What is a Cultural Feature Film?

Unlike world cinema, a category defined by such works’ global distribution and corresponding international appeal, these Cultural Feature Films are the product of regional film industries, and the elements¹ (e.g. stylistic, dialogic, structural, etc.) of each film are tailored foremost to the sensibilities of a domestic audience.

Ideally, every one of these films would be exclusively by, about, and for the people of the given subregion (e.g. the film’s dialogue in an endogenous language, the director and actors embedded in the local community, the script featuring a narrative that conforms to local storytelling practices, with characters’ decisions arising from traditional systems of ethics). However, due in large part to practical constraints² on film production, the concurrence of all these criteria in a single dramatic, feature-length film can be uncommon. In cases where the primary selection falls short in some way of being exhaustively homegrown, or is otherwise in need of added perspective, or is simply from a place with too many great films to choose just one, alternative offerings can be viewed by clicking the down arrow in the open window, where applicable.

What is the relationship between film and globalization?

The resources required to finance a feature film are substantial and often only available to communities with some degree of accountability to foreign economic influence, and correspondingly, a given local movie-going audience may generate insufficient funds to justify initial investment in such a film. Further, although video recording can be used to varying degrees of success in an ethnographic or cultural conservation context, the medium is not itself part of any traditional cultural practice and therefore often requires a relationship with colonial institutions to perpetuate its use.

This collection is under construction. Some films are available already, but please check back later for updates.

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