ABSTRACT

Fine arts and marketization have long been regarded as two incompatible concepts in the rhetoric of European cultural policy. The topic of this chapter is the successful transformation of film policy in Europe during the last 20 to 30 years from being a matter mostly for state policy to an important responsibility for regional policy through the use of use of marketization rhetoric. What can explain this transfer of power to the regional level? The central thesis is that institutional settings matter and both define hinders and opportunities for actors involved in the policy field. It is argued that the involved regional film institutions or organisations were successful in their market-oriented strategies in redefining film production as a matter for regional and local development and economic growth rather than as art policy. In this chapter a Swedish regional film fund organisation, Film i Väst (Film in the west) is chosen as an successfull actor that today is involved in over half of the production of feature films and television series in Sweden.