December 1977, Parajanov was released from prison, but he remained on the blacklist of Soviet officials.

Conclusion The Parajanov affair encapsulates the struggle for freedom of artistic creativity, political thinking, and gender identity, all elements of the broader social activism of the period. It is emblematic of the historical period in which the Biennale of Dissent was held. In the late 1970s, human rights discourse rose to the top of the global agenda. At that time the strong growth of transnational movements and nongovernmental organizations gave voice to an international public opinion that increasingly gave preference to human rights over nation-state supremacy and ideological blocs, as well as to universal moral principles over traditional political ideas.70 In fact, the 1975 Final Act of the Helsinki conference, which favored the establishment and development of dissident movements in Central and 66 Roberto Bianchin, Un ritratto del regista per parlare di dissenso. In: La Repubblica, ­27–28.11.1977; Morando Morandini, Clandestino da Mosca il film di Paradjanov. In: Il Giorno, 27.11.1977. The Ukrainian KGB played the more relevant role, both on its own and likely on Moscow’s directives. On Parajanov’s internal exile, see Steffen, The Cinema of Sergei Parajanov, pp. 186–201. 67 Statement by Varoujan Arzoumanian. In: M. Amiel, et al. (eds.), Il cinema nazionalizzato, p. 297. 68 Sauro Borelli, Alla Biennale il “caso Paragianov.” In: l’Unità, 26.11.1977. 69 “The undersigned film directors and critics demand from the USSR government the liberation, for humanitarian reasons, of Sergej Parajanov. This measure would be greeted with relief and would attest that the USSR government is aware of this film director’s great talent. The undersigned wish also that Parajanov’s films be freely distributed as they occupy a relevant place in the history of contemporary cinema and bring honor to the director’s country,” In: M. Amiel, et al. (eds.), Il cinema nazionalizzato, p. 306. 70 See Jan Eckel/Samuel Moyn (eds.), The Breakthrough. Human Rights in the 1970s, Philadelphia 2013; Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia. Human Rights in History, Cambridge and London 2010; Sarah B. Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War. A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network, Cambridge 2013.

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Eastern Europe – through the so-called “third basket” – was also what inspired di Meana to pursue the Biennale project. In March 1976, the United Nation Organization put into force an International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that had been signed ten years earlier.71 The following year, 1977, is considered by historians as “the year of human rights”.72 In January 1977, the new president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, focused his inaugural address on engagement with human rights as a parameter for US foreign policy: “Our commitment to human rights must be absolute … Our moral sense dictates a clear-cut preference for those societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights.”73 In December 1977, the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Amnesty International showed the relevant role that a transnational culture of human rights was playing, as stated in the award ceremony speech: “The view is now gaining ground that no state can lay claim to absolute national sovereignty where human rights that are universally recognized are involved.”74 Within this framework, the USSR did not succeed in preventing the Biennale of Dissent from taking place and could not stop the screenings. At the beginning of December, the USSR, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, organized a film series of its own in answer to the Biennale’s “provocation”.75 It featured a dozen films that were screened not only in Rome, but also in other cities around Italy.76 The program served the Soviet Union not only as a counter-series showcasing “official Soviet cinema”, but as a way to celebrate the sixtieth 71 The full text is available on the website of United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner, URL: http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx. 72 Moyn, The Last Utopia, p. 155. In this context it is no coincidence that it was only in 1977 that the first gay film Festival was held in San Francisco, thus inaugurating the phenomenon of so-called Queer Film Festivals. See Skadi Loist/Ger Zielinski, On the development of Queer Film Festivals and Their Media Activism. In: Dina Iordanova/Leshu Torchin (eds.), Film Festival Yearbook 4: Film Festivals and Activism, St Andrews 2012, p. 49. 73 For Jimmy Carter’s most important speeches see: http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/­ documents/speeches/. 74 Official Website of the Nobel Prize, URL: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/­ laureates/1977/press.html. 75 Guglielmo Biraghi, Il cinema del consenso. In: Il Messaggero, 6.12.1977. 76 The program included Nikita Michalkov’s Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano (Neokončennaya p’esa dlja mechaničeskogo pianino, USSR 1977), Aleksey German’s Twenty Days without War (Dvadcat'dnej bez vojny, USSR 1976), Nikolay Gubenko’s Wounded Game (Podranki, USSR 1977), Tengiz Abuladze’s The Tree of Desire (Drevo želanij, USSR 1977), Dinara Asanova’s The Key that Should Not be Handed On (Ključ bez prava peredači, USSR 1976), Sebastian Alarcon and Aleksandr Kosarev’s Night over Chile (Noc’ nad Čili, USSR 1977), Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent (Voschoždenie, USSR 1977), Sergey Mikaelian’s The Prize (Premija, USSR 1974), Gleb Panfilov’s I Want the Floor (Prošu slova, USSR 1975), Irina Tarkovskaja’s Peasant’s Son (Krestjanskij syn, USSR 1975), and Igor Maslennikov’s Sentimental Romance (Sentimentalnyj roman, USSR 1977). Moreover, some classic Soviet movies were screened as well, such as Grigori Chukhrai’s Clear Skies (Čistoe nebo, USSR 1961) and Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying (Letjat žuravli, USSR 1957).

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anniversary of the October Revolution. The initiative cannot, however, be compared with the resonance that the Biennale of Dissent had. The Soviet counter-series hearkened back to the beginning of the Cold War, especially to 1948. That was the year the USSR first refused the Biennale’s invitation to participate because it was sure of its anti-Soviet tendencies. So the USSR attempted to arrange an alternative film presence in Italy through a series organized by the Associazione Italia-URSS, a Soviet-Italian cultural association, just when the Venice Mostra del Cinema ended. But in this case the differences were substantial. In 1977, the Soviet counter-series was supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whereas the 1948 Soviet film series received no Italian state support. One can see in this support the Italian government’s attempt to apologize for not halting the Biennale of Dissent; in other words, it was a show of inter-state solidarity, neither of the two governments having been satisfied with the Venice Biennale. This fact demonstrates the relevant changes that the Biennale underwent after the 1973 reform. The Biennale’s greater autonomy from the government and its greater dependence on political parties led to a diplomatic incident, one mediated by the Italian Socialist Party’s attempt to play a bigger role in the Italian political arena, bypassing the “historical compromise” between Catholics and Communists. So the event linked the political interests of the Italian Socialist Party with the aims of those who supported Eastern European dissidents and the freedom of thinking and human rights in a transnational scope. These different goals were summed up in the memoirs of Antonin Liehm, who was appointed Manager of the Cinema Division by the Biennale president after Giacomo Gambetti resigned: “At a certain point Carlo Ripa di Meana and the other organizers – I was not a member of the Biennale board – decided to organize a debate of an eminently political character, one which had not been part of the initial planning and which we tried to discourage … So many people had the impression that what was most important in the Biennale was political debate, whereas in my opinion it was not.”77 Despite the USSR’s protest, the Italian government’s hesitation, and the Italian Socialists’ domestic political exploitation of the concept of dissent, the fact that the Biennale of Dissent was held at all shows the extent to which movements for international solidarity and human rights had become an important factor in the late 1970s. So this case study reveals the possible role of late 1970s festivals as places where Cold War politics, transnational movements, and the dynamics of domestic politics intersected and came into conflict.

77

Antonin J. Liehm, La Biennale del dissenso culturale, p. 314.

John Wäfler The Surveillance of Film Festivals in Switzerland: The Case of the Locarno International Film Festival

After 1945, many states in the West kept a close eye on communists and other radical leftists in their countries.1 This was also true for Switzerland. In a nationwide campaign to protect the country from a potential “communist infiltration” during the Cold War, various Swiss state security agencies (the federal police and specialized services within certain cantonal police forces) warily tracked supposed Soviet agents and other subversive elements.2 The international film festivals taking place in Switzerland were not exempt from this police campaign against the radical left. Like other organizations and individuals engaging in cultural exchange with the Eastern Bloc, among them many film institutions such as film clubs, film distributors or the national film archive, film festivals were also subject to surveillance. This chapter presents the surveillance of the Locarno International Film Festival (hereafter LIFF) by the federal police.3 Founded in 1946, the LIFF is the internationally most renowned film festival in Switzerland and also the one that has been subject to surveillance the longest.4 The federal police maintained files on 1

2

3

4

See, e. g., Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm. The Authorized History of MI5, London 2009; Josef Foschepoth, Überwachtes Deutschland. Post- und Telefonüberwachung in der alten Bundesrepublik, Göttingen 2013; Albert Fried, McCarthyism. The Great American Red Scare. A Documentary History, New York 1997. On Swiss state security, see in particular Georg Kreis (ed.), Staatsschutz in der Schweiz. Die Entwicklung von 1935–1990. Eine multidisziplinäre Untersuchung im Auftrage des schweizerischen Bundesrates, Bern 1993; see also Hans Ulrich Jost et al., Cent ans de police politique en Suisse (1889–1989), Lausanne 1992. On anticommunism in Switzerland, see, e.g., Kurt Imhof, Das Böse. Zur Weltordnung des Kalten Krieges in der Schweiz. In: Juerg Albrecht et al. (eds.), Expansion der Moderne. Wirtschaftswunder – Kalter Krieg – Avantgarde – Populärkultur, Zürich 2010, pp. 81–104. To date, little research has been done on the surveillance of film festivals during the Cold War. For another case study on this topic, see Andreas Kötzing (ed.), “Die Sicherheit des Festivals ist zu gewährleisten!” Kritische Jugend, die Leipziger Dokfilmwoche und das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, Halle 2014. Besides the Locarno International Film Festival examined in this chapter, the federal police also maintained files on the Solothurner Filmtage, a showcase for Swiss cinema (Filmtage in

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the LIFF from 1957 until 1989, when the “fiche scandal” resulted in a reorganization of Swiss state security.5 During this time period the Ticino police (on whose territory the LIFF takes place) visited the film festival, watching suspected individuals and attending film screenings. After each edition they wrote a detailed surveillance report on the festival, which they sent to the federal police in Berne for further examination. The following sections are essentially based on an analysis of these surveillance reports.6 They show what concerns Swiss state security held about the LIFF and how the police forces assessed the film festival during the roughly thirty years during which they subjected the event to surveillance.

The LIFF Attracts the Attention of the Federal Police Exchanges between Switzerland and the Soviet Union in the fields of culture, science, and sport saw a rapid increase after both countries established diplomatic relations in 1946. Federal police documents reveal that these exchanges were subject to surveillance by Swiss state security, in an effort to be informed on the activities of the Soviets in Switzerland.7 Although several Soviet films were screened during the first three festival editions, the LIFF did not immediately attract the attention of the federal police. And when in 1952 the Bernese police reported to the federal police that Vinicio Beretta, one of the leading figures on the festival

5

6

7

Solothurn, Swiss Federal Archives, E4320-01C#1996/203#156*), and the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival (The file has yet to be located. A surveillance report on the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival, indicating the existence of a separate file on the festival, can be found in: Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980 [Swiss Federal Archives, E432005C#1995/234#628*]). On the history of the LIFF, see Dalmazio Ambrosioni, Locarno città del cinema. I cinquant’anni del Festival internazionale del film, Locarno 1998, and Guglielmo Volon­ terio, Dalle suggestioni del Parco alla Grande Festa del Cinema. Storia del Festival di Locarno 1946–1997, Venice 1997. For an overview of the films screened at the LIFF, see Roland Cosandey, 40 ans – 40 years. Chronique et filmographie – Chronicle and filmography, Locarno 1988. In 1989, a Swiss parliamentary investigation committee revealed the federal surveillance dispositive to the wider public. Due to the fact that Swiss state security had maintained a large number of records on ordinary citizens the revelation rapidly evolved into a nation-wide scandal, the socalled “fiche scandal”, named after the file cards (“fiche” in French) used by Swiss state security to record information. On the “fiche scandal”, see Georg Sonderegger and Christian Dütschler, Ein PUK-Bericht erschüttert die Schweiz. Der Fichenskandal. In: Heinz Looser et al. (eds.), Die Schweiz und ihre Skandale. Zürich 1995, pp. 209–218. Filmfestival in Locarno (Swiss Federal Archives, E4320-01C#1996/203#156*); Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980; Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1981–1989 (Swiss Federal Archives, E4320-05C#1995/234#629*); surveillance report on the 1957 festival in: Russische Gesandtschaft, 1956–1957 (Swiss Federal Archives, E4320B#1981/141#52*); surveillance reports on the 1958 and 1959 festivals in: Politische Filme – Propaganda, 1953–1959 (Swiss Federal Archives, E4320B#1974/47#347*). Reports on the surveillance of these exchanges between Switzerland and the Soviet Union can be found in federal police files on the Soviet legation in the Swiss Federal Archives.

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organizing committee at the time (he later became the festival director) had contacted diplomatic representatives of the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary in order to negotiate the possible participation of these countries in the LIFF, the federal police still did not initiate any surveillance of the festival. Perhaps they did not realize that once those countries accepted the invitation, they would also send an official delegation to the festival. The federal officer in charge merely stored the Bernese police report in Vinicio Beretta’s personal file, as a matter of routine, without undertaking any further action.8 It was not long, however, before the federal police began paying more attention to the LIFF. According to the existing files, they began surveillance of the festival in 1957, the year the tenth edition took place. That year, the Ticino police sent their first report to the federal police in Berne.9 Unfortunately, the document provides no details on the exact circumstances leading to the surveillance of the LIFF by the federal police. It might have had to do with the Hungarian crisis the previous year, when Soviet troops entered Hungary in order to quell the upheaval taking place in the country. The Hungarian crises caused great dismay and fear in Switzerland, reminding the Swiss of the threat posed by the Soviet Union. Anti-communism reached one of its peaks. Large parts of the population, the press, and politics showed solidarity with the Hungarian people and called for a boycott of the Soviet Union and its allies.10 Anti-communism also affected the film industry:11 the Swiss Cinema Theatre Association, for instance, urged its members not to show “a single meter” of film of “communist origin.”12 The LIFF, one of the most prominent institutions in Switzerland to screen films from socialist countries at the time, therefore faced a substantial amount of criticism. Shortly after the Soviet intervention in Hungary, the Swiss Radio-Journal complained that “last year, the Locarno festival looked like the screen was a gate from the East into the West: the unsuspecting public was presented with all kinds of Eastern propaganda, hardly

  8

Sicherheits- und Kriminalpolizei der Stadt Bern, TAB 901, vom 5. März 1952, Bern, 7 March 1952 (Swiss Federal Archives, Beretta Vinicio 1920, 1941–1959, E4320B#1971/78#1332*).   9 Polizia cantonale ticinese, X. Festival internazionale del film, Locarno, 19 July 1957 (Swiss Federal Archives, Russische Gesandtschaft, 1956–1957, E4320B#1981/141#52*). Given that the onsite surveillance was conducted by the Ticino police, it is probable that they also kept files on the LIFF. Unfortunately, such files have not yet been located, neither in the Ticino State Archives nor with the Ticino police. 10 See, for example, Katharina Bretscher-Spindler, Vom heissen zum kalten Krieg. Vorgeschichte und Geschichte der Schweiz im Kalten Krieg 1943–1968, Zurich 1997, pp. 238–247. 11 See Felix Aeppli, Der Schweizer Film 1929–1964. Die Schweiz als Ritual, vol. 2, Zürich 1981, pp. 203–231. 12 Keine kommunistischen Filme in der Schweiz. In: Schweizer Film Suisse, 20.11.1956, p. 5. Quoted in Aeppli, Der Schweizer Film, p. 224. All quotes (originally in German, Italien or French) have been translated by the author.

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artistically embellished.”13 The following year, the Swiss satirical journal Nebelspalter concluded that the LIFF was the “most unnecessary, most mediocre, and most senseless of all unnecessary, mediocre, and senseless festivals of exposed celluloid. The two or three good films that could be seen had already been presented at other festivals. (…) However some of the films that were shown cannot be seen anywhere else. Namely communist ones.”14 It is therefore possible that in the course of the Hungarian crisis the Swiss state security agencies intensified their surveillance of the activities of the Soviet Union and their allies in Switzerland, and that it was within this context that the Ticino police sent the federal police their first report in order to inform them of the participation of socialist countries in the tenth film festival edition.

Surveillance of Delegates from Socialist Countries Initially, surveillance focused mainly on the different delegates officially representing the socialist countries at the LIFF. Swiss state security feared that these delegates might use their stay at the festival for intelligence activities or political propaganda purposes. The security agencies therefore wanted to know precisely who the delegates were, what they were doing, and whom they were in touch with. Particular interest was paid to potential contacts between delegates and members of the Swiss Party of Labor, a communist organization sympathizing with the Soviet Union and suspected by Swiss state security of supporting a communist infiltration in Switzerland.15 Also under scrutiny were the delegates’ official activities, such as the screenings of films from their home countries, or the receptions held for accredited festival guests. The first surveillance report sent to the federal police by the Ticino police in 1957 illustrates this early focus, which would dominate surveillance until the end of the 1960s. This first report starts by stating that the tenth Locarno International Film Festival took place between 6 and 14 July 1957, and that a total of fourteen countries had participated in the festival, among them four under communist rule: USSR, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the People’s Republic of China. All these countries had sent official delegates to Locarno. This introductory statement was followed by a list of the names of delegates and other likely citizens from the participating socialist countries, so that the federal police could open files on those individuals who had not previously been registered. The report goes 13

Das Ende der Koexistenz. In: Schweizer Radio-Zeitung, 18 (1956), p. 19. Quoted in Aeppli, Der Schweizer Film, p. 224. 14 Werner Wollenberger, Der Rorschacher Trichter. In: Nebelspalter, 7.8.1957, p. 13. Quoted in Aeppli, Der Schweizer Film, p. 225. 15 See Kreis (ed.), Staatsschutz in der Schweiz, pp. 257–281.

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on to present the activities of a few delegates who were more closely observed by the Ticino police during their stay at the festival, providing information on their dates of arrival and departure, their lodgings, and their activities and contacts.16 In the case of “B.”,17 a member of the Soviet delegation, for instance, the Ticino police noted that the subject “arrived on the sixth and definitely left for Lugano on the fifteenth of this month. He resided at the Hotel Du Parc during his entire stay. (…) B. attended virtually all film screenings, both in the afternoon and in the evening. He represents Sovexportfilm, where he is responsible for the acquisition of films produced in the West and for the sale or distribution of Soviet films.”18 The Ticino police gave a particularly detailed account of B.’s contacts with other festival guests, reporting that he received a telephone call at his hotel from a certain “C.”19 According to the Ticino police the two men met in B.’s hotel the same evening, where C. subsequently also rented a room. Two days later they drove to Lugano in order to watch a film with a third person, identified as a filmmaker from France. The Ticino police discovered that C. was a small film distributor from Varese and that the meeting was about an Italian film that C. wished to propose to Sovexportfilm. Finding no evidence for any suspicious activity, they concluded that C. “probably was not of communist tendency and his relations to B. during the festival were no doubt purely commercial.”20 When reporting on delegates, the Ticino police also recorded their impressions of the screenings of films from participating socialist countries, with particular attention given to the level of attendance, potential propaganda activities, and any possible unrest. For instance, the entry regarding the screening of a Soviet film shown in 1957 states that: “The screening of the official Russian film, Don Quixote, attracted few spectators, was highly regular, and took place without any incident.”21 However, the report specifies that “a few minutes before it started, all the filmmakers, etc., from West Germany simultaneously got up and left the park.”22 The following day, an officer from the Ticino police attended the official reception given by the Soviet delegation, carefully monitoring whether any Swiss communists were invited and the number of guests participating in the event: “In the evening of the fourteenth of this month, between 18:00 and 20:00, the Russians gave an official reception at the Grand Hotel. I attended the reception as a member of the festival commission. The guests were welcomed by B. and Ch.23 Around one hundred personal invitations had been sent out, but only around fifty 16 Polizia cantonale ticinese, X. Festival internazionale del film, p. 1. 17 Full name is given in the report. 18 Polizia cantonale ticinese, X. Festival internazionale del film, p. 2. 19 Full name is given in the report. 20 Polizia cantonale ticinese, X. Festival internazionale del film, p. 2. 21 Ibid., p. 3. 22 Ibid. 23 Full names are given in the report.

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individuals of both sexes acted upon the invitation. No local extremists or any other individuals known to us were observed at the reception. None of the conversations were political. Both Russians spoke amiably with all the guests.”24 The fact that the Ticino police officer attended the reception under the guise of “a member of the festival commission” suggests that the police forces, at least selectively and temporarily, were in contact with the festival organizers in order to conduct their surveillance. After exposing the activities of all the other delegates under observation, the Ticino police ultimately concluded with regard to the 1957 edition that it had taken place in a “more peaceful political climate, and that no political controversies had troubled the festival”,25 adding that the members of the local branch of the Swiss Party of Labor had not made themselves noticed and had not sought out contacts to the delegates from the socialist countries.26 Up until the end of the 1960s, the surveillance reports sent to the federal police by the Ticino agency followed the model of the 1957 report, concluding each time that the LIFF had closed without any suspicious activity and that no major incident had troubled the festival. However, it seems that recurrent minor incidents convinced the federal police that surveillance of the film festival was nevertheless necessary. In 1959, for instance, a few days after receiving the Ticino report, a federal police officer compiled a memo in which he noted that the Soviet ambassador’s driver had stayed present the whole time the maid cleaned his room and that he had several times been seen in Locarno alone with the ambassador’s car. The officer’s comment was that the driver probably carried out other “more important tasks”27 for the Soviet embassy in Berne, without however going into more detail as to the exact nature of those tasks. Six years later, in 1965, the same officer drafted a memo regarding a Chinese embassy official asking the festival secretary whether the LIFF might show a documentary about the Vietnam War entitled The Aggressors From the USA Must Leave Vietnam,28 to which the secretary had given a negative answer. The memo remarks: “The attempt by the Chinese to introduce the above-mentioned anti-American documentary film into the public program once again confirms the insolence with which the Chinese delegation in Berne abuses the privileges and prerogatives enjoyed by the diplomatic missions.”29 24 Polizia cantonale ticinese, X. Festival internazionale del film, pp. 3–4. 25 Ibid., p. 5. 26 Ibid. 27 Schweizerische Bundesanwaltschaft, Notiz, Bern, 11 August 1959 (Swiss Federal Archives, Politische Filme – Propaganda, 1953–1959, E4320B#1974/47#347*, attached to the 1959 festival report). 28 Film not identified. 29 Ministero pubblico federale, Presentazione di un film della Repubblica popolare cinese al “Festival internazionale del film” di Locarno, Bern, 12 August 1965 (Swiss Federal Archives, Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980, E4320-05C#1995/234#628*).

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Socio-Political Conflicts at the LIFF Major changes took place at the LIFF towards the end of the sixties. In early 1966, Vinicio Beretta resigned as festival director. After a one-year interim solution, Sandro Bianconi, the host of the local film club, and Freddy Buache, the secretary of the national film archive, became the new festival co-directors. Both aimed to give the LIFF a fresh impetus in order to strengthen its cultural vocation.30 They gave more space to young filmmakers on the juries and further opened the program to their often politically engaged and socio-critical films.31 The event was moved from summer to fall, and the evening open-air screenings were relocated from the Locarno Grand Hotel garden to the indoor screen at the local Kursaal. At the same time, the festival attracted an increasingly young audience. Some of these young people were leftists who loudly expressed their concerns at the LIFF, turning the festival into a theater of socio-political conflicts for a few years.32 In the wake of these changes, the festival became the butt of criticism in certain conservative and liberal circles, who accused it of leaning even further to the left than had previously been the case. However, this perception was mistaken, as the protesters never formed more than a minority at the LIFF. The 1968 festival edition was interrupted by protests, when a small group of young leftists occupied the stage in front of the screen during the closing ceremony, demonstrating against the commercial and capitalist monopolization of the film industry.33 The Ticino police saw these protests as “nothing more than an act of disturbance which neither the audience nor the citizens took seriously”.34 When in 1969 a group of young protesters demanded access to a screening reserved for invited guests, the Ticino police described the incident merely as

30 See, e. g., Sandro Bianconi, Ricerca e definizione di una specificità culturale. In: Lucchini Domenico (ed.), 40 ans – 40 anni – 40 Jahre. Six essais critiques – Sei saggi critici – Sechs kritische Essays, Locarno 1987, pp. 131–139. See also footnote 4. 31 On the evolution of filmmaking in the 1960s, see Thomas Christen, Die Entwicklung der Filmsprache in den 1960er Jahren: Offene Enden, erzählerische Lücken, Selbstthematisierung, Zufallsprinzip. In: Martin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth (eds.), 1968. Handbuch zur Kultur- und Mediengeschichte der Studentenbewegung, Stuttgart 2007, pp. 187–197. 32 On the political left of the 1960s and 1970s in Switzerland, see Damir Skenderovic and Christina Späti, Les années 68. Une rupture politique et culturelle, Lausanne 2012. 33 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, Supplemento al n. rapporto del 16.10.1968 sul 21. Festival Internazionale del Film, Locarno, 14 November 1968 (Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980, E4320-05C#1995/234#628*). There had already been protests at the Cannes and Berlin festivals; see Caroline Moine, Blicke über den Eisernen Vorhang, Die internationalen Filmfestivals im Kalten Krieg 1945–1968. In: Lars Karl (ed.), Leinwand zwischen Tauwetter und Frost. Der ost­ europäische Spiel- und Dokumentarfilm im Kalten Krieg, Berlin, 2007, pp. 268–274. 34 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, Supplemento al n. rapporto del 16.10.1968, p. 2.

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a “noisy quarrel”.35 But this benevolent assessment fundamentally changed the following year when the reporting was taken over by a new, evidently more zealous officer. In his view, several films screened at the 1970 edition were entirely politically motivated (among others Biladi – a Revolution, a controversial documentary by Swiss director Francis Reusser on the Palestinian question). This time the report concluded: “The general impression is bad: a politicized festival that makes room for political propaganda rather than for art. It would even seem that art is unwelcome in Locarno, which has been taken over by the sloppiest form of politics…”36 This alarming conclusion followed a vivid description of the young festival audience, which in the eyes of the Ticino police illustrated the growing subversive tendencies at work within the LIFF: “An audience mainly composed of bums and unkempt, slovenly long-haired people, who between screenings lay sprawled out on the stairs of the Rex [cinema], chewing gum and spitting”.37 Conservative and liberal Swiss film critics also openly voiced their disapproval of the new festival conception, accusing the two co-directors, Sandro Bianconi and Freddy Buache, of having transformed the event from a film festival into a leftist film club.38 But the Ticino police saw the real cause for the “politicization” of the LIFF elsewhere, arguing in their report on the 1970 edition that: “The openness towards the Eastern Bloc introduced by director Bianconi some years ago has increased, giving too much space to certain political tendencies that we do not share. (...) We are thus now facing a politicized event.”39 The Ticino police ultimately blamed the changes perceived at the LIFF on the organizers’ openness towards socialist countries.40 The same line of argument is found later in the report with respect to unrest that took place during the festival: “The event, which aimed to orient itself towards the Eastern Bloc countries, slipped out of the directors’ control, resulting in a situation dominated by a small clique of Maoists, who draw attention to themselves by clapping their hands, whistling, booing, and so on.”41 The federal police seem to have complied with the Ticino police’s analysis, forwarding the report on the 1970 edition to the Film Section within the Federal 35 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, XXII Festival Internazionale del Film, Locarno, 16 October 1969 (Swiss Federal Archives, Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980, E4320-05C#1995/234#628*), p. 3. 36 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, 23mo Festival Internazionale del Film, Locarno, 15 October 1970 (Swiss Federal Archives, Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980, E4320-05C#1995/234#628*), p. 6. 37 Ibid., p. 7. 38 Cosandey, 40 ans – 40 years, p. 214. 39 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, 23mo Festival Internazionale del Film, p. 5. 40 See, in general on this argument, Kreis (ed.), Staatschutz in der Schweiz. Cosandey, 40 ans – 40 years, does not confirm a significant increase in the participation of socialist countries in the LIFF under Sandro Bianconi and Freddy Buache’s directorship. 41 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, 23mo Festival Internazionale del Film p. 6.

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Department of Home Affairs, which oversees federal subsidies to festivals, in order to bring their observations to its attention.42 It is the only documented case in the Locarno files of the federal police forwarding a surveillance report about the LIFF to another federal office. Following this new assessment, Swiss state security began to worry about a potential “politicization” of the LIFF and therefore subjected not only the delegates from the socialist countries to surveillance, but also the event itself. The Ticino police from now on systematically informed the federal authorities on the composition of the festival juries, so that they could check on their members. They also reported on films suspected of conveying leftist ideas as well as on the award winners. In some instances, they even went so far as to comment on the justification of the awards if they felt that the decisions were motivated by political rather than artistic reasons. In contrast, observations regarding the delegations from socialist countries retreated to the back of the reports and were generally limited to a list of their members. At the end of the 1970 festival edition, Sandro Bianconi and Freddy Buache both resigned, deploring the lack of public support for their conception of the festival. The next edition was headed by a committee of seven local figures and once again took place during the summer, with open-air screenings relocated to the Piazza Grande, the main square in the heart of Locarno’s old town. The Ticino police seem to have welcomed these changes. In their report on the 1971 edition they reiterated their opinion that Sandro Bianconi and Freddy Buache’s term had marked the peak of the LIFF’s “ideological absolutism”.43 They subsequently noted that in spite of the festival’s continued commitment to young filmmakers, “this year, (...) no space was given to absurdities and false ambitions,”44 dubbing the event’s new design “a valid and commendable formula”.45 The following year, in 1972, the LIFF had a new director, Moritz de Hadeln. Swiss state security continued to warily monitor the event during his term as well. For instance, that year the Ticino police noted one event entitled “Film and Revolution”, explaining to the federal police that the title of the event was misleading and that the event did not pursue a political goal. They highlighted the term “revolution”, observing that: “The term (…) is not meant in a political sense, rather it 42

The Locarno files do not establish an explicit relation between the surveillance of the LIFF and the allocation of federal subsidies to the festival. However, The author knows from other cases that the Film Section asked for a political assessment by the federal police before granting an applicant subsidies. In this case the federal police may therefore well have intended to send a warning signal by informing the Film Section about the political evolution of the LIFF. 43 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, 24mo. Festival Internazionale del Film, Locarno, 21 August 1971 (Swiss Federal Archives, Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980, E4320-05C#1995/234#628*), p. 2. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid.

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refers to a series of talks that aim to take stock of the current situation of worldwide film production.”46 In 1973, the Ticino police commented on the screening of the erotic film Bawdy Tales by Italian director Sergio Citti, deploring the fact that although the situation in the festival had calmed down since the resignation of Sandro Bianconi and Freddy Buache, this year Sergio Citti’s film brought with it “a resurgence of nihilism, violence, homosexuality, pornography, and sacrilege in these truly aberrant images of castration, lewdness, murder, and defecation.”47 They nevertheless concluded that “rather than a film with an anarchist background, it was a mixture of repellent obscenity.”48 In 1976, several controversial films were screened during the festival, including Pier Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom which had previously been banned in several European countries. In the eyes of the Ticino police, that year’s event “was rightly judged by some as a “Marxist” festival.”49 In 1977 the Ticino police complained that that year’s laureate Antonio Gramsci, Lino del Fra’s film about the Italian communist and his time in prison, was only chosen thanks to the skillful intervention of a left-wing jury member.50 These examples show that Swiss state security was still concerned about a potential “politicization” of the festival during Moritz de Hadeln’s term. At the end of the seventies and throughout the eighties, the LIFF was headed by film critic Jean-Pierre Brossard (1978–1981), followed by David Streiff (1982–1991), a former director of the Swiss Film Centre. The surveillance reports issued during their terms continue to reflect the same spirit as before. However, the police’s assessment of the festival appears increasingly positive. The Ticino police particularly praised the new impetus given to the event by Streiff, describing the 1983 edition as “a festival renewed in terms of orientation and content, that thrilled an audience more numerous than ever before. A more reserved approach towards works from the Eastern Bloc (…) has also freed the event from a certain intellectualoid, ranting audience and therefore from the usual sterile controversies.”51 Here again, it was the LIFF’s supposed new reluctance towards 46 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, 25mo Festival Internazionale del Film, Locarno, 30 August 1972 (Swiss Federal Archives, Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980, E4320-05C#1995/234#628*), p. 2. 47 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, 26mo Festival internazionale del Film, Locarno, 22 August 1973 (Swiss Federal Archives, Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980, E4320-05C#1995/234#628*), p. 2. 48 Ibid., p. 3. 49 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, XXIX o Festival Internazionale del Film, Locarno, 27 August 1976 (Swiss Federal Archives, Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980, E4320-05C#1995/234#628*), p. 1. ​50 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, XXX o Festival Internazionale del Film, Locarno, 26 August 1977 (Swiss Federal Archives, Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1960–1980, E4320-05C#1995/234#628*), p. 1. 51 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, XXXVI o Festival Internazionale del Film, Locarno, 19 August 1983 (Swiss Federal Archives, Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1981–1989, E4320-05C#1995/234#629*), p. 1.

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the socialist countries that was viewed as responsible for the changes perceived in the festival. Following the 1984 festival edition, the Ticino police stopped sending reports to the federal police for a few years. The Locarno files provide no clue as to the reasons for this sudden interruption. It does however coincide with a general retraction of Swiss state security activity starting in the mid-eighties.52 The last surveillance report in the existing LIFF files is from the year 1988, in which the federal police were informed of protests against one of the festival sponsors, a major Swiss bank, accused of proximity to the Apartheid regime in South Africa.53

Conclusion In this chapter, the case of the LIFF serves as an example for showing why film festivals in Switzerland were subjected to surveillance by state security during the Cold War. There were two reasons for this, the main one being that state security viewed the participation of socialist countries as a potential threat to national security. The security agencies especially feared that the delegates might use their participation in the festival for political ends such as propaganda, intelligence activities, or for getting in touch with Swiss communists for conspiratorial purposes. That is why as soon as a festival event attracted the police’s attention, Swiss state security systematically recorded all participants from socialist countries and controlled their contacts with third parties.54 The second reason why festivals were subject to surveillance was that the security agencies feared their infiltration by radical leftists, which might have opened an event to political agitation at the expense of its cultural vocation. In the eyes of the police, potential signs for such “politicization” were political unrest or the presence of radical leftists on the juries or in the program. If such signs were detected, the festival itself was subjected to surveillance. Thus, Swiss state security intended to assess the security risk present at a given film festival and if necessary to take counter-measures against it in cooperation with other federal and cantonal services, as a matter of prevention. In the case of the LIFF, surveillance did not confirm these fears. The security agencies found neither evidence of intelligence activities carried out by the participating socialist countries, nor proof of an infiltration of the event by the radical 52

See Jean-Daniel Delley, Karteien und Fichen. “Das Corpus delicti”. In: Kreis, Der Staatsschutz in der Schweiz, p. 51. 53 Polizia del Cantone Ticino, 41esimo Festival Internazionale del Film di Locarno, Locarno, 30 September 1988 (Swiss Federal Archives, Filmfestival Locarno (51)/15, 1981–1989, E432005C#1995/234#629*), p. 2. 54 Consequently, the file card maintained by the federal police on the Solothurner Filmtage, another Swiss film festival subjected to surveillance during the Cold War, mainly contains entries on participants from the Eastern Bloc. See also footnote 4.

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left during the roughly thirty years the festival was subject to surveillance.55 Only in 1970 did Swiss state security briefly see an elevated risk for the latter, which is why the federal police forwarded that year’s surveillance report to the Film Section within the Federal Department of Home Affairs. Consequently, the federal police never classified the LIFF as a threat to national security. Furthermore, the Locarno files do not contain any evidence of the federal police deciding against the screening of a controversial film at the festival, or refusing a visa application by a citizen from the Eastern Bloc for security reasons. Yet although the federal authorities did not view the LIFF as an immediate threat to national security, the roughly thirty years they subjected the festival to surveillance nevertheless show that they did not consider the situation as entirely safe either. As a result, surveillance seems to have been systematic, but largely conducted as a matter of routine.56 However, the question remains open as to what might have happened to the LIFF had state security come across further elements indicating what they perceived as suspicious activity at the festival, as was the case in 1970.

55 The case of one Sovexportfilm representative, who visited the LIFF in 1958 and 1959 and was expelled from Switzerland in 1960 on charges of espionage not associated with the film festival, shows that the official delegations from the socialist countries could indeed include intelligence agents. It thus cannot be ruled out that delegates from socialist countries may have conducted intelligence activities during their stay at the LIFF, even if Swiss state security could not find any evidence of such activity. 56 The Locarno files make no explicit reference to the intensity of surveillance. Individual text passages in the Ticino reports, however, suggest that generally no more than one officer at a time was responsible for festival surveillance.

Dragan Batančev The Belgrade FEST, or What Happened When Peckinpah Met Wajda

This essay will look at how the Belgrade International Film Festival – best known as the FEST – turned from a platform for cultural legitimation in Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia into an escapist vanity fair in Slobodan Milošević’s Serbia. On the one hand, I will argue that the FEST’s Cold War history reinforces the image of Yugoslavia as a meeting point between the socialist East and the capitalist West. On the other, I will show that political turmoil around the festival in the 1990s clearly demonstrates the ongoing presence of Cold War mentality in the Balkans well after that conflict had ended.1 The FEST’s lack of a fixed identity and the festival management’s reluctance to make it either more spectacular or more selective have reflected the absence of a coherent Yugoslav national and cultural policy.2 The emergence of the FEST would have been impossible without the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, after which considerable Western financial aid to Yugoslavia resulted in the economic growth rate reaching its peak in the early 1960s.3 In the wake of co-founding the Non-Aligned Movement and hosting its first conference in 1961, the Yugoslav government sought to put Belgrade on the world cultural map. The first Belgrade International Theatre Festival (BITEF) took place in 1967, followed by the first Belgrade Music Festival (BEMUS) in 1968. However, 1 2

3

For more about Cold War dynamics at another Belgrade film festival, see Dunja Jelenković’s article “The Film Festival as an Arena for Political Debate: The Yugoslav Black Wave in Belgrade and Oberhausen, 1967–1973” in this volume. This paper is based on my research conducted at the Yugoslav Film Archive’s library, where a number of monographs as well as press clippings on the FEST’s history can be found. The monographs widely cited in the text are written by the Belgrade film critics who were, at one time or another, involved in the festival’s organization and selection. The most useful source has proven to be Ivan Karl’s book, which is printed in both Serbian and English with a vast number of photographs from the festival’s and private archives. However, all of these monographs are just different forms of journalistic overviews, which means that a body of critical academic texts about the FEST has yet to be produced. At the moment, there is no specialized textual archive of the FEST. Predrag Simić, Civil War in Yugoslavia. In: Martin P. van den Heuvel/J. G. Siccama (eds.), The Disintegration of Yugoslavia, Amsterdam 1992, p. 79.

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the FEST did not join this festival family as a result of a consistent strategy, but out of personal spite. At the end of the sixties, Yugoslav movie theater attendance had hit a historic low: “The media and the public cited many reasons for this, including the escalation of television and entertainment and a growing number of sports events.”4 In a series of articles published by the major daily, Politika, film critic Milutin Čolić asserted that the low quality of imported films caused the apathy among the moviegoers. Čolić even made a bet that he could attract the audience with a series of good reruns. In January 1970, he organized a small retrospective, “The Best Movies of 1969”, which had huge crowds of spectators stopping traffic in one of the city’s main streets while fighting for tickets. This was a signal for the Belgrade City Council to ask Čolić to establish an international film festival “whatever the cost”.5 Čolić proposed the “festival of festivals” concept, which involves screening films by the award winners and renowned participants of other reputable film festivals, “regardless of genre, origin, or expression”. The Belgrade festival of festivals was not to be the first of its kind; the existing Acapulco and London festivals screened only award-winning films, while the New York Film Festival spotlighted non-American cinema in like manner.6 Some Yugoslav filmmakers opposed creating the FEST out of fear that the event would take too much money from the already tightened budgets of the state film studios, but Čolić reassured them that the new festival would be financed by a pool of sponsors, i.e. the largest state-owned companies.7 Other filmmakers, including the Berlin and Karlovy Vary laureate Živojin Pavlović, suggested that the FEST be a competitive festival oriented towards a particular genre (war or erotic films), but this idea was rejected, no doubt because Belgrade could not compete with Cannes or Venice in attracting the best films to have their premiere at the FEST,8 while a narrow generic determinant might have seriously limited both the festival’s appeal to local audiences9 and the number of international guests. The decision born out of this more or less understandable inferiority complex was that the FEST would have no competition or awards, but only selections providing moviegoers with a perspective on current trends in world film production. The title of Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World was chosen as the festival’s motto, implying a free, open, and critical film selection. At the beginning, 4 5 6 7 8 9

Ivan Karl, Sanjati otvorenih očiju (1971–2011). Monografija FESTa [Dreaming With Eyes Wide Open], Beograd 2013, p. 12. Milutin Čolić, Jubilej jedne filmske istorije. In: Božidar Zečević (ed.), Sav taj FEST. Povodom dvadesetpetogodišnjice Međunarodnog filmskog festivala FEST, Beograd 1997, p. 7. Karl, Sanjati otvorenih očiju, pp. 13–14. Čolić, Jubilej jedne filmske istorije, p. 7. Milan Vlajčić, Fest, odbrojavanje. Subjektivna šetnja kroz tridesetak godina beogradskog festivala, Beograd 2002, p. 9. Čolić, Jubilej jedne filmske istorije, p. 9.

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however, catchy names were not enough to guarantee the festival’s survival. Having no fixed budget, Čolić spent a lot of time bargaining with the foreign producers who were not willing to lower the price of films, while local distributors demanded money for their negotiating skills. Čolić was constantly on the phone pleading and making promises so as to advertise the FEST and advance its importance in cultural and business circles. His efforts seemed to have finally paid off after the FEST’s admission to the Fédération Internationale des Associations de Producteurs de Films (FIAPF). However, the key factor here was the support of the Yugoslav president, Josip Broz Tito, who was a passionate movie fan and an occasional producer of war films.10 Tito also enjoyed the company of celebrities and that was the main reason why stars like Orson Welles, Richard Burton, and Elizabeth Taylor were invited to Yugoslavia. Honoring the first FEST in 1971 and marking the 75th anniversary of the Lumière brothers’ invention, Tito accepted Čolić’s initiative to decorate distinguished filmmakers: Charles Chaplin, Laurence Olivier, Rene Clair, Mark Donskoy, John Ford, Luchino Visconti, Akira Kurosawa, Fritz Lang, Luis Buñuel, Ingmar Bergman, and Satyajit Ray.11 A closer examination reveals the spatial and artistic range of the list: represented were the varied styles of directors who came from different corners of the globe, thus enacting the Yugoslav ideology of non-alignment and cosmopolitanism. More importantly, all twelve directors were to some extent leftist, or progressive at least. Even though most of them did not come to Belgrade, all were proud to receive a medal by Tito, as he was respected worldwide for his role in the WWII freedom fighter movement and his independent postwar politics.12 On 8 January 1971, Tito’s ability to collaborate with both sides of the Iron Curtain was met with the support of UNESCO, whose special envoy, Alberto Obligado, attended the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the first Belgrade public screening in 1896.13 During its first decade, the FEST took advantage of the country’s foreign political position and relative economic stability to become the most important film festival in Southeastern Europe and a meeting point of the two world blocs, as it were. On the surface, Hollywood studios contributed to the FEST’s reputation by considering Yugoslavia a respectable market and the only free country in Eastern Europe; in truth, they were attracted by the golden age of Tito’s modernity on the one hand,14 and by yet another source of lucrative revenues on the other. In this 10 See the documentary film Cinema Komunisto directed by Mila Turajlić (Serbia, 2010). 11 Karl, Sanjati otvorenih očiju, pp. 16–17. 12 Chaplin’s reaction was particularly heartfelt: “Before the Marshal, who did not get his rank by decree, but in a fight against fascism, I, a soldier in that fight, stand still and salute” (Čolić, Jubilej jedne filmske istorije, p. 32). 13 Karl, Sanjati otvorenih očiju, p. 17. 14 That is, the 1970s, by contrast with the post-war reconstruction of the 1950s and the political unrest of the 1960s.

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context it is worth noting that Stanley Kubrick, both a leftist and anti-communist, personally granted the right to screen 2001: A Space Odyssey (USA/GB1968) at the 1971 FEST, although the film had premiered three years earlier.15 It was through breaking such film import barriers that Belgrade really felt it was catching up with the rest of the world. The first FEST had a number of different selections, of which the midnight program, called “Confrontations”, garnered the most attention. Its selector, Dušan Makavejev, the director of the scandalous film WR – Mysteries of the Organism (W. R. – Misterije organizma, Yugoslavia/FRG1971), described this program as “a kind of experiment aimed at determining how certain audiences relate to certain types of films”, ranging from those with pornographic elements to those about political turmoil.16 His affinity for shocking content should come as no surprise for Makavejev held a degree in psychology and was interested in the media manipulation of both sex and political ideology. Quite expectedly, thousands of spectators rushed to taste the forbidden fruit: Jens Jørgen Thorsen’s Quiet Days in Clichy (Stille dage i Clichy, Denmark 1970), Jean-Luc Godard’s Wind from the East (Le Vent d’est, Italy/France 1970), and the first Yugoslav public screening of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens, Germany 1935), among others. To see how provocative the first FEST was, one need only read Makavejev’s text in the seemingly benign catalogue of the festival’s conference on cinematic representations of revolution. Obviously fascinated by Riefenstahl’s work, Makavejev went so far as to openly compare fascist and communist atrocities, something hardly imaginable in the countries of real socialism.17 Makavejev’s nonconformism was too much even for the moderately liberal Tito’s regime, but the Yugoslav ruler was still waiting for the right moment to unleash his anger. Overall, the first FEST featured an impressive list of masterpieces, including older movies which had not previously been imported to Yugoslavia: MASH (USA 1970), Midnight Cowboy (USA 1969), Easy Rider (USA 1969), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (USA 1969), The Passion of Anna (En passion, Sweden 1969), Tristana (Spain/Italy/France 1970), Satyricon (Fellini Satyricon, Italy 1969), My Night at Maud’s (Ma nuit chez Maud, France 1969), The Damned (La caduta degli dei, Italy/FRG 1969), Zabriskie Point (USA 1970), etc. Equally interesting was the presence of international guests in the role of unofficial cultural diplomats. Frank Capra, for instance, avoided talking about the Vietnam War movies, but was quick to point out that “reactionary movies come from the 15 16 17

Čolić, Jubilej jedne filmske istorije, p. 20. Karl, Sanjati otvorenih očiju, p. 20. Vlajčić, Fest, odbrojavanje, pp. 16–17. Another problematic screening at the 1971 FEST was that of Pavlović’s The Ambush (Zaseda, Yugoslavia 1969), which officially received a limited release two years prior to the festival, but was actually shelved due to its less-than-glorious portrayal of WWII Yugoslav partisans and thinly veiled reference to the 1968 protests.

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communist countries.”18 The Soviet director Mark Donskoy talked to the Belgrade film students about his acquaintance with Solzhenitsyn; while another Soviet, Grigori Chukhrai, criticized the decadent depiction of sex in Western productions. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper “scowled at his words at the press conference”, whereas Andrzej Wajda, who spoke Serbo-Croatian fluently, “when asked about the behavior of intellectuals during the political turmoil in Poland, said that he didn’t understand the question, provoking laughter from all assembled”.19 In general, the guests of this and later editions of the FEST were unwilling to engage in heated political discussions. Instead they opted for polite comments about the vibrant Belgrade atmosphere and the non-commercial nature of the festival itself, which was more of a sentimental tribute to Yugoslav socialism than a fact-based assessment. Perhaps because of the emphasis on non-commercialism, the 1970s organizers did not establish a festival market for distribution and co-productions. If fostering better exchange of films between the blocs seemed unlikely because of Cold War restrictions in economic cooperation, Yugoslavia might have benefitted simply from increasing the number of foreign films shot in the country.20 But instead of attempting to strengthen the infrastructural and creative foundations of Yugoslav cinema, the FEST’s nomenklatura were content with imitating, albeit modestly, the glamour of Cannes and Venice by hosting and fetishizing movie stars, especially actresses such as Claudia Cardinale, Liv Ullmann, and Monica Vitti. Despite Tito’s proclaimed affiliation with the so-called Third World and the sporadic inclusion of peripheral cinemas on the FEST’s program, there was obviously no systematic effort to serve as an alternative to the Tashkent Festival of Asian, African, and Latin American Cinema. To some extent, this focus on American and European cultures was predetermined by Yugoslavia having first been in the Soviet, and then the American sphere of cultural influence. The predominance of the Socialist Realism in first postwar years was followed by a profound Americanization.21 The omnipresence of American abstract expressionism and Pop art, literature, avant-garde theatre, jazz, film, comic books, and TV soap operas was nevertheless subject to ideological control: “The openness was considered welcome as long as it did not endanger the ruling dogma, and as long as the system was not questioned. Western culture 18 19 20

21

Lazar Stojanović/Jovan Jovanović/Tomislav Gotovac, U razgovoru s Frenk Kaprom. In: Sineast, 13–14 (1971), p. 28. Karl, Sanjati otvorenih očiju, pp. 22–23. For more about the big-budget international co-productions shot in 1960s Yugoslavia, see: Cinema Komunisto, and the documentary TV series SFRJ for the Beginners (SFRJ za početnike, Serbia 2012). Truth be told, Sam Peckinpah shot his film The Cross of Iron (GB/FRG 1977) in Yugoslavia after having been a guest of the FEST, but there are no archival traces of institutionalizing international co-productions within the festival’s framework. Goran Miloradović, Lepota pod nadzorom. Sovjetski kulturni uticaji u Jugoslaviji, 1945–1955, Beograd 2012.

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and standards, as well as Western icons could ‘pass’ and were even encouraged in order to show the ‘human face’ of the socialist society, but opposition to ruling dogma was not tolerated, as shown by the various forms of pressure and censorship within the culture.”22 An overview of renowned Yugoslav film journals (Filmska kultura, Film) and daily and weekly newspapers (Politika, Večernje novosti, NIN) indicates a distorted understanding of the auteur theory amongst prominent film critics: in contrast to their Les Cahiers du cinéma colleagues, who regarded Ford and Hitchcock as more than just skillful craftsmen, Yugoslav critics, although recognizing the importance of the classical Hollywood masters, were more prone to considering non-Hollywood cinema as the only guardian of cinematic art. With a few telling exceptions, for instance in certain texts in the then marginalized Sarajevan film journal Sineast, the New Hollywood movement was not met with enthusiasm. The Belgrade film students’ talks with the likes of Capra and Francis Ford Coppola might have had an impact on aspiring Yugoslav filmmakers, but the word “genre”, especially at the FEST, has been either misinterpreted or held in contempt. There is no doubt, however, that Central and Eastern European filmmakers used the FEST to see otherwise unavailable films, as in the case of a Bulgarian director Ivan Andanov23 and his Hungarian colleague István Szabó.24 The first FEST was closed with a press conference announcing that “one country had officially objected to the FEST’s alleged penchant for American cinema”; we might only guess which presumably socialist country it was. The festival organizers responded by pointing out the superiority of Hollywood over other national productions at the time. Before the beginning of the first FEST, Čolić said the festival would be seen as a failure if it attracted fewer than 50,000 visitors; but in the end 105,000 moviegoers attended the festival screenings over the course of nine days: “Up to that moment, no other cultural event in Belgrade had brought so many people together.”25 From the very beginning, the FEST was under political fire. In 1972 the aforementioned selection “Confrontations” was condemned by the Yugoslav War Veterans Association for “the midnight screenings of films with scenes of guns and violence, drug abuse, and pornography, which attracted thousands of young people who had bought expensive tickets to watch those morbid pictures.” The FEST’s representatives astutely responded that “Confrontations” were meant only

22 23 24 25

Radina Vučetić, Coca-cola Socialism: The Americanization of Yugoslav Popular Culture in the 1960s. Summary, http://www.udi.rs/articles/koka_kola_summary.pdf. Vladimir Petek, Beogradski filmski dani. Fest ’71. In: Sineast, 13–14 (1971), p. 72. Karl, Sanjati otvorenih očiju, p. 40. Ibid., p. 26.

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for accredited journalists and cultural workers interested in avant-garde films, and therefore no tickets had been sold. Notwithstanding this criticism, the FEST would go on to become a model for a similar Polish festival, which was titled “Konfrontacje”, after Makavejev’s program.26 On the request of FIAPF in 1973, the FEST redefined its concept. The re-established Acapulco festival claimed its rights to being the “Festival of Festivals”, thus turning the FEST into something even more pretentious – the “Festival of the Best World Films”. But this change was purely cosmetic, as the FEST’s program continued to be made up of festival winners. On a more positive note, it seems the FEST was recognized for its popular appeal, so much so that the director of the Berlinale, Alfred Bauer, accepted Čolić’s ideas as to how to attract a larger audience and make the Berlin Festival less elitist.27 More significant for the FEST’s future were internal, behind-the-scenes purges of the festival’s organizers: Aleksandar Petrović and Dušan Makavejev were ousted for criticizing Yugoslav society as members of an informal movement called the Black Wave, a Yugoslav version of then popular cinematic New Wave movements. After the 1968 student protests had demonstrated how fragile his regime really was, Tito did not forget which intellectuals and artists had supported the students, and he patiently waited for the right moment to retaliate. Makavejev and Petrović were forced to leave Yugoslavia after having been deprived of the right to work, while Petrović’s student Lazar Stojanović became the first Yugoslav filmmaker sentenced to prison when his thesis film, Plastic Jesus (Plastični Isus, Yugoslavia 1971), was deemed overtly satirical and an insult to Tito’s personality cult. Ironically, the Black Wave auteurs became famous in their home country after receiving accolades at the most prestigious international festivals: in 1967, Petrović’s film investigating the surreal world of the Roma, I Even Met Happy Gypsies (Skupljači perja, Yugoslavia 1967) won the Special Grand Prize of the Jury and the FIPRESCI prize in Cannes, ceding the Grand Prix du Festival only to Antonioni’s Blow-Up (GB/USA/ Italy 1966). The same year, another Black Wave director, Živojin Pavlović, won the Silver Bear for Directing in Berlin for The Rats Woke Up (Budjenje pacova, Yugoslavia 1967); he would soon be joined by Želimir Žilnik, who was awarded the Golden Bear in 1969 for Early Works (Rani radovi, Yugoslavia 1969). All these films were too dark and provocative to receive wide release in Yugoslavia, but the government took much pride in their international success, thereby granting a special status to their creators. As soon as the political turbulence commenced, however, their achievements were all proclaimed decadent, pessimistic, or

26 27

Ibid., p.31; Čolić, Jubilej jedne filmske istorije, p. 18. Čolić, Jubilej jedne filmske istorije, pp. 17–18.

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simply subjective.28 Only a few years before the Helsinki Final Act brought the ideology of human rights to bear on the socialist states, the West was still hesitant to criticize Yugoslavia for obvious political persecution, mostly because Tito did everything possible not to resemble Stalin: Makavejev was allowed to emigrate and continued to direct films in the West, eventually becoming the best known Yugoslav director alongside Kusturica; Petrović and Žilnik were also allowed to leave the country and continue directing films in West Germany; Pavlović stayed in Yugoslavia and after a few years of stagnation resumed making films, although less frequently. Never again, however, would these directors repeat their 1960s successes on the international festival circuit. Mirroring the Cold War détente, the second half of the 1970s did not bring any tectonic shifts in the FEST’s organization, and there were only occasional and often banal reminders of the conflict. In 1975, Pier Paolo Pasolini stayed in Belgrade less than 24 hours, concluding that the FEST was not a worldly festival, a snobbish comment one would not expect from such a vocal leftist. Francis Ford Coppola confirmed that the Soviet minister of cinema had inspired him to make The Godfather II (USA 1974), adding that he had no intention of filming a third part.29 In 1978 the Soviet delegation openly protested the representation of the Vietnam War in The Deer Hunter (USA 1978) and departed Belgrade. They soon repeated the same action in Berlin; but in neither of the festivals did their actions cause much excitement.30 The same year, Sidney Lumet’s masterpiece Network (USA 1976) was not screened at the FEST because Yugoslav distributors had had no money to buy the film the year before, and then the production company United Artists banned sales to socialist countries. Following their precedent in Berlin and Cannes, Polish government vetoed Man of Marble (Człowiek z mramuru, Poland 1978) in Belgrade. Fortunately, Wajda’s film was screened at the opening festival ceremony the year after. George Lucas’s Star Wars (USA 1977) was unavailable solely because of its high price.31 In 1980, Milutin Čolić, the FEST’s alpha and omega, was unseated because his working style, according to the official media, “contradicted the nature of self-management”.32 In other words, it was high time to create a typical Yugoslav 28

29 30 31 32

Milan Nikodijević, Zabranjeni bez zabrane. Zona sumraka jugoslovenskog filma, Beograd 1995; Bogdan Tirnanić, Crni talas, Beograd 2011. The most extensive source in English about the Black Wave is Greg DeCuir, Jr., Yugoslav Black Wave. Polemical Cinema from 1963–1972 in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Beograd 2011. DeCuir’s overemphasis on a deliberate political agenda in the Black Wave is denounced in: Nebojša Jovanović, Breaking the Wave. A Commentary on ‘Black Wave Polemics: Rhetoric as Aesthetic’ by Greg DeCuir, Jr. In: Studies in Eastern European Cinema, 2 (2011), pp. 161–171. Karl, Sanjati otvorenih očiju, p. 40. Vlajčić, Fest, odbrojavanje, pp. 46–47. Karl, Sanjati otvorenih očiju, p. 49. Ibid., p. 57.

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(and socialist) collective body, a bureaucratic and inefficient seven-member committee. Roman Polanski could not hide his disappointment over the simultaneous translation of his film Tess (France/GB 1979).33 Unfortunately, reactions such as Polanski’s were to become a hallmark of the FEST, as it had a long history of technical problems. It also serves as a succinct emblem for the place the FEST occupied in the family of international festivals: over the years it hosted numerous canonical filmmakers, while failing to meet even basic screening standards. The FEST, like Yugoslavia itself in many ways, desperately attempted to overcome its shortcomings only to discover that it was just its relatively high 1970s standard of living, Tito’s name, and the seemingly exotic Eastern European location that attracted the international celebrities. During the 1980s the FEST was losing its charm. Selection committees could not come up with a new concept after many films awarded at other festivals failed to appear in Belgrade. The number of guests decreased and the festival glitziness was gone. Amongst the opponents of the FEST’s organization, the film critic Ranko Munitić was particularly vociferous. As early as in 1972 he had warned that it was not enough to screen only festival winners, as accolades were no guarantee of quality.34 A decade later Munitić was openly sarcastic when suggesting that the festival’s slogan be changed to “the best films bought by Yugoslav distributors”,35 and concluded that the FEST gave up on new cinematic tendencies and the vision of a brave new world by adopting an impersonal title, “International Film Festival”.36 Munitić’s colleague from Sarajevo, Nikola Stojanović, was more conciliatory in writing that the most important thing be not how films are classified in different festival programs, but that a “hungry cinephile” have the chance to watch as many films as possible.37 Interestingly, the metaphor of the hungry cinephile would re-emerge later in regard to the Sarajevo Film Festival as well. Tito’s death in 1980 was a turning point for both the festival and the country on the whole, marking the beginning of the political and economic crisis that paralyzed Yugoslavia’s democratization. “Measures of economic stabilization and foreign currency issues” were the main reason why Raging Bull (USA 1980), The Shining (GB/USA 1980), and Superman II (USA 1980) could not be screened at the 1981 FEST. Perhaps the best illustration as to how far sidetracked the festival was at the time is an episode with Jean-Luc Godard in 1986, when the French director was not at the peak of his fame. Godard requested that two of his films, 33 Ibid., p. 59. 34 Ranko Munitić, 100 lica jednog festivala ili FEST 72. In: Filmska kultura, 78–80 (1972), pp. 196–197. 35 Ranko Munitić, Na marginama FEST-a 1981 (Umjesto prikaza). In: Filmska kultura, 130 (1981), p. 108. 36 Ranko Munitić, Baj-baj FEST!: XII Međunarodni filmski festival u Beogradu. In: Filmska kultura, 136 (1982), p. 108. 37 Nikola Stojanović, FEST post skriptum. In: Sineast, 46 (1980), p. 46.

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Hail Mary (Je vous salue, Marie, France 1985) and Detective (Détective, France 1985) be screened in Belgrade, but canceled his visit nonetheless.38 At the end of 1980s there was a feeling that the FEST might be reformed and restored to at least a fraction of its past glory. The film offering was expanded and diversified, enriched by a plethora of sidebar activities. One of the most attractive segments of the 1989 FEST was the TV show Festovizija, which featured reports, interviews, documentaries, a live contact program, and films, and was broadcast all day long. In addition, a satellite TV panel featuring experts from Belgrade and Washington explored the then hot topic of video piracy. Festovizija was edited by Nebojša Đukelić, who soon became the FEST’s selector. Working with the Black Wave champion Aleksandar Petrović, Đukelić established the first and, sadly, only Belgrade International Film Festival of Central European Film, which sought to find an alternative to a market saturated with the pirate copies of Hollywood blockbusters.39 The short life of the Festival of the Central European Film coincided with Yugoslav politicians’ refusal of a deal conceived by Washington and Brussels, according to which Yugoslavia would be saved and set on the road to joining the European Union. Regrettably, the desire of filmmakers to unify the Balkans and put Central Europe on the cinematic map was no match for the overwhelming shortsightedness of politicians. In early 1992, Slovenia and Croatia were well on their way to becoming independent states, while Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were preparing for their own referendums on independence. With tragic bloodshed looming large on the horizon along with the cessation of cultural and business communication, the organization of the FEST was uncertain. Thanks to the international standing of Emir Kusturica, however, Belgrade hosted Jim Jarmusch and Johnny Depp, who spent most of their time in the night clubs playing with the local bands. French directors Jean-Jacques Annaud and Marc Caro, as well as the Russian Nikita Mikhalkov also appeared, and so for a short time it seemed that everything was just fine with both Belgrade and the FEST. This, I would argue, is another turning point in the FEST’s history, the attempt to normalize time out of joint. Symbolically, at the centre of this moment stood none other than Kusturica himself: an ethnic Bosniak by origin, he felt that Bosniak leaders had betrayed Yugoslav supranationalism and committed many crimes at the beginning of the Bosnian War, so he immigrated to Serbia, where he converted to Orthodoxy and (re-)adopted Serbian nationality.40 Back in 1992, Kusturica was still struggling with his aura as the last great Yugoslav director and the fame he achieved after winning his first Golden Palm in 1985. Kusturica’s only American film, Arizona 38 Karl, Sanjati otvorenih očiju, pp. 63–64, p. 75. 39 Ibid., p. 91. 40 Tracy Wilkinson, Finding Roots in a Reel Balkan Village, http://articles.latimes.com/2007/ aug/13/world/fg-emir13.

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Dream (USA 1993), proved to be a more bitter than sweet experience, leading him to believe that America did not grasp the peculiarities of European cultures. While his homeland was rapidly falling apart, Kusturica maintained his vision of an alternative glamour: with Jarmusch and Depp in Belgrade, Serbian society might have believed the dissolution of Yugoslavia would not be as long and bloody as it turned out to be. Kusturica got entangled in what Slobodan Milošević and his elite gradually developed as a dominant belief: the conspiracy theory that the West, led by the United States, was doing everything possible to crush Serbia, that last bastion of freedom after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. For Milošević, the Cold War did not end in 1989, nor did it end in 1999, when NATO bombed Serbia; even after all the devastation, Milošević’s rhetoric remained thoroughly Manichean, depicting the fight between the bad, rich West and the poor, but proud and good East.41 Milošević was confident that not only would his vision of morality prevail over Western decadence, but that the whole world would realize that the Serbs were right once Boris Yeltsin‘s Russia stepped in to help Serbia in its brave fight against the Goliath of the West. By winning his second Golden Palm in 1995, Kusturica indirectly contributed to a belief that is often forgotten: in the wake of Milošević‘s signing the Dayton Agreement and cultural triumphs such as Kusturica’s in Cannes, many people, especially in the West, thought that Milošević would be tamed.42 Unlike his Black Wave colleagues who had used Cold War film festivals to lay bare the faults of Tito’s nomenklatura, Kusturica utilized his victory in Cannes to restore some of the country’s prestige that Milošević was working so hard to lose. The downfall of the FEST became evident with the rise of the Sarajevo Film Festival. The first Sarajevo Film Festival took place amidst the siege of Sarajevo (April 1992–February 1996), one of the longest military sieges of a city in modern history. In this period Sarajevo was devastated by persistent bombing by the Army of Republika Srpska. Needless to say, there was little room for thinking about cultural events while people were dying and fighting against starvation and the cold. But the desire to live a normal life triumphed, and so the first Sarajevo International Film Festival was held for ten days in October 1993, mostly due to the inexhaustible enthusiasm of the prominent Sarajevan theatre director, Haris Pašović. However, unlike Belgrade in 1992, Sarajevo could not host international guests; it was “an event that completely embarrassed the UN, which found itself refusing, possibly on orders from the British government, to fly stars Vanessa Redgrave, Jeremy Irons, and Daniel Day-Lewis into the city for the event”.43 The 41

Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel. The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito to the Fall of Milošević, Boulder and Oxford 2002, p. 356. 42 Adam LeBor, Milosevic. A Biography, London 2002, p. 253. 43 Kenneth Turan, Sundance to Sarajevo. Film Festivals and the World They Made, Berkeley and Los Angeles 2002, p. 105.

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war suffering of epic proportions has endowed the Sarajevo Film Festival with significant symbolic capital: “While visits to more conventional festivals like Cannes or Sundance concentrate on rooting out what is new and different, the award-winners and trend-setters, Sarajevo promised a chance to examine the uses and purposes of film at ground zero, to get at the core of how the medium works and what it can mean to people no matter what their circumstances.”44 That is to say, during the war Sarajevans craved films just as much as food and clothes; in addition, their cultural appetite has been perceived as being more primal than the needs of the FEST’s audience in 1970s. In the eyes of Sarajevans, as well as of the West, Belgrade‘s impassivity towards the destruction of the Bosnian capital constituted a loss of integrity. Sarajevo-born Kusturica epitomized this gap between the two cities: “To the people who remained in Sarajevo, it is the fact that Kusturica not only left but also did things like promote a Belgrade film festival while his birthplace was being bombed that caused the greatest anger against the director.”45 The legacy of the war turned Sarajevo into a new regional festival centre, while Belgrade’s FEST first had to grapple with the Cold War mentality of 1990s Serbia under Milošević, pervaded as it was with collective paranoia and irrationality. In 1993 and 1994 the FEST was cancelled due to the international embargo. While it resumed operations in 1995 and 1996, the most important moment in its recent history and the end of its Cold War era came in 1997. In November 1996, the opposition coalition Zajedno had won local elections in Serbia, but Milošević’s government tried to tamper with the results and then annul them. Civil and student protests broke out across the country and lasted for more than three months, particularly in Belgrade. The FEST was interrupted after a brutal police intervention in the area close to the main venue when thousands of people were savagely beaten and blasted with very cold water by water cannons. The following morning the FEST Council submitted their irrevocable resignations formulated in a statement condemning the police repression.46 The FEST continued as a film show after long negotiations, but that was the year the Belgrade film festival finally woke up from its apolitical hibernation. Today, while it has survived the demise of both Yugoslavia, for which it was once the showcase international film festival, and the Cold War, in which it served as an important oasis of international interaction, and while it might be deemed “successful and capable of self-preservation precisely because it [i.e. a film festival network] knows how to adapt to changing circumstances”,47 the FEST has yet to get itself back on its feet with a redefined profile and target audience. 44 45 46 47

Ibid., p. 90. Ibid., p. 103. Karl, Širom zatvorenih očiju, p. 118. Marijke de Valck, Film Festivals. From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia, Amsterdam 2007, pp. 35–36.

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In retrospect, the FEST seems to have been a festival without a festival concept and a much cheaper copy of Cannes and Berlin. Perhaps it was the obsession with Cannes glamour that Belgrade and Yugoslavia needed to emulate in order to feel more liberal and Western. On the other hand, in the golden age of the FEST, an era without the Internet or video stores, where else would someone like István Szabó have been able to watch so many films? Where would Sam Peckinpah have been able to analyze his own movies with the kind of introspection that raised the bar of Yugoslav film criticism and theory? How else would Makavejev have been able to introduce pornography as a serious moral and political issue in Yugoslavia? Even though it seems hard to measure the impact that the FEST had on the cultural life of Belgrade and the whole region, it is impossible to underestimate its significance for Yugoslav popular culture and for all those valuable and creative people infatuated with both Hollywood films and Tarkovsky, both rock and roll and classic Soviet theater.



Appendix

Index of Authors

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Index of Authors Dragan Batančev, PhD student in Film & Moving Image Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. Anne Bruch, M. A., Postdoctoral research fellow at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research and lecturer for Contemporary European History at the TU Braunschweig. Regina Câmara, Dr. phil., Historian, University of Vienna. Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann, Dr. phil., Lecturer for Film- and German Studies in the Department of Communications & Journalism and the DAAD Center for German Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dunja Jelenković, M. A., Teaching lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. Andreas Kötzing, Dr. phil., Lecturer for Contemporary History at the University of Leipzig and research fellow at the Hannah-Arendt-Institute at the University of Dresden. Caroline Moine, Dr. phil., Assistant Professor for Contemporary History and Assistant Director of the Centre for Cultural History of Contemporary Societies (CHCSC) at the University Versailles St-Quentin-en-Yvelines/Paris-Saclay. Stefano Pisu, Dr. phil., Research Associate for Contemporary History at the University of Cagliari and research fellow at the Centre for Cultural History of Contemporary Societies (CHCSC) at the University Versailles St-Quentinen-Yvelines/Paris-Saclay. Maria Stassinopoulou, Dr. phil. habil., Professor and Chair of Modern Greek Studies at the University of Vienna and corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. John Wäfler, lic. phil., Former research fellow at the University of Lucerne, founder and co-director of the Roadmovie mobile cinema. Yulia Yurtaeva, M. A., Lecturer for Media Studies at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, Potsdam.