SARSESNA · Sustaining A Regional Screen Ecosystem In A Small Nation: Aarhus and the West Danish Film Fund, 2002-2019

Sustaining A Regional Screen Ecosystem In A Small Nation: Aarhus and the West Danish Film Fund, 2002-2019

Since 2010, Danish screen production has enjoyed global attention with the transnational popularity of high-quality films and TV series. Yet, they are the product of a specific culture-political milieu that is anchored in the capital, Copenhagen, in which almost all of the national screen industry has been concentrated since the 1930s (from expertise and talent, funding, policy, to infrastructure). It has only been fairly recently that institutions and industry players have acknowledged that the Copenhagen-centric nature of Danish screen production means that peripheral regions of Denmark are neglected and underdeveloped as potential production hubs. Den Vestdanske Filmpulje (DVF) or The West Danish Film Fund (est. 2002) is a regional response to the imbalance in Danish screen production. By supporting and investing in the development and production of film, television, and transmedia projects in the Western Region of Denmark, of which the city of Aarhus is the ‘capital’, the activities of DVF directly fosters and strengthens growth within the creative screen industry of the region. This research project addresses the question of how Aarhus can create a strong, sustainable regional screen ecosystem in the context of a small nation. This project emerges from the fact that, at present, there is a scarcity of international research on the cultural economy of peripheral, sub-national regions in Denmark.5 Research is therefore much needed on the screen-cultural potential of peripheral regions in order to achieve a deeper understanding of how small nations can exploit their geographical and creative potentials to ensure equitable, holistic cultural development and the long-term sustainability of the screen-cultural industry. A renewed attention on Denmark’s regions and their creative potentials will be an important step towards addressing the imbalances between centre and periphery. The objectives of this project were to: • Analyse and provide the historical background to the social, economic, and political transformations that have taken place in Aarhus’s screen industry since the establishment of the DVF in 2002 and consider the forces that have engendered these changes, • Map and evaluate the screen ecosystem of Aarhus – that is, the material connections between institutional policy, industrial conditions, geography and landscape, and the creative decisions of screen practitioners relating to representations of regional identity, • Identify and clarify the implications of new funding arrangements, initiatives, technologies, affinitive partnerships, and structural platforms for regional screen production and innovation, and • Outline strategies on how regional screen production can productively harness geography, heritage, and tourism to forge and strengthen domestic and international ties.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз