Festivals that (did not) Matter: Festivals’ Archival Practices and the Field Imaginary of Festival Studies

Abstract

Chapter 1 explores the historiographical and political project of festival studies. In considering queer film festivals’ investment in preserving their own history (or lack thereof) and the state of various archives, I am interested in two inter-related issues. 1. How do institutional settings, professionalization, and sexual politics shape festivals’ archival practices and/or the very existence of archives on film festivals? 2. How might we understand the gaps in the archives, the presence of documents that attest to the existence of yet do not describe ephemeral festivals? In recovering festivals which have been erased from traditional histories, Chapter 1 operates a critique of festival studies’ disciplinary unconscious. It reveals the set of theoretical coordinates which conditioned the development of the field.