Framing Buzz: Film Festivals as Affective Atmospheres

Buzz has a pivotal role in the film festival experience. As an affective intensity, buzz suggests dynamics of density and directionality; it generates rhythms and flows within festivalscapes. This article explores festival buzz within the context of movement in and around film festivals. Through a shift of focus beyond static definitions toward how buzz moves and functions, this paper aims to provide a framework for festival buzz as a dynamic atmospheric agent in the festivalscape. Presenting an overview on the literature on buzz and urban affect, the first section frames film festivals as civic rituals. The second section examines how buzz acts as an operational force in atmospheric attunement, building on the notion of distributive agency. The final section proposes an anthropological concept, transduction, to explain how atmospheric attunement occurs in film festivals. Transduction, as a sonically oriented approach, entails a sensitivity towards atmospheric relations and reconceptualization of the notion of agency. In this context, framing festival buzz as an heterogenous assemblage, this paper situates festival buzz as vibrant matter, an atmospheric force within the festivalscape.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  sinecine Sinema Araştırmaları Dergisi

• Publication date

  2025-11-12

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.32001/sinecine.1769320
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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