Preaching to the Choir? Orienting Audiences at the Human Rights Film Festival

Abstract

Human rights film festivals are characterised by a commitment to intentionality and broader social change, yet this exists in tension with a lingering concern that such artistic-activist initiatives merely ‘preach to the choir’. Does ‘preaching to the choir’ necessarily challenge the activist potential of a human rights film festival? This study employs diverging theoretical considerations to unpack the expression in order to explore how it might in fact be useful in critically enhancing our understanding of human rights film festivals. It draws on a social-psychological reading of ‘preaching to the choir’, Judith Butler’s performative theory of assembly, and Bourdieu’s theory that culture is learnt to dismantle and rethink the expression. This is utilised in an analysis of Movies that Matter in The Hague, and the research ultimately demonstrates that there are ways in which audiences that share a festival’s views (the ‘choir’), have the capacity to be further politicised, engaged, and mobilised. Preaching to the choir, then, need not challenge a film festival’s activist potential.