From Cinéfondation’s Résidence to film production: The experience of Brazilian filmmakers in an international labour market

Introduction

According to Marx (2004), the real subsumption of work to capital takes place when ‘capitalist production [. . .] establishes itself as a mode of production sui generis and brings into being a new mode of material production’. Indeed, while the formal subsumption refers, according to Marx, to the integration of previous modes of production to capitalism, ¹ the real one is related to the deepening of the capital accumulation process in an already developed capitalist system. As Hardt and Negri (2000) point out, ‘through the real subsumption, the integration of labour into capital becomes more intensive than extensive and society is ever more completely fashioned by capital’ (p.255).

In the case of films, although such subsumption has been taking place practically since the birth of this art, with its industrial pace of production, it is important to consider the peculiarities that emerged with the advent of the post-modernist stage of capitalism (Harvey, 1989), which intensified the subordination of artistic production to the dictates of capital. This can be particularly noticed in the process of takeover of art by big corporate interests, of which the case of Résidence – that provides film production enterprises with young filmmakers – is a remarkable example. As Harvey (1989) points out, ‘precisely because capitalism is expansionary and imperialistic, cultural life in more and more areas gets brought within the grasp of the cash nexus and the logic of capital circulation’ (p.344).

To analyse the effects of this real subsumption of artistic work on filmmakers’ everyday practices and beliefs, in-depth interviews were carried out with Brazilian filmmakers along the years 2019 and 2020. They have all participated in the artist residency Résidence, organized since 2000 by Cinéfondation, an organization linked to the Cannes Film Festival.

Cinéfondation Résidence selects and hosts in Paris, twice a year, 12 foreign filmmakers (six per session) who do not live in France and are under 40 years old. ² The purpose of such a residency is to give young filmmakers an opportunity to develop the script for a first or second long-feature film. It also organizes several meetings between filmmakers and European film producers who might be interested in the formers’ ideas for a film. For four and a half months, the selected film directors live for free in a flat in Paris, receive a monthly grant of €800 and have free access to many movie theatres in the city.

Here, it should be noted that this role of financial support, played by Résidence, echoes a long French tradition of subsidizing artists during their process of creation dating back to the foundation of the ‘Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture’ by Louis XIV in 1648 and its famous Italian branch in 1666, the ‘Rome Academy’, which provided artists coming from France a regular pension and a staying of 2–4 years in the Italian capital, so that they could be in touch with the works from Antiquity (Hauser, 1962). And such tradition still continues. More recently, since 2018, the Institut Français, a public body responsible for promoting French culture abroad, has been carrying out La Fabrique des résidences, a consultancy programme that helps other countries to structure and finance artist residencies in different fields of creation (Institut Français, 2001).

As regards Résidence, nine Brazilian filmmakers (six men and three women) have been to it so far. All were contacted by us, either by e-mail or phone, having although only three of them, all men, agreed to take part in the interviews. This limitation in the number of interviewees may certainly be due to the usual filmmakers’ busy schedule, but is also related to gender issues, as one of the female filmmakers contacted by us had just given birth and could not participate in the interviews. In general, either filmmakers are involved with the shooting process or with the bureaucracy around it. Nevertheless, we should not dismiss the desire for discretion about their participation in Résidence as a reason for some of the filmmakers contacted to have refused to take part in the interviews.

We sought to compensate for this limited number of interviewees by taking in-depth interviews, carried out in two stages, in order to obtain further information about their experience. Initially, we tried to identify the most relevant questions regarding their work, with the most relevant issues being raised by the filmmakers themselves. In the second stage, a new interview was carried out; this time, guided by a set of 15 questions that dealt with their experiences at Résidence and the working conditions in a transnational environment of film production.

In order to avoid affecting these filmmakers somehow, as they are currently working in the production market, their names were omitted. They were only named as filmmakers A, B and C. In addition, Georges Goldenstern, general manager of Cinéfondation, was interviewed during the 2019 session of Cannes Film Festival. The aim of this interview was to consider not only the standpoint of the filmmakers but also the official views of the institution regarding its aims and concerns, which showed us that official perceptions of the role of the residency programme did not always coincide with those of the filmmakers. The choice of Résidence as a starting point to a case study regarding the filmmakers’ working conditions is mainly due to two reasons. First of all, there has been vast and important empirical research on film festivals in the last 20 years. However, in the scope of such researches, specific studies of residencies or laboratories, usually linked to film festivals, still occupy a smaller part of the concerns. In this sense, we seek to contribute to future research that might be interested in deepening such subject.

Second, Résidence was a pioneering initiative in terms of promoting a more immersive and long-term training experience for filmmakers, if compared to other shorter ones, such as screenwriting workshops. As De Valck (2007) asserts,

Although cultural programs benefit from the concentration of the festival event as it gives the screenings a touch of exclusivity, professional training and development cannot be achieved in a fortnight [. . .] The Cannes Film Festival Cinéfondation responded to this challenge in 2000 by creating the Résidence du Festival, which provides accommodation in Paris for young filmmakers from around the world and offers a program of seminars and professional contacts to assist them in realizing their first or second feature films (p.111).

In fact, Résidence can be considered a unique experience to a certain extent, as it seeks to go beyond the formulae of quick results, like laboratories, where a screenplay is expected as a final result. At Résidence, however, there is no need to deliver a finished product. As Goldenstern has pointed out, ‘in Résidence, there is no professional guidance. The idea is to allow the filmmakers a moment of reflection upon their own writing’. In this respect, filmmaker B has added, ‘they [Résidence] know that there is no point in pushing, because the results are not that straightforward, automatic’.

Despite this institutional discourse of Résidence as a moment of distance from the everyday imperatives of productivity, it is also very important to understand such initiatives as one of the first steps of the filmmakers towards the labour division of a film production, with its industrial logic. Indeed, by already bringing the creators into contact with the potential funders of their films in the initial phase of script development, Résidence may contribute to a subordination of the creative process to the aesthetical and market demands coming from producers and public funds for cinema.

Furthermore, Résidence must be considered as one of several competition regulators (like film festivals) in a highly disputed labour market. As explained to us by one of the filmmakers interviewed (C), ‘participating in Résidence is like arriving in first class to your destination’, by which he means that a stay in the residency functions as a ‘quality label’ that differentiates the filmmakers with this experience, increasing their chances of finding new sources of financing for their future works.

Nevertheless, even the filmmakers interviewed here, who took part in Résidence, reveal uncertainty about their professional future, which is often regarded as a source of permanent distress, not only financial but also emotional. In this sense, precarious working conditions are one of the most damaging effects of this competitive ambiance, impacting upon the very recognition and organization of filmmakers as a group of professionals with common interests, as we will see further.

The economic rationale of a filmmakers’ residency

First, Résidence must be understood as an initiative that, like film festivals and their related business markets, allows contact among filmmakers, representatives of film production companies and potential sponsors for new projects, like distributors and TV channels. By offering this service of intermediation, such instances facilitate meetings that would otherwise be difficult to arrange due to the increasing fragmentation of the cinema production chain. In fact, according to Menger (2009),

the production of works, shows and content is no longer integrated into large companies but, instead [. . .], it mobilises, project after project, a group of independent companies: they provide the different ingredients and services (for example pre-production, casting, sets, electrical equipment, sound mixing, editing, in the case of film production) for the realisation of goods that are each time prototypes (p.707, our translation).

This role of ‘facilitator’ is explained by Georges Goldenstern, according to whom ‘Résidence wishes to be a kind of intermediary between creators and producers’. For him, this intermediation role has become all the more relevant, as film festivals, which have so far fulfilled the function of promoting new and unknown film directors, gave way to artists’ residencies as places for ‘discovering’ new talents.

In fact, such a shift in the search for new film directors – from the moment of the film festivals (when films are ready) to the previous stage of residencies (where scripts are still being developed) – would find its raison d’être in economic constraints: the progressively restricted access to sources of financing. According to Goldenstern, ‘it is becoming increasingly difficult to get films funded, which also makes the arrival of new talents at festivals less likely’. Résidence tries to deal with this contingency by helping filmmakers in their search for funding and promoting commercial meetings with market players.

It is still noteworthy that such anticipation in the ‘discovery’ of new filmmakers goes hand in hand with the attempt, from film producers, to exert a greater control over the production process. As a ‘prototype’, as mentioned earlier by Menger, a piece of art (in our case, a long-feature film) can be considered an aesthetically autonomous entity, not reproducible in terms of style and language. Hence, the difficulty of converting a film, mainly one belonging to the realm of art house cinema, into a typical commodity.

Such peculiarity makes the production of each new film a project of considerable risk from a financial standpoint. Thus, compared with other commodities, a film is always a new product and its consumption relies on the subjective dimensions of consumers (not ignoring, however, the determinations of the individuals’ taste by objective conditions ³ ). This is why following up a new filmmaker right from the beginning of his career and from his screenwriting process may contribute to mitigating the risks involved in a film production.

In this regard, De Verdalle (2013) explains that

The period of development [of a screenplay] is not limited to writing and it is in fact a continuum of activities. Thus, the question of financing arises from the successive aggregation of partners (institutional financiers, television channels, distributors, actors), who commit themselves on the basis of the screenplay and formulate requirements giving rise to a series of feedbacks to the writing process (p.20, our translation).

However, this process of ‘talent formation’ carried out by the Résidence may also mean a possible standardization of the works as a means of reducing the risky prototype dimension of a film. In fact, this search for a greater control of the creative process was noted by one of the filmmakers interviewed (C), who said that ‘the idea of discovering an author seems to no longer exist . . . there is now the idea of training an author’. Therefore, what was once a ‘fortuitous’ encounter between a new artist and his audience during a festival tends now to be calculated from the very inception of a film, during the development of the script in the context of a filmmaker’s residency.

In this respect, director C still expresses his concern about a possible negative consequence of that formative process that takes place in residencies: a certain tendency towards a formal mannerism, producing what the critics pejoratively call ‘festival films’. That is, a type of film that attempts to repeat aesthetic formulae that would be in line with the expectations of the festivals’ audiences. According to filmmaker C,

What I find most complicated about this [the permanent involvement of film directors in residencies] is that a ‘wild cinema’ becomes very unlikely . . . and what is a wild cinema? It’s a cinema that doesn’t know very well what it is.

However, such perception is not shared by Georges Goldenstern, as it concerning the Résidence. For him, the programme is not looking to follow the most recent trends. And he adds, ‘during the fashion for Argentinian films at festivals, in the 2000s, there were no Argentinian filmmakers in the Residence’. For him, the main concern of the programme, when selecting the filmmakers, is the quest for ‘originality’, attached to the national background of the filmmaker:

I try to find something that is rooted in the culture of the filmmaker’s country, because everyone has their tradition, their way of telling a story . . . I like that. I’m not interested in someone who’s trying to adapt themselves to a general formula . . . It’s all about feeling a character, a personality in the film.

In any case, if a filmmaker aims for an international career, which will allow them access to more abundant resources and greater visibility, the initial introduction to the market through a filmmakers’ residency becomes an almost unavoidable step. According to director B,

There is a chain that feeds on itself: residencies, laboratories, international funds that invest money in films, that are going to be screened at festivals . . . some of these festivals even have their own funds . . . It is increasingly difficult to join this system as an outsider.

Besides, as regards the risk of standardization, filmmaker B still recalls an experience he had with the French producer of his film, concerning the content of his screenplay. That is because it contained, among other aspects, the story of a wealthy Brazilian family. The French producer considered this to be somehow ‘out of place’ for a Brazilian film. According to the producer, that is the type of story that he could easily find in French films, whereas for a Brazilian film, he would expect something ‘different’.

In this regard, director C made an interesting historical digression to explain how a neo-colonial mindset may still impact on the production of stereotypical conceptions of other countries and cultures:

France was an empire that had a much more perverse relationship with the colonies, if you compare to England . . . England sought for purely commercial relationships. The French, on the other hand, have this obsession with identification: you have to become French. It is almost a sexual relationship they carry out with their former colonies . . . and when I say colony, I’m not only talking about the former colonies, but also about Brazil. So, you should be aware of this.

What filmmaker C has in mind is, ultimately, the need for a certain adaptation to the Eurocentric expectations in order to be ‘accepted’ and gain a certain visibility in the film festivals of the continent. As he says, ‘to be screened in Cannes, the film must have a certain “dust”’, by which he means that it must contain elements of a supposed realism, that aims to account for the precariousness (and, why not?, the exoticism) of so-called peripheral countries. In fact, realism itself must be regarded as a Western, localized, aesthetic form, as Shohat and Stam (2014) point out, but a form that has expanded in an imperialistic fashion and has become ‘universal’; almost like a protocol to be adopted by filmmakers to denote their political engagement.

Nonetheless, it is interesting to notice that filmmaker A has a very divergent view on this matter. For him, the circuit of residencies, laboratories and film festivals represent not a tendency of standardization but, on the opposite, an opportunity to thrive in artistic terms. According to this director, through this enormous network of international film festivals, ‘you will find, wherever you are in the world, those who admire you and are interested in working with you’.

For this filmmaker, this whole international structure allows him to develop a unique rather than a manneristic style. In fact, he even complained to us about the fact that his aesthetic conceptions faced a certain difficulty in being to be accepted by Brazilian producers. In France, however, his ideas for the film were much more welcomed, he says.

Here comes on the scene a relevant figure in the French production environment, that of the ‘creative producer’, understood as ‘a producer involved in a significant way in the artistic dimension of a film, as opposed to an executive producer who focuses mainly on finding funding’ (Pardo, 2011: 72, our translation). Such a professional may become a real partner of the film director by making important contributions to the development of the screenplay, in a process which, it goes without saying, can lead to conflicts as much as to synergies, as shown above.

Nonetheless, despite the contradictions, all filmmakers interviewed were pleased to have had very intense creative exchanges with their French co-producers (having all three of them managed to shoot their films in the frame of a Brazil–France co-production agreement). Such enjoyment is owed above all to the fact that for them this creative dynamic with the producer was something new, as the role of the latter, in Brazil, would still be limited to that of searching for funding sources, they say.

Likewise, despite the divergent opinions of these filmmakers upon a possible style standardization promoted by the film festivals’ network, for them, Résidence can be looked at as a quite privileged point of departure. Even the most critical filmmakers agree that Résidence is different from other similar initiatives, as it is concerned with originality and grants creative freedom to the directors who participate in it. In addition, the atmosphere of exchange with filmmakers from all over the world becomes a real incentive for creation. As one of the filmmakers (C) said, ‘I wrote a lot of stuff for the screenplay in English, so that I could share it with the others who were at Résidence’.

Outside the doors of Résidence: precarious work

Thus, in spite of the eventual pressures coming from market agents, the experience at Résidence represented for the filmmakers interviewed a moment of ‘decompression’, an opportunity to avoid the contingencies frequently experienced when developing a screenplay in daily circumstances.

In this respect, the monthly grant of €800 received by the artists in order to develop the script has had an important impact. All of the three filmmakers belong to the Brazilian middle class and do not come from a wealthy background. Besides, either they were working on side jobs during the residency or had some financial support from family members to supplement the grant.

One of them, filmmaker A, commented that ‘outside the context of the Résidence, you may not be seen as someone who actually works when you’re developing a screenplay’. As for another one, filmmaker C, ‘during those months [of the Résidence], I didn’t have to worry about paying my rent’ (the concern about the rent came up again during the second interview, when filmmaker C complained, ‘after this pandemic began, no one called me to ask how I’m paying my rent’.)

Besides the relative ease allowed by the creative ambiance of the Résidence, the search for foreign funding was another major reason that prompted two of the filmmakers interviewed to take part in this experience. They said that at the time of their participation in the programme, it was not so easy to get funding in Brazil; a reality that has changed in the last two decades, as public policies have been put in place to support independent cinema in Brazil.

In this respect, since 2001, when it came into being, the Brazilian Film Agency (known by the acronym ANCINE in Portuguese) has promoted public funding policies for the production, distribution and exhibition of independent Brazilian films. The financial supports may take place through tax relief mechanisms, when companies decide to invest in activities related mainly to the production of national films with the money that they would otherwise spend to pay taxes to the government. But the financial support may also come from the Audiovisual Sector Fund, also run by ANCINE, which provides resources directly from the federal budget to the development of cinematographic activities.

In particular, it is worth highlighting the launch, between the years of 2013 and 2017, by the Audiovisual Sector Fund, of public calls aimed specifically at the support of screenplay development activities. During those 5 years, a total amount of US$ 40,000,000.00 was invested in the support of screenwriting laboratories and the so-called ‘creative cores’ of independent Brazilian film companies, responsible for the creation of new content for cinema and television.

However, since 2019, when Jair Bolsonaro became president of the country, the Agency has been facing huge political and bureaucratic obstacles to maintain the funding of new projects. Only more recently, at the end of 2021, new calls from the Audiovisual Sector Fund were launched, after a gap of three years without new grants from this source, which depicts a situation of progressive dismantling of the public policy devoted to foster cultural expression in the country. Filmmaker B comments in this manner on the current situation for film directors:

In Brazil, for only a few years, when there was a more solid financing system, it was possible to plan a career as a filmmaker. Apart from that period, there has always been a lot of insecurity when it comes to make a living by making films. This led filmmakers to work on other stuff like soap operas, advertising . . . Brazil spent years trying to build a more solid funding policy, but that ended about three years ago. Nowadays, in Brazil it is very difficult for someone to live exclusively as a filmmaker.

This same director elucidates the consequences of this historical economic disarray of the film activity in the country, echoing the opinion of filmmaker A, according to whom it is difficult for a film director to be recognized as a worker in Brazil. Filmmaker B says,

Since filmmakers never had consistent and steady jobs, they could not call this a real profession, and they began to speak in terms of their ‘art’ . . . one of the harmful consequences of this situation is that the filmmakers often think of their ‘art’ but not of their profession . . . which makes it hard for them to raise consciousness about the fact that they’re actually workers.

Finally, filmmaker C seems to sum up the situation well enough when he ironically states that ‘the main concern regarding my director’s career is to know if I’ll be able to keep up with my director’s career’. This lack of predictability becomes all the more distressing as, according to him, producers who might finance his next projects tend to evaluate his work as a director not according to his entire career but based only on his last film. ‘And this is upsetting, because you do not always get the expected results with your last film’, he says.

In historical terms, the increasing precarity of working conditions, in various fields of production, has been closely linked to the process of overcoming the Fordist mode of production, marked by a high control of the work pace by capitalists, but also by substantial wage gains for the workers (Harvey, 1989). However, Post-Fordism, that comes into being in the mid-1970s, is marked by an ever growing imbalance between labour and capital, resulting in huge losses of guarantees for the workers.

Despite all that, such precarity has been many times disguised as an ‘opportunity’ for the worker to have greater freedom and autonomy at work (Ross, 2009). Those new working conditions have progressively become naturalized in the artistic production field. As a result, film directors started to face increasing uncertainties as regards their jobs, and like filmmaker A, who points out, in an optimistic way, that ‘who takes risks, excels. In fact, the ability to take risks is an import asset for a filmmaker’, they must learn how to deal with the ‘rules of the game’.

Furthermore, it should be noted that the idea of risk assumes, for him, a polysemic meaning, related not only to the instabilities inherent to his career management but also to a supposed aesthetic boldness, which ends up being not in conflict but rather reconciled with the commercial demands of the art house film production. For him,

Anyone who believes that aesthetic risk doesn’t get into dialogue with business is mistaken; they go completely together . . . A producer once told me, ‘I want you to take care of the artistic side, to take the risks; it’s up to me to turn this into fashion’ . . . You see? It’s a win-win situation.

By turning the risk into a sort of act of braveness, one could even argue that this ideology of precarity in the art field has a set a ‘lifestyle’ that has spread to other labour markets. In this sense, as Ross (2009) signals,

Once marginal on the landscape of production, it is artists, designers, and other creatives who are becoming the new model workers – self-directed, entrepreneurial, accustomed to precarious, nonstandard employment, and attuned to producing career hits (p.10).

In fact, this idea of risk hides the increasingly ‘flexible’ working relationships in the artistic sector and their harmful effects. Without offering any future guarantees, these kinds of works per project launch the artists into constant psychological distress that might end up undermining the very self-confidence of many professionals who distrust their hard-won talents (Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2011), not to mention creating more immediate problems, such as the difficulty of paying the rent between one project and other, as outlined by filmmaker C. Besides, as we have already seen, the industry has managed to reduce its own risks, by seeking to control the creative process right from the beginning, the screenwriting process. In this sense, we could say that, in a certain way, the burden of the risk tends to be heavier for the individual professional than for the investors. In this regard, it is important to notice that this precarity, which was conceptualized by Italian autonomist Marxists in the 1990s, represents, for a semi-peripheral country such as Brazil and for an unstable profession such as that of a filmmaker, a historical, and not only recent, condition, ⁴ as noticed above by filmmaker B.

Furthermore, it is worth comparing this situation with that faced by professionals in Hollywood, undoubtedly the most developed film industry in the world when it comes to capital accumulation. There, on the contrary, it is possible to find a high number of unionized professionals, which indicates that greater intensification of labour exploitation has led, as a dialectical response, to a greater organization of film industry workers. As Wasko (2003) asserts,

Hollywood workers sell their labor to employers in a labor market that is both similar and different to other industries. Generally, motion picture production is labor-intensive and the industry is highly unionized. Hollywood unions and guilds negotiate basic agreements, which specify minimum salaries (or scale), working conditions, residuals, benefits, etc (p.41).

Regarding labour division in Hollywood, the hiring of professionals belonging to more creative ranks, the so-called ‘talents’, takes part of the so-called ‘above-the-line costs’ of a production, while the professionals who work at the operational level represent the ‘below-the-line costs’. In the case of Hollywood films, Wasko (2003) says that

Above-the-line costs include major creative costs or participants (writer, director, actors, and producer) as well as script and story development costs. Below-the-line items are technical expenses (equipment, film stock, printing, etc.) and technical labour [. . .] Above-the-line talent can often represent 50% of a production budget and has been identified as one of the key reasons why the costs of Hollywood films have skyrocketed (p.33).

But this intense labour division within a film production also takes place in other film industries less economically developed than Hollywood. As Lamberbourg, Rot, De Verdalle,Vernet (2013) and others assert for the French case,

A careful reading of the credits reveals the vast range of professionals involved in film making: painters, location scouts, upholsterers, joiners, gaffers, electricians, script supervisors, costume designers, wardrobe people, steadicam operators, special effects specialists, carpenters, locksmiths, wood workers, chief lighting electrician, set decorator assistants, set dressers, cameramen, etc (p.112, our translation).

And, as regards the working conditions in the film industry, filmmaker B considers that it is precisely the professionals belonging to these technical careers who have succeeded in unionizing themselves along the years in Brazil. According to him, the picture is quite different when it comes to the filmmakers’ organization as a group: ‘the more a director becomes famous, the less he commits himself in favor of collective struggles, defending the rights of his colleagues’.

Indeed, relationships among filmmakers tend to be quite complex, including both antagonisms and alliances. The quest for ‘their own style’ may mean, at first sight, the suppression of competition among peers (or at least the perception of such competition). Because, if it is true that each filmmaker finds their own way to make a film, one should not talk about a dispute between professionals. On this matter, we have already read the words of filmmaker A on about the fact that festivals seek unique talents.

In the same vein, filmmaker C reveals his agreement when he says that ‘if you are competent, you will find work’. Nevertheless, it is interesting to remark the particularity of the opinion of the latter: for him, nowadays, the best work opportunities are related rather to the rising of new streaming services, like Netflix, with their huge demand for new content, than to the traditional film production market, directed at movie theatres.

Thus, if for filmmaker A, lack of competition is due to the quest for originality by each director, for filmmaker C, however, it is precisely the massive production of content – and the tendential stylistic standardization that comes with it – which guarantees more or less equitable opportunities for the professionals in this sector.

However, director B is absolutely sure of the scarcity of job opportunities; ‘sometimes they don’t even exist’, he adds. And, as a complicating factor, he says that competition among filmmakers might take place not only during the search for jobs but also later, once they have finished their films. This is when disputes start to be based on the number of awards granted or participation in the most renowned festivals, he says. However, he clarifies, it is not always a question of fierce rivalry between professionals, both for work opportunities and for peer recognition. There is also space for solidarity, collective work and collaboration. ‘If opportunities are scarce, then we must support each other and work together in the same project’, he says.

Likewise, filmmaker A highlights the ability of filmmakers to work as a team and fight for their interests in the political arena:

In Brazil, if you compare [them] with other arts, the folks from cinema are much more politically articulated. The existence of a film agency in our country is a proof of that . . . There is not a music or a dance agency for example.

Director C also thinks that filmmakers’ mobilization is reflected by the consolidation of institutions dedicated to film activities in Brazil:

In African countries, where the professional support mechanisms are quite fragile, or even in England, a rich country that still relies on revenues of the national lottery to allow films to be made, the mobilization of filmmakers is much less important [than in Brazil].

Thus, as regards especially Brazilian directors, the contextualization of their national background, which we sought to show here, reveals how important for them was an opportunity like that one of Résidence. Nevertheless, those are artists who have awareness of the contradictions that a process of internationalization of their careers poses; contradictions that arise already when they enter a residency programme. They exemplify the tradition of Brazilian filmmakers whose political engagement goes back to Cinema Novo times, in the 1960s, and who have succeeded in articulating with clarity the political and economic problems of their time.

Conclusion

After taking a closer look at these filmmakers’ experiences during their stay at Résidence, when they were relatively free from financial constraints, but also at the hardships faced by them in the labour market, some conclusions can be drawn. First, as regards the perception of these filmmakers of the contradictions between the external pressures they face and the search for artistic autonomy, we can conclude that they are constantly seeking a balance, however precarious it may be.

As filmmaker B asserts,

Our perception of the contradictions is part of an attempt to struggle and assume a position. But sometimes you also have to admit your limits, because it’s the system that decides . . . And since this system includes sales agents, distributors and the funds that enable the films to be made, there is no point in wishing a sort of film production that is not even viable.

Thus, these contradictions cannot be faced in an irreconcilable way, which would otherwise prevent these professionals from working in such an extremely competitive market. Hence, the semantics of risk, as expressed by filmmaker A’s words, might be the expression of this reconciliation of aesthetic boldness and commercial success at film festivals.

In this regard, the ‘learning by doing’ process that is so characteristic of artistic jobs – as pointed out by Menger (2009), in the sense that every new work opportunity is a chance for the artist to develop new technical abilities – can also be considered a process of learning how the dynamics of competition operate in this field. Dardot and Laval (2013) name this process ‘learning by discovery’, by which the workers teach themselves how to behave as small enterprises in permanent competition with other small enterprises (i.e. other workers), in a neoliberal order. According to the authors,

The market is therefore conceived as a process of self-formation of the economic subject, as a self-educating, self-disciplining subjective process whereby individuals learn to conduct themselves. The market process constructs its own subject (Dardot and Laval, 2013: 123)

The training process of Résidence would thus fulfil a dual formative function: to train new filmmakers but also to build up new competitive agents, who know how to work in an environment marked by a ‘neoliberal normativity’ of permanent concurrence (Dardot and Laval, 2013).

However, the training of new cinematographic authors in such a context of ‘exclusivity’, as offered by Résidence, may naturalize the current labour division in the industry between talents and ‘below-the-line’ professionals, which, in a way, is detrimental to directors who might otherwise see themselves as a group with common interests. As Director B pointed out, he recognizes that the degree of organization of professionals ‘below-the-line’ is much superior to that of filmmakers in Brazil, and that categories such as ‘individuality’ and ‘creative genius’, so praised in the artistic environment, may, in the end, prevent filmmakers from recognizing the precarity that they constantly face in their profession.

Here, it is, once more, important to note the particularity of this labour market in Brazil, historically more unstable than that of Europe. And more than that, a long-term situation aggravated by the recent political events in the country has been paralysing film activities at a level not seen for years. ⁵ But the solution to this impasse certainly does not depend solely on the filmmakers’ struggle. It will be necessary to build, in Brazil, a new social pact whereby culture might once again be understood as an economically and politically legitimate activity, which is not the case nowadays.

The most immediate consequence of this situation has been the flight of some Brazilian talents to Europe. Two of the filmmakers interviewed by us live now in the Old Continent and do not intend to return to Brazil in the short term. They claim that working conditions are better and funding opportunities more plentiful. For instance, one of the filmmakers (A) expressed his wish to stay in Europe thanks to, among other things, social protection benefits granted to intermittent workers in the entertainment industry when they are not working – something that does not exist in Brazil.

But another consequence of this talent drain is that films start to be shot in Brazil, ‘where it is cheaper’ (filmmaker A) and finished in Europe, which comprehends the ultimate post-production phase (like the editing of the film – often more expensive, still, according to filmmaker A). Hence, once the production of the film is completed, its circulation in the network of European festivals becomes an almost ‘natural’ consequence. Another filmmaker (B) explains the economic and geopolitical logic behind this quest for new talents in France:

The economic gain stems from the symbolic one: the discovery [of new filmmakers] maintains France, and Cannes in particular, as a place of cultural hegemony . . . and like this Cannes manages to guarantee its permanent financial support by its partners, like L’Oréal.

Indeed, the exhibition circuit created by the festivals has developed its own economic parameters of operation, explained also by filmmaker B:

Festivals are no longer a separate market from the regular exhibition market; they are no longer directed only to a specific audience. They are already part of the general exhibition market and have their own logic. From the standpoint of the sales agent, it is a matter of positioning the film in four or five renowned festivals, then travelling with it to other less important festivals, where the sales agent gets a fee to screen the film.

Despite all that, it is evident that for these filmmakers, Résidence was the gateway to working conditions that would have otherwise been much more precarious – and in this sense, they consider this experience something unique and valuable. Nonetheless, from the standpoint of the total functioning of the film production market, a critical approach must take into account the economic rationality of programmes like Résidence. It plays an important role in bringing together talents from different parts of the world – and, fundamentally, ‘new’ talents, with greater willingness to deal with the way industry works in Europe. Indeed, other values also become very important in this sector; those of novelty and youth. And in the case of the French film production market, this is quite notorious, especially when one considers that ‘in total, the first and second films by a director often represent more than half of French films (47% in 2010)’ (Créton and et al, 2011: 240, our translation) but, at the same time, ‘only 25% of filmmakers manage to make a second film and only about 10% make a third or more [. . .] (figures from the CNC’s annual review, 2009)’ (Lamberbourg and et al, 2013: 126, our translation).

Moreover, Résidence starts to play an important role of economic rationalization in the audio-visual production chain. As Goldenstern pointed out, the difficulties of finding financing become ever greater and hence the market agents desire to make less risky ‘bets’. In this sense, the training of talents in the network of residences and laboratories becomes essential to reduce the chances of ‘failure’ of those who decide to produce the film of a director who has already demonstrated his creative abilities in these programmes.

It is clear, however, that it is not a question of obtaining complete guarantees – which would not even be possible due to the prototype nature of works of art. Nor is it a matter of producing successes along the lines of those of Hollywood, since the criteria for success at film festivals are different; more linked to the idea of artistic excellence. The role of this circuit of residencies, laboratories and film festivals is, as De Valck (2007) asserts, to convert such artistic values into economic ones.