Abstract: In an age of corporately controlled media, the exploration of locally controlled, inde pendent, and alternative forms of communications has become a concern, especially for segments of the population whose interests ?cultural, political or otherwise ?lie well outside the mainstream. Minority groups are a prime example. The existing forms of media have in many instances been appropriated and transformed in ways that reflect a different set of cultural and other interests. In the case of capital intensive media such as film, the challenge to minorities has been particularly problematic. Although many would argue that filmmaking is a Hollywood-or-bust proposition, an arduous and continuous search for alternatives in the funding, direction, promotion, distribution, and viewing of films is evident in recent years. The decade of the 1970s witnessed headway ? however experimental or vulnerable ? in minority filmmaking, along with the first film festivals organized by minority groups in the United States. Blacks, Ch?canos, Native Americans, and other groups concerned with transforming a medium in order to meet the needs ignored by Hollywood created a number of film festivals ranging from sporadic gatherings to full-fledged yearly festivals. The Philadelphia Black Film Festival (early 1970s), the San Antonio Chicano Cinefestival (since 1975), and the Native American Film Festival in Seattle (since 1975) are but a few examples. Unlike many mainstream festivals, concerned primarily with promoting stardom amidst glittering lights or with awarding prizes as a marketing strategy, minority film festivals have served more basic purposes; for many films, such festivals provide the only means of reaching audiences. In the case of Chicano filmmaking, it is the San Antonio Cinefestival ?now in its seventh year ?which has shown the greatest continuity. The present article seeks to focus primarily on that festival's emergence, its objectives, accomplishments, and development through the years, including its present state of crisis.
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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