Community building with environmental documentary film festivals. Analysis of Bozcaada International Ecological Documentary Film Festival

Cinema is a communication art that is accepted by communities and leads to social change. After a while, after cinema entered our lives as an art, festivals emerged as an exhibition space for films. Film festivals have been divided into different categories among themselves in accordance with their purposes over the years. These categories, which are shaped according to social needs, change over time. It covers issues that concern people from all walks of life, such as social needs, social, environmental and economic problems. The community festivals discussed in the research include activities such as learning about current problems, understanding, coming together to find solutions and taking action. The activities of the festival are created for its own purpose and serve these actions. For this purpose, the choice of documentary cinema plays an important role in the self-expression of the directors who has an activist attitude. In this study, the relationship between environmental documentary film festivals and the community was examined. This study focuses on the social effects by putting the educational function of the festival more in the foreground. Keywords: Environment, Documentary, Cinema, Community, Festival