ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how Pierre Bourdieu's theory of field is used to study film policies: this book argues that the social and political context in which film policies emerge should be considered as a field; this is to say, that the film policies do not emerge in a vacuum because they respond to different demands from those agents involved in the field of Spanish cinema. Consequently, to have a whole understanding of how film policies operate, it is necessary to locate and interrogate the demands raised by the agents in the field, to identify who has raised them and what are the interests underlying them and, finally, to analyse whether these demands have been enshrined in the laws or not. From there, this chapter moves on to map out how the field of Spanish cinema has been constituted, how does it operate and who are the key agents within it. Finally, this chapter highlights why is key to apply a gendered lens to the study of film policies in order to unveil the fact that film policies are, as many other aspects of our society, inflected by gender.
