Producing the Other in Film Festivals: Cosmopolitanism, Funding and the Making of Authenticity in Brazilian Cinema

This paper investigates international film festivals and their role as producers of world cinema through cosmopolitan theory. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part argues that Western film festivals are cosmopolitan spaces where encounters with cinematic difference are influenced by consumerism. It also considers how festival fund plays a relevant role in determining what representations of (authentic) otherness are welcomed by (certain) festivals. These considerations highlight the emergence of a cosmopolitan consumer culture based on aesthetics, everyday commerce and the allure of visual difference. The second part analyzes Gabriel Mascaro’s Neon Bull (Boi Neon, 2015), which was supported by the Hubert Bals Fund (Film Festival of Rotterdam) through script development and film production. The intention is to understand the extent of how the depictions of the film’s otherness are influenced by the Fund and festival goers’ desire to consume foreign cinema. It is argued that by forging authentic images that address the expectations of Western audiences, Neon Bull reconstructs its alterity by negotiating already-known perceptions of Brazilianness on the global screen, thus at once introducing new regimes of representation related to nationhood while renewing old ones.