National Film Policy as a National Media Event

The Swedish “film reform” of 1963 – i.e. the founding of the Swedish Film Institute (SFI) and the national system of film subsidies – has generally been associated with changes in the strategies of national film production, or with a more general institutionalization of national film culture and art cinema values.

The effects and the political principles of the reform are well known. Less attention has been paid to study the overwhelming media coverage of the film reform. This was not at least due to the celebrity impact of Harry Schein, the first chief executive of the SFI and also the architect of the actual reform. The new film policy made headlines, and the doings of Schein was throughout the 1960s a recurrent topic in newspapers, radio and TV. The film policy was synonymous with Swedish modernity, but also frequently attacked. SFI was a place for elegance, scandals and political progression.

In this paper I will discuss these hitherto less studied medial dimensions of the Swedish film reform of 1963.

References:

Roger Blomgren, Staten och filmen: svensk filmpolitik 1909-1993 (1998)

Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P.David Marshal (2006) 

Citizen Schein, ed. Lars Ilshammar, Pelle Snickars & Per Vesterlund (2010)

Daniel Dayan & Elihu Katz, Media events : the live broadcasting of history, (1992)