LOST IN TRANSLATION: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF THE PROMOTIONAL

MATERIAL OF FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILMS IN THE UNITED STATES

Ilich Mejía

A thesis submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Strategic Communication in the Media and Communication Master of Arts Program in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

Chapel Hill 2020

Approved by:

Joseph Czabovsky

Lucinda Austin

Rick Warner

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© 2020 Ilich Mejía

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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ABSTRACT

Ilich Mejía: Lost in Translation: A Content Analysis of the Promotional Material of Foreign-Language Films in the United States

(Under the direction of Joseph Czabovsky)

This paper studied the traditional marketing, namely film posters and film trailers, of

foreign-language films as they are distributed in the United States. Specifically, this research

answered how the marketing of foreign films differs between what’s done in their home

countries and what strategies are adopted in America and how are cultural elements handled by

American distributors when they’re tasked with selling a product that portrays a culture different

from where it is to be offered.

The study found that marketing material of foreign-language films in the United States

reduced dimensions of culture presented, required additional sources to account for its merits,

and prioritized violent imagery while glamorizing other darker themes. These findings matter

because successfully considering them as future promotional material for this category of films is

created, film distributors will avoid promoting xenophobic ideals or inaccurate representations of

foreign cultures.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Dr. Joseph Czabovsky for his invaluable guidance throughout the

completion of this project. A very big thanks also to both Dr. Lucinda Austin and Dr. Rick

Warner for their mentorship and expert advice. Finally, thank you to Dr. Lois Boynton for being

great help with citations.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................................... iv

LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ viii

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1

LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................ 4

Cross-cultural marketing ..................................................................................................................... 4

Influencing purchasing decisions ................................................................................................................... 4

Comparing cultures in marketing................................................................................................................... 5

Representation at the movies ......................................................................................................................... 7

The Americanization of the global film market .............................................................................................. 8

The state of the foreign-language film industry in the United States ..................................................... 9

The Academy Awards as a platform .............................................................................................................. 9

Threats to the industry..................................................................................................................................13

Film trade and consumer acceptance ............................................................................................................16

Basic elements of film promotion ...................................................................................................... 19

Elements and efficacy of film posters ...........................................................................................................19

Elements and efficacy of film trailers ...........................................................................................................22

METHODS ............................................................................................................................... 25

Research Questions ........................................................................................................................... 25

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Sample .............................................................................................................................................. 26

Variables ........................................................................................................................................... 27

Procedure and data analysis ............................................................................................................... 28

RESULTS ................................................................................................................................. 32

Deceiving cultural erasure ................................................................................................................. 32

The addition of geographic ambiguity ..........................................................................................................33

The obscuring of faces of non-Americans .....................................................................................................36

The reduction of cultural artifacts .................................................................................................................40

The minimization of spoken language ..........................................................................................................45

Elevating the prestige factor .............................................................................................................. 49

The addition of generic blurbs ......................................................................................................................50

The prominence of laurels ............................................................................................................................53

The résumés of international auteurs ............................................................................................................55

The muting of the colors ..............................................................................................................................58

Prioritizing different themes .............................................................................................................. 59

The glamorization of dark themes ................................................................................................................60

The exception of violence ............................................................................................................................62

DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................... 65

Complementing Current Literature .................................................................................................... 65

Impact on the future of the foreign-language film industry in the United States .................................. 68

Shaping the perceptions of the public ................................................................................................. 70

The importance of representation ....................................................................................................... 71

A Guide for Industry Professionals .................................................................................................... 73

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LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH .......................................................................... 74

APPENDIX .............................................................................................................................. 76

WORKS CITED ....................................................................................................................... 83

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LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Posters for In Darkness .............................................................................................. 34

Figure 2. Posters for Shoplifters ................................................................................................ 35

Figure 3. Posters for Burning .................................................................................................... 37

Figure 4. Posters for Birds of Passage ....................................................................................... 38

Figure 5. Posters for Monsieur Lazhar....................................................................................... 39

Figure 6. Posters for Never Look Away .................................................................................... 40

Figure 7. Posters for Departures ................................................................................................ 41

Figure 8. Trailers for Omar ....................................................................................................... 42

Figure 9. Posters for The Salesman ........................................................................................... 44

Figure 10. Trailers for War Witch ............................................................................................. 46

Figure 11. Posters for Accused .................................................................................................. 48

Figure 12. Posters for Capernaum ............................................................................................. 51

Figure 13. Trailers for No ......................................................................................................... 52

Figure 14. Posters for Tangerines .............................................................................................. 54

Figure 15. Trailers for Mustang ................................................................................................. 55

Figure 16. Posters for Amour .................................................................................................... 56

Figure 17. Trailers for The Square............................................................................................. 57

Figure 18. Posters for On Body and Soul .................................................................................. 59

Figure 19. Posters for Dogtooth ................................................................................................ 61

Figure 20. Posters for Paradise .................................................................................................. 62

Figure 21. Posters for Winter in Wartime .................................................................................. 64

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INTRODUCTION

As films traverse markets, they must be advertised to a wide range of audiences and

cultures. They are promoted in a way that will provoke a positive response from these diverse

audiences in order to get them to watch the films. This often implies making a number of

changes to their promotional materials as they are released in different countries.

In 2018, after winning the Palme d’Or, the Cannes Film Festival’s most prestigious

award, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters was off to a promising start. Shortly after its run at

Cannes, the film premiered in its native Japan in June. There, its theatrical release poster

included a friendly image that featured what appeared to be a family of six, all donning bright

smiles and holding each other in tight embraces. On the bottom left, the film’s title—translated

directly from Japanese— read, Shoplifting Family. Months later, when the film was released in

the United States, the poster was modified drastically: the family portrait was replaced by a shot

of six people of all ages holding hands at the beach, facing the water with their backs to the

camera. Their genders and ethnicity were not clearly identifiable. In the United States, the title

was shortened to, simply, Shoplifters. The film went on to do well at the box office in both

markets. It was later nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, as well as

an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (a category then called Best Foreign

Language Film).

Global cinema allows audiences to watch how filmmakers from all over the world

portray stories important to them and to their community (Medium, 2016). The origin of these

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stories informs their potency and adds to their authenticity. The call for more diversity and

inclusion across the film industry invites more diverse storytellers to channel their voice through

the big screen (Hunt, Ramón, & Tran, 2019). Exposure to their stories through platforms like

awards-voting bodies across the United States allows many general audiences to seek out the

work and to encounter more cultures through them. The Academy Awards, in particular, prove to

be very influential in what foreign-language films are most successful in the United States in

terms of critical conversation and box-office performance (Anderson, 2013). The success of

films like Shoplifters opens the door for other stories from far corners of the world to reach the

United States and make their mark.

The platform provided by American press, including award shows, helps launch the

success of many international films. With growing diaspora populations, primarily from Latin

America and India, as well as broader cinephile audiences, a viable market exists in the United

States for these films. In 2019, the Academy Awards received a record number of submissions

for the Foreign Language Film category. 93 countries submitted films in the year’s race, more

than ever before. This figure reflects the healthy supply of world cinema trying to make its way

into more prolific spaces. However, box office numbers demonstrate that the commercial

performance of foreign-language films in the United States does not always correlate with the

growing supply and interest.

This study examined the marketing efforts of foreign-language films as they are

distributed in the United States. Through a qualitative content analysis, it examined how

marketing materials, namely film posters and trailers, change in presentation from their original

distribution in their country of origin, as compared to their materials when distributed in the

United States. The purpose of this analysis is to identify trends and tendencies in the marketing

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of foreign-language films as they’re promoted in different markets. These trends suggested

applications of cross-cultural promotions and strategies, as patterns are identified, for future

films of the same category with ambitious commercial and critical aspirations. It’s important to

identify these tendencies to evaluate the impact and quality of the advertising that is being

applied to promote foreign-language films. As they are a foreign product, the advertising that is

associated with them domestically has almost always been adapted to the desires and

expectations of an American audience. The study critically evaluated how responsible this

marketing in terms of accurately depicting a foreign culture and applicable dimensions.

The materials of the films that were studied were films shortlisted by the Academy

Awards for their Best International Feature Film category, starting with the year 2006 up until

2018. This study seeks to identify: 1) what marketing strategies are widely adopted by

distributors who receive nominations for their foreign films, after releasing them in the United

States, 2) how the marketing strategies of foreign films differ between what’s done in their

counties of origin versus what strategies are adopted in America, and 3) how cultural elements

are handled by American distributors when they’re tasked with selling a product that portrays a

different culture.

Through a qualitative content analysis, the study will seek to answer three research

questions: 1) how is the content of a foreign-language film’s poster different depending on

whether it was released in the United States or in its country of origin, 2) how is the content of a

foreign-language film’s trailer different depending on whether it was released in the United

States or in its country of origin, and 3) how are cultural elements of foreign-language films

handled by American film distributors as they promote foreign-language movies?

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LITERATURE REVIEW Cross-cultural marketing Influencing purchasing decisions

When it comes to selling a product to audiences across the world, cultural differences

serve as a major factor in determining the preferences of the consumer (Knight, 1999). Factors

that help influence purchasing decisions related to foreign products include brand image, quality

of the product, and religiosity (Anwar, Haque, Ibrahim, Momen, Sarwar, & Yasmin, 2015).

Brand image, in this case, is tied directly to the country of origin. Studies have found that the

perception a consumer has regarding brands is greatly affected by its country of origin, or the

place where the company houses its headquarters (Kouba, 2008). As trade liberalization between

countries has developed and national economies have adopted globalization, consumers have

come to regard the origin of a product more as they make purchasing decisions (Laroche,

Heslop, Mourali, & Papadopoulos, 2005).

Similarly, the perception of the quality of a product is influenced by knowledge of where

the product comes from as consumer ethnocentrism drives the purchasing intentions of a public

(Mostafa, 2010). Ethnocentrism, the perception that one’s own social group as superior to others,

in a commercial context results in consumers that prefer products from countries and cultures

similar to their own (Watson & Wright, 2000). Finally, religiosity is a major factor that

influences consumers’ decisions as it establishes many of their values and establishes acceptable

habits and behaviors (Essoo & Dibb, 2004). As religiosity in a consumer grows, their tendency to

buy products from foreign countries decreases (Anwar et al., 2015). These factors’ common

thread is that differences among each imply perceived cultural differences.

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Comparing cultures in marketing

It has been shown that consumers from different cultures react differently to the same

marketing strategies (Chmura & Thompson, 2015). Jane Sokja and Patriya Tansuhaj define

culture as "a dynamic set of socially acquired behavior patterns and meanings common to the

members of a particular society or human group.” Many differences exist between customers

from different countries, including economic, cultural, and demographic distinctions. Among

these, the influence of cultural differences has largely been accepted as one of the biggest

predictors of purchasing decisions (Essoussi & Merunka, 2007).

Culture, in the context of marketing, is made up of three dimensions: material goods,

beliefs and values, and language (Sojka & Tansuhaj, 1995). Language serves as one of the most

basic shared codes used to present ideas to the world which is why it serves so many purposes in

a cultural context (Douglas, 1979). Language helps assign meaning to terms: it’s a social group

effort and not an individualized one. The development of ideas and the behavioral responses a

social group is met with are deeply influenced by language (Mick, 1986). Language then shapes

and helps interpret how individuals see and understand cultural environments that aren’t their

own. The meaning assigned to certain goods across cultures—through the eyes and perceptions

of someone that does not belong to the culture that originally assigned the meaning—does not

always come across as intended (Sojka & Tansuhaj, 1995).

Measuring and operationalizing culture through intangible elements like language is

important to reduce bias by researchers that belong to more materialistic cultures. Language,

however, is not the only intangible element that helps differentiate cultures. The beliefs and

value systems that a culture shares can serve as reliable predictors for consumer behavior when

members of a culture are presented with products from a culture different from their own (Henry,

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1976). An aspect of a person’s values and beliefs is their degree of fate orientation, or "the belief

that all events are predetermined by fate and therefore unalterable by man". Fate orientation has

been found to have an effect on a person’s approach to brand loyalty, heavily influencing their

purchasing decisions (Gentry, John, Manzer, & Tansuhaj, 1988). As values are internalized, it

becomes more difficult to assign and categorize them without defining them with little bias or in

simplistic ways that lean towards stereotype (Kanter, 1978).

Additionally, material goods or artifacts contain visual cues that help specify their

cultural context. Artifacts are seen as an “embodiment of cultural values” (Locander, Pollio &

Thompson, 1989). Material goods or possessions include food and clothing. As mentioned

earlier, however, the importance placed on the possession of material goods is not a shared value

across cultures, which is why it cannot be used on its own to evaluate or define the cultural

context of a product (Lee, 1989).

A major challenge for marketing firms trying to sell products in foreign markets is

learning how to navigate discernable cultural differences (Meyer, 2014). Erin Meyer of the

Harvard Business Review created a Culture Map to plot differences in business cultures of

different countries to help marketing and business firms negotiate and sell across cultures. The

purpose of Meyer’s Map is to bridge cultural gaps in order to help firms overcome or adapt

cultural differences that might compromise the likelihood of a consumer from buying a foreign

product (Meyer, 2014). Her Map plots a country’s business culture between two extremes on

eight behavior scales: communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting,

disagreeing, and scheduling (Meyer, 2014).

When plotting for communicating, for instance, the two extremes are low-context and

high-context. This is an important behavior scale where variables like comfort with silence and

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acceptability of repetition or interruption are considered (St. Clair, n.d.). Cultures from Asia, for

instance, tend to plot closer to the “high-context” as communication is more refined,

sophisticated, and suggestive. North American cultures tend to plot closer to the “low-context”

as communication within them is more explicit and generally clearer, even if that sacrifices

etiquette (Meyer, 2014).

Representation at the movies

Like music and food, films are a category of products that include and imply a lot of

cultural content (Chen, Houston, Moon, & Song, 2017). Technical and artistic elements that

make up a film—including cinematography, costume design, included musical compositions,

and performances—tend to speak to the cultural landscape of where the film comes from (Gray,

2010). The vision of the director and the point-of-view of the writer of a film build a world that

speaks to the cultural environment they inhabit (Craig, Douglas, & Greene, 2005). “No film is

made in a cultural vacuum,” Gordon Gray writes, as he describes how the culture of a film’s

creators will inevitably permeate the final product. A lot of issues that arise when a creative crew

attempts to make a film about a culture or social group foreign to their own—mistranslations,

misrepresentation, overuse of stereotypes—can be attributed to this effect (López & Mota,

2019). On the contrary, the films of Pedro Almodóvar, for instance, have come to represent the

cultural and social shift of his native Spain following the Spanish Civil War and the fall of

Francisco Franco’s oppressive rule (Pitt, 1988). Thanks to the melodic, Madrid-specific dialogue

his characters chant to the bold, flamenco red that inhabits most of his frames, it has become

difficult to separate the Spanish day-to-day from his narratives (Max, 2016).

The influence of the cultural elements embedded into films on its success in different

markets has often been studied. Films and their respective marketing products have a great

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wealth of representative elements of the culture from which they originated. Therefore, because

they’re so rich in cultural content, they make a good subject to study the impact that culture and

national origin of a product has on consumer behavior (Jong & Steenkamp, 2010). In order to

predict the success of a product, previous studies have inspected the relationship between the

cultural perceptions and orientations of a consumer and the marketing strategies of the product.

Some of these studies have focused on studying movies—not just because of their rich cultural

content—because they’re easily portable, information about their success from country to

country is readily available and their price, regardless of where it was made and by whom, is

generally uniform (Chen et al., 2017). A study by Reo Song and his team focused on movies

made in the United States, and their performance within international markets to find a

correlation between culture and product evaluations by the public based on performance.

A similar study found a cultural environment’s effect on the content of a film and

evaluated the foreign cultural environments where films from the United States were released

and their impact on the film’s commercial success. The study found that the success of American

films varies significantly from country to country. It found that the lesser the cultural distance

between the country and the United States, the more likely the film would perform well in the

former (Craig et al., 2005). Other variables the study considered included the phenomenon of

Americanization (or the wide adoption of elements of American culture as their own), language,

and genre.

The Americanization of the global film market

The influence of American culture in foreign markets is undeniable, as elements that have

become characteristic of the United States—including McDonald’s, Levi’s denim, and Coca-

Cola—have made their way into the mainstream of other cultures (Ritzer, 2002). Their

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domination, along with the great reach of Hollywood, the hub of the American film industry, has

compromised the global success and recognition of films produced in other countries (Silver,

2007).

Other national cinemas are attempting to make a mark in the markets of global cinema,

but Hollywood’s representation and numbers are hard to beat (McKenzie & Walls, 2012). Even

in developed countries with a prolific film industry, American films tend to perform better—in

terms of box-office numbers—domestically. In 2002, the top five films in Germany, Australia,

the United Kingdom, Spain, Japan, and China were all films produced in the United States

(Media Congloms’ Global Grip Grows, 2003). By 2019, every single one of the top twenty

highest grossest films of all time were products of Hollywood (Top Lifetime Grosses, 2019).

This tendency is making it harder for foreign-films to reach box-office success, especially within

the American market where, as mentioned earlier, ethnocentrism is a factor that greatly

influences ticket sales.

The state of the foreign-language film industry in the United States The Academy Awards as a platform

Since American films dominate the global and domestic film market, a great opportunity

for foreign-language films to get exposure and attention from audiences presents itself through

awards season. The pinnacle of awards season is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and

Sciences’ (AMPAS) Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars (Ramos, 2013). Film studios,

distributors, and artists collaborate with public relation firms and marketing experts to coordinate

Oscar campaigns for their films to get the attention of the members of the AMPAS. Aside from

potentially leading to the validation of prestigious awards, injecting thousands of dollars into

these campaigns also results in a considerate increase in product revenues (Cabosky, 2015).

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Oscar nominations lead to increased revenue for the nominated films (Rocheleau, 2016).

A study of films nominated between 2006 and 2010 conducted by IBISWorld found that, on

average, films that won the Oscar for Best Picture went on to experience a boost in ticket sales of

about 22 percent after they received their nomination (Ryzik, 2011). This boost amounted to over

$20 million in increased revenue for the films. After their win, the boost was close to 15 percent

(Ryzik, 2011), meaning that the impact of a nomination is greater than that of a win. The

increase in revenue is significantly greater for low-profile films with smaller budgets. A from

New York University Stern School of Business study found that films that debut in the United

States on ten screens or less experience a boost in sales post-nomination of about 250 percent

(Sparrow & Simonoff, 2000). These lower-profile films, many of which are international films,

have less resources and more logistical roadblocks to mount a massive awards campaign. On top

of that, they have the challenge of “mounting the cinematic equivalent of a product launch” to

help voters and audiences discover their films (Ramos, 2013).

Every year, film distributors in the United States acquire foreign-language films, largely

in the hopes of landing a future nominee for the Academy Award for Best International Feature

Film (formerly Best Foreign Language Film). The process of acquiring a nomination in this

category is not as straightforward as it is for other categories, as the stakes are risen with

international representation at stake (Olsen, 2013). The process begins with each country

selecting a film as their official submission to represent them. Every country must designate an

approved jury or committee—made up of artists and technicians that work in the film industry, in

great part—to only submit one film in this phase. In order to be eligible, the film must be

released in its country of origin. Even though it’s not necessary for its eligibility, hundreds of

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foreign films are also released in the United States each year to help their chances at a

nomination through exposure (Debruge, 2017).

The submitted films are then screened for a volunteer committee made up of members of

the AMPAS. This committee, now known as the Phase I International Feature Film Committee,

has had the responsibility to select six films—as of 2020, they will select seven—while an

executive committee, the International Feature Film Award Executive Committee, picks an

additional three to round out a shortlist made up of nine—or ten, as of 2020—films (Academy of

Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 2019). The shortlist is then released before specialty

committees screen the selected films in New York City and Los Angeles. Then, they decide

which five will earn a nomination (Olsen, 2013). The final five are revealed along with the rest

of the year’s nominees during a televised announcement.

Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classic says, “An Oscar nomination is

incredibly important for the country that the film comes from. And if they win, they celebrate

like it’s the World Cup.” The addition of the shortlist, typically announced about a month before

the rest of the nominees are unveiled, is an added bonus for hopefuls in the International Feature

Film category. Even when films don’t land a nomination or win, the exposure derived from

making the coveted shortlist is a great reward (Anderson, 2013). Even being the official

submission for their respective country is a big deal for filmmakers. After Montenegro named his

film Ace of Spades: Bad Destiny the country’s official submission for the 86th Academy Awards,

director Drasko Djurovic said, “We’re not a big country. We’re like the Bronx. [Being an official

submission for an Academy Award] means great opportunities for future projects.”

For developing countries in particular, making it to this stage is a major win because the

rest of the process can be so expensive (Olsen, 2013). For the International Film category, ads

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are not required for eligibility, but nations like Germany still spend hundreds of thousands of

dollars campaigning for their selection, according to publicist Tatiana Detlofson (Anderson,

2013). Detlofson has worked on Oscar campaigns for foreign-language films for over a decade

and recognizes the expense of an average campaign—about $50,000—is not a cost every nation

submitting can make, which is why many can only rely on traditional film marketing like official

film posters (Anderson, 2013).

The landscape of the foreign-language film industry in the United States is not as diverse

as it could be in terms of national representation. As influential players in the film community

push for change in the rules and politics of the International Feature Film category, progress is at

risk. Some film critics like Variety’s Peter Debruge suggest making it a requirement to release

international films theatrically for at least seven days in the United States, along with the release

of ads in a local newspaper that is required of domestic hopefuls, so they can automatically

compete in other categories. Some of the hopefuls, like 2019’s Parasite, already do this to inflate

their awards potential (Rich, 2019). Bigger campaigns allow them to become a shoe-in for the

International Feature Film award and a big player for other categories like Best Picture. This is a

great benefit for these such films, but unfortunately not an approach all hopefuls can take on.

Other critics ask for an increase in the number of nominees to elevate the exposure of the

Oscar platform for films not in the English language to both perform better in the United States

and to receive more support in their home countries (Olsen, 2013). The purpose of the category

is to raise awareness of world cinema, which includes over 100 countries. Changing the one-per-

country requirement could result in a category that’s made up of films of French origin, which

does not fully support the initial intentions of the platform. In 2019, 93 countries submitted films

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for consideration, a record for the category and a reflection of the impact of a nomination or a

spot on the annual shortlist (McNary, 2019).

Threats to the industry

Despite enjoying record numbers at the Oscars, the foreign-film industry still has a lot of

ground to cover to catch up with American films at the domestic box office. The number of

American film distributors that continue to distribute foreign films domestically—which

currently include Sony Pictures Classic, Neon, Magnolia, and IFC Films—is decreasing (Lang,

2019). Even those that continue to distribute them acknowledge how limited the return is.

Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, admits, “Foreign-language movies are

never a big business, but we still believe in quality film whatever the language is. There’s a

discerning public that wants to see them. You just have to be careful about how many you buy

and what you spend.”

American films perform extremely well when they’re exported, but foreign films struggle

to sell many tickets when they’re distributed across America. Medium.com’s The Blacklist

conducted a study to the portion of the domestic market that international films represent in the

United States. They considered films from 2013 – 2018 that made at least $5 million at the

American box office, which amounted to 852 films. Out of those 852 films, only 30 were

produced entirely by foreign production companies (Huang, 2018). That represents less than 1%

of the films that were considered, suggesting that foreign films seldom make more than $5

million domestically. In fact, when foreign films make as much as $2 million, like 2018’s Cold

War from Poland, they’re considered a success (Lang, 2019).

The market, currently, can be divided into two categories: commercial films distributed

for the appeal of immigrants in the United States and foreign arthouse films released for English-

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speaking audiences with elevated tastes (Hazelton, 2015). The former, which can be seen

through the films imported from Bollywood, tend to perform better. For this type of films, the

market is becoming more accepting as diaspora audiences fill theaters to reconnect with their

homeland’s culture (Cain, 2017). Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com says “Six or seven years

ago the biggest Bollywood films would open in about 80 theatres [in the US]; today the same

kind of films routinely open in north of 250 theatres.”

A similar phenomenon can be seen with the success of films from Lionsgate’s Pantelion

Films, a California-based film studio that caters to Hispanic audiences. Pantelion releases family-

friendly bilingual flicks to exploit the interest of ever-growing Latino moviegoers in America

(Wollan, 2011). Arthouse films, —which are more commonly the kind that compete in

prestigious award ceremonies—however, exemplify the kind of foreign films that continue to

have a tough time succeeding in the American market (Hazelton, 2015). Bernard, one of the

biggest champions of foreign-language films in the United States, highlights the importance of

the International Feature Film category for the survival of these types of films. He claims that the

category serves as a major “spotlight for international cinema” that allows this genre of films to

make it into America (Kaufman, 2014).

Even films with the name of acclaimed directors, like Pedro Almodóvar or Michael

Haneke, have become less reliable commercial wins with time. Almodóvar’s Volver was a

considered a hit in 2006, making over $12 million in the United States. Ten years later, his film

Julieta made less than $2 million domestically (Box Office Mojo, 2019). The aversion that

American audiences seem to have to more elevated foreign-language alternatives at the movies,

despite coming from well-respected auteurs, has driven the same auteurs to move to Hollywood

to make productions in English (Kaufman, 2014). Recent examples of this trend include “The

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Three Amigos”: Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, and Alejandro González Iñárritu). As

three of the most well-regarded directors that found success in the Mexican film industry—all of

whom have earned their native Mexico a nomination for Best International Feature—that later

went on to win Oscars for directing American productions (Krauze, 2019).

Limited success for foreign-language films domestically, from a marketing and business

perspective, stems from the many challenges they face in the market. The evolving landscape of

the entertainment is enabling U.S. audience members to gravitate towards foreign-language films

less and less. The introduction of the “golden age” of television is providing a feasible alternative

for international production companies to introduce their work and speak on their respective

cultures in the form of series and made-for-television movies (Kaufman, 2014). Like the rest of

the industry, foreign-language filmmakers are responding to the growing trend of audiences

gravitating towards streaming or watching television from home versus going to theaters for

entertainment (Dargis & Scott, 2016).

Major distributors in America that took on the risk of distributing foreign-language films

have either disappeared or taken on less risk. The Weinstein Company, one of the biggest

investors in successfully distributing foreign-language films like The Grandmaster in the early

and mid-2010s, has since closed following legal efforts related to several allegations of sexual

harassment against co-founder Harvey Weinstein (Desta, 2019). Bernard’s Sony Pictures

Classics is another big champion, but one that has admitted to reducing their foreign-film roster

(Kaufamn, 2014).

Streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime continue to take on foreign films

without releasing them theatrically, which is affecting the number of these films that make it to

theaters. In 2019, Netflix was estimated to spend about $100 million purchasing the rights to

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distribute foreign-language films in the United States (Grater, 2019). Although it should not be

seen as a threat, the distribution model—which features tens of television shows and movies

coexisting in their roster—adopted by Netflix does not currently favor the promotion of these

smaller films. For instance, 2017 Georgian film My Happy Family, a Netflix original, was never

released in theaters despite being hailed “the best film of the year” by The Village Voice’s film

critic Bilge Ebiri and other publications (Ebiri, 2017).

Film trade and consumer acceptance

In markets across the world, the acceptance of films produced in countries that are not

their own is subject to a number of factors. What distributors want in a film does not always

correlate to what consumers respond to, which is why it’s essential to look at tendencies in

consumer acceptance of international cinema. Foreign-language film productions thrived in the

United States in the 1950s and 1960s because of three main reasons: the number of Hollywood

productions at the time was not able to fill all of the screens available, American foreign policy

grew more welcoming to ideas and works of outsiders, and young audiences interested in more

avant-garde films contributed to the rise in popularity of films that weren’t in the English

language (Ogan, 1990). During this time, the most popular films in the United States came from

France, Japan, and Italy (Ogan, 1990).

Film trade between nations largely depends on economic factors, language, and cultural

differences (Tu, 2008). The biggest importers of films to America include developed nations like

France, in great part because the slim cultural gap between the European country and the United

States is more palatable to American audiences. A greater cultural gap between the material in a

film and its country of origin and the United States results in a lower acceptance by American

audiences (Oh, 2001). Culture is a major determining factor for how successful a film is, which

17

is why the consideration of cultural forces impacts the marketing of films as they cross borders

(Ricks, 1993).

A scarcity of foreign-language film products does not exist in the United States, which is

why audience’s response to this product is an interesting variable. International audiovisual

products strive to perform well in America because of the “megaphone effect” coined by Linda-

Renée Bloch and Dafna Lemish: how smaller-scale products can reach new heights of success

with the validation of a larger, more influential cultural force like the United States. This is

largely attributed to the effects of globalization that can blur traces of origin and how well-

developed the communication industry, as a platform, is within America (Bloch & Lemish,

2003).

Worldwide movie importation is a phenomenon that has seldom been studied due to the

imbalance that exists in the film industry thanks to juggernauts’—like Hollywood—domination

of the market. Jeongho Oh introduces the concept of a self-sufficiency ratio, or the “proportion

of domestic films’ share in gross box office revenue.” The trade of film, compared to other

media like television, is also affected by government regulations and established quotas that are

in play in many nations across the world. Many countries, in order to support domestic products

within the arts, establish minimum numbers of screenings of domestic films (Bae & Lee, 2004).

In South Korea, for instance, cinemas are required to show domestic films in at least one of their

screens for at least 106 days every year (Terra Media, 2002).

The U.S. dislikes the application of the quotas around the world because they often

involve the limitation of screening of the films they export, while the country’s economy is

becoming more and more reliant on audiovisual products as one of their largest sources of trade

earnings (Tu, 2008). The United States is one of the few developed countries that does not have a

18

domestic or international screen quota, which could potentially change the way consumers

approach international film by influencing the numbers in terms of exposure. In one study,

scholars studied how screen quotas affect self-sufficiency ratios and consumer activity and found

that screen quotas established by governments don’t serve as good predictors for how much of

the total earnings of the domestic box office correspond to domestic products (Bae & Lee, 2004).

This means that government regulations don’t influence or predict consumer behavior very

much.

One study attempted to understand how the world consumes international cinema and the

flow of films across the world. W. Wayne Fu addresses how cultural imperialism, cultural

studies, and national economies all play a role in contributing to the current imbalance that exists

in the trade of films (Fu, 2006). In order to better understand this landscape, Fu looked at profiles

of 94 countries along with film data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and

Cultural Organization (UNESCO). He analyzed all films imported to a single country over the

course of 14 years to determine if consumer acceptance and other factors influenced change in

the diversity of the imports (Fu, 2006). Fu found that language and economic factors were major

predictors for the source of the imports and that, generally, the diversity of these sources is very

narrow. Low consumer acceptance has resulted in a less diversified media supply across the

world that jeopardizes the state and viability of global cinema (Gant, 2008).

Age is another factor that has been studied when correlating with interest in foreign-

language films. The trend continues to be to study younger audiences, since their open-minded

nature and consumer tendencies tends to favor this type of entertainment (Tu, 2008). Haijing Tu

found that the greater the exposure of foreign-language films to young audiences in the United

States, the less likely the perception that the films are too different to be worthwhile. Audiences

19

that see films as an opportunity for knowledge-building and language learning, and the

expansion their view of the world were more likely to watch foreign-films in theaters (Tu, 2008).

When looking at factors beyond entertainment, he also found that a willingness to travel abroad

and to become multilingual also correlated positively with the intention of consuming foreign-

language films.

Basic elements of film promotion Elements and efficacy of film posters

A film poster is a major element that makes up the marketing of the movie, a sort of

second narrative that is not always completely in sync with the content of the film (Rucker,

2012). Making sure a movie gets attention from critics and audiences alike is part of the job of a

marketing team. One of their challenges is designing a poster that will “compel, inspire, and

excite the potential viewers” (Rucker, 2012). This is a difficult challenge as they attempt to

appeal to audience groups that may not have too much in common demographically. An

effective poster, especially for an indie film that counts with little marketing otherwise, could be

the deciding factor that draws an audience member to buy a ticket for a film they would have

otherwise overlooked (Godfrey, 2019). Posters often include a film’s key art. Key art is defined

as “the singular, iconographic image that is the foundation upon which a movie’s marketing

campaign is built” (Singh Bakshi, 2018). The poster serves as the book cover that audiences will

inevitably judge. The growing volume of films released each year thanks to streaming platforms

like Netflix large investments in original projects—spending close to $15 billion in content in

2019—results in limited budgets for the marketing of smaller films (Spangler, 2019). Posters for

smaller films have “to work harder” to compensate for the additional marketing and key art

20

they’re missing out on: spreads in magazines, billboards adjacent to large building, art across

public transit (Godfrey, 2019).

There are many graphic elements that make up a poster and that contribute to its success.

The concept behind a poster is very important for films to tell a story in an image that implies

genre, mood, and purpose (Godfrey, 2019). More interesting, conceptual posters usually come

forward when excellent images—including still photography, shots from behind-the-scenes, and

screengrabs—are provided. The subject matter of the poster is very important and indicative of

what the movie is about and its tone (Godfrey, 2019). In order to convey this, the poster can

include photos, environments, interactions, or objects beyond the faces of its protagonists.

Posters do not, and should not, always tackle as many themes as a film does, as adding more

elements and concepts to a poster weakens the efficacy of its messaging (Singh Bakshi, 2018).

They convey an aesthetic that should create conversation, clearly identify the film, and also hold

a timeless value (Singh Bakshi, 2018). Another major element is the title design of the film, also

known as its logo. The typography of a film poster serves to communicate the genre, intimacy,

and appeal of a film (Garcia, 2015).

Other important visual elements of a poster include credits and billing blocks, included to

highlight prominent participants in the making of the film, and laurels from participation in

respected film festivals and awards won (Singh Bakshi, 2018). Taglines, or a film’s slogan, are

not always present, but can inspire an easy identifier for the film when redacted well (Godfrey,

2019). A study from website Colour Lovers examined a number of elements of a poster to

determine which ones were most popular: the usage of images and photos versus cartoons or

illustrations, the use of warm versus cool colors, the use of capital letters in typography, palettes

in association with mood, prominence of actors, contrast between backdrops and objects, and

21

number of elements included (Rucker, 2012). The study focused on films that performed well in

the box office to identify what audiences respond best to. Their findings included a

predominance of photos, cool colors, and all capital letters in title in the main posters of

blockbuster films.

These aspects have to be considered when devising the marketing strategy for a film. It

can be difficult to come up with a marketing strategy through print campaigns for more niche

films, like foreign-language films. When devising a strategy for Spain’s The Orphanage, UK

distributor Optimum Releasing opted to not include any visual cues that would suggest it was

subtitled in its poster or trailer, as they wanted the film “to stand on its own two feet” (Gant,

2008). The film was being marketed to both an older audience with more spare time and means

and a younger audience with interest in avant-garde films, which made the positioning and

design for the film’s advertising a challenge.

Since they characteristically represent the key themes and messages of a film in a single

image, movie posters have often been studied as units of analysis for cultural studies across the

world. A 2017 study examined how central female characters were depicted in films from

Hollywood and Bollywood by examining the films’ respective posters and trailers. In this study,

the posters (along with the central female characters they featured) of the films were coded for

prominence, realism, attractiveness, sexualization, aggression, and body type (Ghaznavi, Grasso,

& Taylor, 2017). In a study that examined how Hollywood studios vying to be considered for

Oscar nominations represented LGBT-themed films through print advertisement, Joseph

Cabosky used “For Your Consideration” print ads that resemble film posters to identify the

presence of gay and lesbian stereotypes, heteronormative gender norms, among other variables

within material that made up part of a film’s Oscar campaign (Cabosky, 2015).

22

When looking at how well American films travel internationally, an analysis conducted

by the Los Angeles Times’ Jeffrey Fleishman looked at differences in posters of American films

when they’re released domestically versus internationally. To account for the differences,

Fleishman notes, “Distributing and marketing American films to other countries is a game of

deciphering aesthetics and culture. What appeals to one nation may turn off another. Europe

prefers sex to shootouts, while Asia and the Middle East are rapt by action and violence. Italians

recoil at science fiction, Argentines drift toward the intellectual. Race, politics, religion all factor

into how films are packaged.” In order to be received well abroad, the marketing strategies of

many American films have to be redesigned considering aesthetic and cultural differences

(Fleishman, 2016). The analysis looks at how posters of films including 12 Years a Slave and

Star Wars: The Force Awakens leverage translation of title, colors, fonts, religious

considerations, and the prominence of actors based on race or star power in their posters to push

for the films’ success (Fleishman, 2016).

Elements and efficacy of film trailers Another major element of a film’s requisite marketing strategy is a trailer. Film posters and

trailers work together to make up a film’s saturation strategy: mixed media used repetitively to

raise awareness about a project (King, 2000). Together, film posters and trailers reach a wider

audience than the films themselves (DeSilva, 1998). Film trailers can be very influential as part

of the marketing of a film. Trailers, in a matter of a few short minutes, allow the audience to

gather information about the content of a film and its point of view (Bolls & Eastman, 2000).

Since audiences are fronted with so many of both of these types, trailers structure themselves to

present riveting content that will encourage audience members to pay to watch the film

(Kalyanaraman & Oliver, 2006). Oliver and Kalyanaraman write that a successful movie trailer

23

“should provide viewers with glimpses of the advertised film that are interesting, memorable,

and enticing enough to encourage viewer selections over the hundreds of other possible

entertainment choices.”

The reception of movie trailers is very important to movie managers and investors as it’s

a reliable predictor for a film’s performance. The design of the trailer suggests the quality of a

film, additionally. The components of a successful trailer convey the plot of a film, creative

content (genre of content, special effects included, number of scenes), major players featured,

languages spoken, and cultural environment (Debernitz & Karray, 2017). Among these, Salma

Karray and Lida Debernitz identified two that contribute to the interestingness of a trailer: the

appeal of the plot and knowledge gaps left for the audience to fill by watching the film. The

criteria for a successful movie plot should be supported and met by a successful movie trailer:

clear premise, actuality, conflict, motivation, surprise, logic, and main characters (Debernitz &

Karray, 2017). As a whole, the emotional appeal of trailers creates a range of reactions between

horror and excitement that influence viewers when deciding whether they will watch the film or

not.

The study cited previously that examined the association of violence and sexualization of

central female characters also looked at film trailers as a unit of analysis. The study studies the

content of the trailer and not their influence on the viewers “because they shape audience

understandings and perceptions” (Ghaznavi et al., 2017). Looking at trailers, the same variables

were coded for, among others: visibility of certain characters, dialogue presented, narration,

amount of time allotted to different characters or members of a certain demographic in

proportion to the entire trailer, and sexual behavior presented. Cabosky carried out another study

where he evaluated the advertising of gay and lesbian-themed films on their portrayal of

24

intimacy and stereotypes. One of his units of analysis was film trailers. Cabosky analyzed 205

film trailers and coded the types of intimacy presented in each, measuring the recurrence and

intensity of different examples of affection that included hugging, kissing, and the presentation

of nudity (Cabosky, 2017). Both studies presented their results as speaking to a larger cultural

trend in terms of the association of violence, sexualization, or affection with different gender

groups. In Ghaznavi’s study, a cultural element was included as her team studied trailers from

both Hollywood and Bollywood to identify differences in each culture’s depiction of women in

film products.

25

METHODS Research Questions

As of now, a limited number of studies have looked at how promotional materials of

contemporary international, foreign-language films are modified for the American market.

Studying the changes that take place will be able to provide answers as to what helps a film

succeed critically in the United States. Additionally, few studies—including Karl Schoonover’s

study on the introduction of Italian neorealism into the United States after World War II

(Schoonover, 2012)—have looked into how cultural aspects that are communicated through

international media products, like foreign-language films, change as they enter the American

market. This study examined the variations that exist between promotional materials, based on

the location of release. To contribute to existent literature, the study used film posters and film

trailers as units of analysis.

Based on the content and literature, this study will answer the following RQs:

I. What variation, if any, exists in a film poster’s content depending on whether it was

released in its country of origin or in the United States?

II. What variation, if any, exists in a film trailer’s content depending on whether it was

released in its country of origin or in the United States?

III. How are cultural elements of foreign-language films handled by American distributors as

they promote foreign-language films?

The results of the content analysis and its respective data analysis will provide clearer answers to

these research questions.

26

Sample

As the basis for the sample to be reviewed, the study used the films that made the

shortlist for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film from 2006 – 2018. As of 2006,

each year, nine films from different countries make the shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film.

2018 was the last year that the category was called Best Foreign Language Film, as the Academy

changed its name to best International Feature Film in April 2019 (Newbould, 2019). The name

change took place as an effort to avoid confusion about who was eligible to compete in the

category, now that more American studios are producing films in the United States that are not

entirely in English. In order to be eligible to compete, at least half of the dialogue in each of the

films that make the shortlist must be in a language that is not English. 2006 was the first year that

the shortlist was announced, so it represented a turning point for foreign-language filmmakers,

allowing for more exposure and campaigning after their announcement. 2018 was the last year

that was considered for analysis because at the time of the study, it was the last full shortlist

available to the public.

Based on this method, a total of 117 films were compiled from the Academy’s records as

the population for the study. For each film, international film posters and trailers, based on their

theatrical release in their country of origin, as well their domestic film posters and trailers, from

their theatrical release in the United States, were compiled. Film posters were collected from

CineMaterial, a digital database that maintains a collection of film posters and categorizes them

by region of release. Any posters that were not available on CineMaterial were retrieved from

reliable press materials of the films found through online image searches.

Film trailers were collected from YouTube. Most of the film trailers were collected from

the official YouTube channels of the film, or from the film’s international or American

27

distributors. When these channels were not available or did not include any of the trailers, they

were searched on YouTube and their legitimacy was corroborated through their inclusion of

official markings, like the official logo of the distributors. A full census was not possible, since

not all films had all of the required promotional materials readily available online. Since the

sample studied was made up of 117 films, a pair of posters (one international and one domestic)

and a set of trailers was expected of each. However, a complete pair of posters was not found for

a total of four of the 117 films, which reduced the sample of film posters studied to 113 films.

Therefore, 226 total posters were analyzed for this study. A complete pair of trailers was not

found for 12 of the 117 films, which reduced the sample of film trailers studied to 105 films,

meaning 210 total trailers were analyzed for this study.

Variables

To analyze the content of the film posters, specific categories of variables were inspected

including: graphic elements, language, imagery included, presentation of characters, markings of

laurels, and key themes suggested. The two posters of the same film were individually studied

and then compared to each other, based on these variables. Graphic elements that were studied

included color palettes, typography, and amount of text included in the poster. In terms of

language, original titles and taglines, as well as their respective translations, were considered, as

well as descriptive words used to describe the film and its cast and crew. The photography

included was identified as well, including the number of photographs and how they are displayed

on the poster. The presentation of the characters was studied in terms of how prominent the

faces, ethnicities, and moods of the film’s characters are displayed. Markings of laurels, like

participation at film festivals or awards won, was identified, along with the prominence of each.

The mood of the poster was also evaluated, as well as the themes it suggests as a whole.

28

To analyze the content of the film trailers, the variables that were identified and later

compared included the employment of subtitles, amount of dialogue included, explicit cultural

elements displayed, and emotions of characters perceived. The inclusion or exclusion of subtitles

in trailers has been used to either highlight the foreign cultural aspect of films, which is why they

were included in the analysis (Gant, 2008). The amount of dialogue was studied in terms of how

often the characters spoke out loud and how often they spoke in English, versus in a foreign

language. Additionally, the use of dialogue, as opposed to silence or music, was analyzed and

compared between the two trailers of each film. Any explicit cultural artifacts that placed the

film somewhere outside of the United States geographically were also identified, including

landmark buildings or landscapes, foreign architectural styles, fashion, and food. Finally, the

characteristic emotions that the characters display in the duration of the trailer will be listed and

compared.

Procedure and data analysis

In order to answer these research questions, this study used a qualitative content analysis

that analyzed a total of 226 film posters and 210 film trailers of foreign-language films released

in the United States between 2006 and 2018. The type of qualitative content analysis employed

was a summative content analysis. Sarah Shannon and Hsiu-Fang Hsieh present the idea that

there are three main types of qualitative content analyses: conventional, directed, and summative

(Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). A summative content analysis compares different types of content by

unpacking different implications of its content (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). This type of analysis is

more often used to explore contextual meaning (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005).

There are two main types of approaches towards content analyses: a quantitative

approach and a qualitative approach. The main difference between both of these approaches is

29

how they are each coded (Wildemuth & Zhang, 2009). A quantitative approach generally applies

a priori coding, or deductive coding. This means that the coding is pre-established and generally

based upon prior research (Wildemuth & Zhang, 2009). With qualitative coding, the researchers

generally use inductive coding that means that they can identify coding patterns and categories

not only before they begin, but also during the research process after its begun and they are

identifying buckets in their units of analysis that they had not considered before (Hsieh &

Shannon, 2005). Therefore, one major advantage of qualitative coding is that one does not need

to base your study on previous literature and be restricted by a rigorous coding protocol to follow

from the beginning of the research. This allows more flexibility for the researcher to rearrange

the categories they’re studying and the trends that they are watching out for within pieces of text

or media.

The present research project is comprised of analyzing two types of media: film posters

and film trailers. These two types of media are very different on their own, and for the purposes

of this study, it was necessary to relate them to each other to see how both of these forms of

promotional marketing were used together to sell a film and tell a story about it. For both the

posters and trailers, the pieces that were studied were both the one that was released in the film’s

country of origin and the piece that was later released in the United States to represent that same

film. For example, the differences between the Colombian poster and the American poster of the

film Birds of Passage (or Pájaros de Verano in Spanish) were studied, as well as the differences

between that same film’s Colombian trailer and its American trailer.

For the purposes of the research, a qualitative content analysis was the best approach. The

method of a quantitative content analysis was not selected because two mediums were going to

be compared—one that was an image and one that was audiovisual—and a method was

30

necessary that would allow to compare the results that gotten from each to one another. A

summative approach looks at finding recurring trends (it’s an approach that’s originally meant to

be applied for text, in order to find the total sum of repetition of a word, for instance) and

patterns in text (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). This was applied to both still and moving images in

order to find trends within posters and trailers. The summative method allows for codes to be

incorporated before and during the actual coding process. For posters, the coding process started

out with a few large “buckets” that were filled as they were studied. For each of these categories,

a number of all the posters were evaluated to find trends within each. For example, within the

“presentation of characters” category, it was identified that it was worth watching out for

patterns with how women are presented and depicted, or within “language” how blurbs are or

aren’t employed.

The coding process that took place to carry out the beginning of the qualitative analysis

consisted of several rigorous steps. Large buckets or categories were established, as listed above,

for both film trailers and film posters. These buckets were established after a long, preliminary

“soak” (Hall, 1975) of a few materials from the sample. After the categories were established,

further, smaller categories that would be the main findings of the study were identified using a

constant comparative method (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). This method allowed a closer analysis

of the findings, as the observations of different films and regions were compared with each other

to find recurring themes and patterns.

In order to carry out the coding for film posters, individual sheets were printed with a

table that included headlines for six major categories: graphics, language, imagery, characters,

laurels, and key themes. For each film, two of these sheets were printed: one for the international

31

poster and one for the American poster. Both posters for each film evaluated were pulled up

side-by-side on a computer screen and notes were taken for each based on what was observed.

In order to carry out the coding for the film trailers, individual sheets were printed with a

table that included headlines for four major categories: subtitles, dialogue, cultural elements, and

dialogue. Two of these sheets were printed for film, too, for the international trailer and the

domestic equivalent. Each trailer was pulled up individually and coded for. Each trailer was

watched at least two times and notes were taken during each viewing based on observations that

were found for each.

32

RESULTS

In order to answer RQ1, the film posters that were collected as part of the sample were coded

qualitatively across six categories: graphics, language, imagery, characters, laurels, and key

themes. First, the respective international poster of a film was coded. Then, its American

equivalent was coded immediately after. In order to answer RQ2, the film trailers that were

collected as part of the sample were coded qualitatively across four categories: use of text and

subtitles, distribution of dialogue, inclusion of cultural elements, and portrayal of emotions.

Similar to how coding was done for the posters, the international trailer of each film was coded

for first, and was immediately followed by the coding of the American trailer of the same film.

Finally, to answer RQ3, the data that was collected from the previously-cited coding was used to

identify patterns and trends that could offer more insight into the marketing of foreign-language

films in the United States.

The goal of the study was to find differences between the promotional material for a film as

it was released in two countries, including the United States. In the following section, the

different trends and themes that were identified as answers to the three different research

questions that were included earlier will be presented, along with examples that help illustrate

their prevalence. Some trends were only present in the comparisons between international

posters and American posters, while some were only present in that same pair of trailers. When

the trends and themes were prevalent in both posters and trailers, examples will be provided for

both. More examples for each trend can be found in the Appendix.

Deceiving cultural erasure

Cultural elements, including language, artifacts, beliefs and demographics, were reduced

in the promotional material of foreign-language films that is distributed in the American market.

33

These dimensions of culture, in the context of marketing, are important because they tie a

product to its place of origin (Sojka & Tansuhaj, 1995). As mentioned previously, part of why

films and their products are so attractive to study in this context is because they have the ability

to retain so much of each of these cultural dimensions in how they are presented. Across the

findings, it was clear that reducing elements of cultures foreign to that of the United States was

an attempt to neutralize the international origin of the films. This was likely so they could be

more appealing to American film critics, members of voting bodies—who are well-known to be

predominantly older, white males (Horne, Sperling, & Smith, 2012)—and audiences beyond

film-lovers. This was more apparent in film posters, where one representative image is all that is

presented to audiences, inherently with fewer opportunities to include scenes or images from the

film that will represent it in the most accurate way (Lee, 2016).

As trailers were more inclined to include a combination of snippets from scenes of each

film, it proved more difficult for distributors to reduce the presence of cultural content in this

medium. The cultural erasure that was identified after comparing over 100 pairs of trailers and

pairs of posters took place in different forms. These forms included the addition of geographic

ambiguity, the obscuring of faces of people of color, the reduction of cultural artifacts, and the

minimization of spoken language as international posters and trailers were replaced with their

counterparts in the United States.

The addition of geographic ambiguity

First, a major recurring trend in film posters that suggested the removal of the origin of a

film was the addition of geographic ambiguity that could be perceived in film posters made for

the American market, in comparison to their international versions. This was shown in different

ways in posters of films from all over the world. This trend usually had the American version of

34

a film’s poster remove geographic indicators of where the film might take place. These

indicators were usually buildings or landscapes that seemed to be from outside of the United

States.

For example, see Figure 1-a for the original poster for Poland’s In Darkness. In that

poster, two characters can be seen poking out of a manhole. In the background, several buildings

adjacent to the street they’re coming out of can be seen, all in a very European architectural style

(CineMaterial, 2011-b). The American version of the poster can be found in Figure 1-b. Here,

the same two characters are coming out of a different style of manhole: one that is rounder and

less protruding, surrounded by a more modern type of cobblestone (CineMaterial, 2011-b).

Another major element was eliminated from the otherwise very similar American poster: the

buildings present in the Polish version were removed entirely from the background, and in

Figure 1-b the characters appear to be coming out to a street with no near adjacent buildings.

Figure 1-a. Polish theatrical-release poster for the film In Darkness from CineMaterial

Figure 1-b. American theatrical-release poster for the film In Darkness from CineMaterial

Figure 1. Posters for In Darkness

A similar difference was appreciated in the posters for Sweden’s A Man Called Ove. In

the film’s original, Swedish poster, the main character can be seen walking on a street in between

35

two rows of suburban homes depicted in a European style of very exaggerated A-frame roofs

(CineMaterial, 2016-a). In the American poster for Ove, he is standing in a parking lot where

building can be seen at a very far distance, so far that you can barely distinguish what style they

are in (CineMaterial, 2016-a). Similarly, in the original, Japanese poster for Shoplifters (see

Figure 2-a), a group of six characters can be seen sitting inside a home that was unmistakably

designed in a traditional, Japanese style: bamboo trimming the roof of the house, wooden sliding

doors, and matchstick blinds (CineMaterial, 2018-e). In the American poster for the same film

that can be seen in Figure 2-b, five characters are seen in an isolated beach, where you can’t

immediately identify where the characters are or where the film takes place (CineMaterial, 2018-

e).

Figure 2-a. Japanese theatrical-release poster for the film Shoplifters from CineMaterial

Figure 2-b. American theatrical-release poster for the film Shoplifters from CineMaterial

Figure 2. Posters for Shoplifters

This theme is present in different ways in many other films that were studied, including

Canada’s Water (2006), Ireland’s Viva (2015), Sweden’s The Square (2017), and Hungary’s On

Body and Soul (2017). Some exceptions to the trend included France’s Avenue Montaigne, where

the Eiffel Tower is the centerpiece of the American poster (CineMaterial, 2006-a). This is likely

36

because it’s a symbol more recognized than any of the actors included in the original French

poster for the film.

This tendency is not unique to posters, however. In the trailers for Lebanon’s The Insult,

there were two very distinct suggestions of where the film takes place. In the original, Lebanese

cut of the trailer, there are many scenes outside that show characters at work or in their homes,

all of which are in a clear Middle Eastern setting (Italia Film Middle East, 2017). In the

American trailer of the film, the great majority of the scenes took place in a courtroom that could

be anywhere in the world. There are less outdoor shots in this cut, even though flags are shown at

one point (Cohen Media Group, 2017). Russia’s Loveless had a similar tendency of showing

more scenes indoors in the American trailer (Sony Pictures Classic, 2017), versus more scenes

outdoors in the Russian cut (iVideos, 2017).

The obscuring of faces of non-Americans Subsequently, another trend that contributed to the practice of cultural erasure in

promotional material was the obscuring of faces of non-American actors, especially when they

were actors of color. Throughout the films that were analyzed, this practice was done many times

and in different ways. At times, the actors faced away from the camera, their faces were covered

or obstructed by other objects or people in the frame, or their faces were faded over other images

to the point where they could hardly be recognized. They were often de-humanized in other

ways, too. For example, by being presented as cartoons or inanimate objects like paintings. The

obscuring of the faces on posters for many of these films resulted in the gender, age group, and

ethnicity of these characters to be difficult to identify immediately and objectively. Just like the

geography of where the film is set was made ambiguous by removing certain imagery, this

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practice made it difficult to identify who the main characters of the film are and where they

might be from.

Among the many examples for this tendency, South Korea’s Burning stood out. In the

original poster from South Korea, which can be seen in Figure 3-a, three photographs of the main

characters of the film can be seen. They each take up a different percentage of the one-sheet, but

the faces and the gender of each can be identified clearly and immediately (CGV Arthouse,

2018). In the American poster for the film (see Figure 3-b), however, the number of characters in

the poster was reduced to one: what appears to be a woman facing away from the camera and

whose photograph has been made so transparent that only her silhouette can be appreciated

against the larger image of a sunset (CineMaterial, 2018-b).

Figure 3-a. South Korean theatrical-release poster for Burning from CGV Arthouse

Figure 3-b. American theatrical-release poster for Burning from CineMaterial

Figure 3. Posters for Burning

Colombia’s Birds of Passage followed a similar strategy. The Colombian poster for the

film (see Figure 4-a) features an image of a woman with a traditional head wrap and dress on, as

well as traditional face paint. It is clear that the woman is relatively young and of Latin American

descent (CineMaterial, 2018-a). In the American poster (see Figure 4-b) for the same film, what

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appears to be a man in modern-looking clothes has his head completely wrapped by an opaque,

flowing fabric that makes it impossible to see his face at all (CineMaterial, 2018-a). The use of

an almost identical fabric to the one that the young woman is wearing in the Colombian poster is

totally deprived of any cultural significance in the American poster.

Figure 4-a. Colombian theatrical-release poster for Birds of Passage from CineMaterial

Figure 4-b. American theatrical-release poster for Birds of Passage from CineMaterial

Figure 4. Posters for Birds of Passage

In the original poster of Timbuktu, from Mauritania, three characters—two adults and one

child—were seen almost filling the frame talking to each other. They were in traditional clothing,

two of them wearing traditional headwraps. The faces of at least two of them can be seen smiling

and very clearly (CineMaterial, 2014-c). In the American poster of the same film, the main focus

of the image that spreads over the one-sheet is a tree. Pictured very small next to the tree was the

child that was included in the original poster, her face so far away that you cannot distinguish

any of her features (CineMaterial, 2014-c).

The deliberate obstruction or concealment of the faces of the characters included in the

posters examined was also seen in the American posters of Russia’s 12 (2007), Turkey’s Three

Monkeys (2008), Australia’s Samson & Delilah (2009), Hong Kong’s The Grandmaster (2013),

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Sweden’s Force Majeure (2014), and Japan’s Shoplifters (2018). In some of the posters that

were analyzed, both the international poster and the American poster of the same film showed

many faces obscured or not clearly visible. These included Toni Erdmann (2016) from Germany

and Roma (2018) from Mexico.

A notable exception for when faces tend to be not hidden as the posters travel from

abroad to the United States existed when they had the opportunity to feature children. This can

be seen this in the posters of films like Russia’s Loveless where the original poster features a

woman covering her face with her hands (CineMaterial, 2017-b), but where the American poster

features a young boy with his face carefully lit and being cupped by another person that is off-

camera (CineMaterial, 2017-b). Other examples of this notable exception included Switzerland’s

Vitus (2006), France’s The Class (2008), and Canada’s Monsieur Lazhar (2011).

Figure 5-a. Canadian theatrical-release poster for Monsieur Lazhar from CineMaterial

Figure 5-b. American theatrical-release poster for Monsieur Lazhar from CineMaterial

Figure 5. Posters for Monsieur Lazhar

Undoubtedly, hiding faces deliberately was not the only way that distributors make the

ethnicity and gender of characters less explicit or important. For the Senegalese film Félicité,

two of the main characters can be seen depicted in a style of pointillism over a vibrant pattern

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that serves as the background of the poster, almost appearing animated or cartoon-like even

though both of its film trailers prove that it’s a live-action drama (CineMaterial, 2017-a).

Another instance where characters were portrayed in less human ways can be appreciated in the

posters for Germany’s Never Look Away. In the original, German poster (found in Figure 6-a),

photographs of three characters take up different amounts of space of the poster (CineMaterial,

2018-d). In the American poster (see Figure 6-b), one of the characters is depicted as a painter,

while the same other two characters from the original posters are presented as paintings,

suggesting they are not real characters in the film (CineMaterial, 2018-d).

Figure 6-a. German theatrical-release poster for Never Look Away from CineMaterial

Figure 6-b. American theatrical-release poster for Never Look Away from CineMaterial

Figure 6. Posters for Never Look Away

The reduction of cultural artifacts In addition to the previous trends, a third theme that was found in many of the analyzed

pairs of posters and trailers was the reduction or concealment of cultural artifacts in the images

displayed. It was previously mentioned that artifacts embody cultural values and include food,

traditional clothing, and idols or items that represent beliefs tied to a culture (Locander, Pollio &

Thompson, 1989). They were often included—even if not explicitly—in the promotional

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materials of films that are made for the audience of the country that corresponds to the homeland

of the creators to highlight, with pride and subtlety, where the product comes from.

Reducing traditional practices

Nevertheless, cultural artifacts were reduced from view in the American promotional

material for many foreign-language films. See Figure 7-a for the Japanese poster for the film

Departures. The photograph that makes up most of the poster shows a scene depicting a

traditional Japanese ritual mortician applying makeup to a body. The body is wrapped in a

traditional garment, specially made for that kind of ritual. Furthermore, the scene clearly takes

place in a traditional Japanese building, with transparent walls and no classic seating

(CineMaterial, 2008-a). In the American poster (See Figure 7-b), in which a character that is

shown applying makeup is dressed in casual, Western clothes and playing the cello outdoors in a

geographically-ambiguous location (CineMaterial, 2008-a). Thetitular departures are not shown

or suggested in the American poster.

Figure 7-a. Japanese theatrical-release poster for the film Departures from CineMaterial

Figure 7-b. American theatrical-release poster for the film Departures from CineMaterial

Figure 7. Posters for Departures

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Reducing traditional clothing and artifacts

This kind of alteration can also be found in the posters for the movie Kelin, originally

from Kazakhstan. In the Kazakh poster for the film, a female character is seen wearing a

traditional Kazakh headdress embellished with fur, coins, and some jewelry (CineMaterial, 2009-

a). In the American poster for Kelin, the same female character is seen embracing a man, now

wearing a plain winter hat that looks more like a beanie (CineMaterial, 2009-a).

The erasure of cultural artifacts was seen in American trailers for foreign-language films,

too. In the trailer for 2014’s Omar from Palestine, you can see a woman wearing a hijab for

longer in the trailer from Palestine (MAD Solutions, 2015). You also get more scenes where you

can see traditional Palestinian instruments, furniture, and food trays than you do in the American

version of the trailer (FRESH Movie Trailers, 2014). In the Palestinian trailer, additionally, you

see more extended scenes of what appear to be political protests where the Palestinian flag and

signs in Arabic are featured very prominently. See Figure 8-a and Figure 8-b for a side-by-side

comparison of how the same scene is presented in each trailer.

Figure 8-a. Screengrab from Arabic theatrical-release poster for the film Omar from MAD Solutions

Figure 8-b. Screengrab from American theatrical-release poster for the film Omar from FRESH Movie Trailers

Figure 8. Trailers for Omar

Reducing religious garments

Changes were also detected in cultural artifacts tied to religious beliefs or affiliations that

were foreign to the more common affiliations found within Western nations like the United

States. The Romanian and American posters for the film Beyond the Hills are very similar. Both

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posters present an older woman embracing a younger woman in what appears to be a religious

ceremony, as there is a cross being held above them in both posters. However, there was a major

difference in terms of what can be seen clearly in both posters. In the Romanian poster, both

women are at enough of a distance that the older woman’s Islamic veil can be seen with

prominence (CineMaterial, 2012-b). In the American poster, in comparison, the women are more

close up and towards a corner of the poster, slightly cropped. In this image, the veil of the older

woman has been partially cropped and the image that they used has the young woman she is

embracing covering most of the rest of it (CineMaterial, 2012-b). The cross depicted in the

Romanian trailer, curiously, remains almost equally prominent.

A similar difference was detected in the posters for Iran’s A Separation. In the Iranian

poster for the film, you can see four of the female characters —two adult women and two young

girls—all wearing Islamic veils (CineMaterial, 2011-a). There are even different types of veils

that can be detected within the poster, including a chador and hijabs. In the film, these types of

veils were significant as they spoke to the women’s religious beliefs and the differences between

them. This poster also includes the image of men between each female adult and child. In the

American poster of the film, the poster features a very close up image of a couple, with the

woman standing in front of the man. The number of veils in the poster was reduced from three to

one. Both figures in the poster are looking at someone or something that is off camera

(CineMaterial, 2011-a). A photograph of the female protagonist is used from the same scene as

the photograph of hers in the Iranian poster. In the Iranian poster and in the actual scene from the

film where the photographs are from, her hijab is navy. In the American poster, her hijab has

been edited to be a light shade of brown that blends in with her other clothes and background

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better. This photo of hers has been zoomed in on so much, that some of the hijab has been

cropped out. Her husband’s shirt behind her was also edited to be a similar shade of brown.

A similar adjustment in framing was adopted in the design for the American poster of

Iran’s The Salesman, a film by the same director as A Separation (both of which went home with

the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, five years apart). In the Iranian poster for The

Salesman (see Figure 9-a), a couple is shown standing side-by-side. The top halves of both of

their bodies can be seen, almost completely. Even though a man is standing in front of the

woman in the poster, her veil is still clearly visible as being wrapped around her head

(CineMaterial, 2016-b). In the American poster, seen in Figure 9-b, the same two characters are

repositioned so that the male covers most of the woman’s head. He specifically covers the part of

her head where the veil being wrapped around her head would be visible. In this poster, her veil

is only visible around her neck, where it appears to be not more than a scarf (CineMaterial, 2016-

b).

Figure 9-a. Iranian theatrical-release poster for the film The Salesman from CineMaterial

Figure 9-b. American theatrical-release poster for the film The Salesman from CineMaterial

Figure 9. Posters for The Salesman

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Other examples where cultural artifacts—including religious garments—are reduced as

international posters become American included Austria’s Revanche (2008), Bulgaria’s The

World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner (2009), Mauritania’s Timbuktu (2014),

Colombia’s Birds of Passage (2018), and Japan’s Shoplifters (2018).

The minimization of spoken language

Language, the third dimension of culture in the context of marketing (Sojka & Tansuhaj,

1995), was also neglected or reduced in the promotional material for foreign-language films

when it was made for the American market. After going over trailers for over one hundred films,

American trailers proved to be significantly longer than the average international trailer. This

was likely due to standard times for trailers and how these vary regionally. A tendency among

American trailers was the silencing of the characters of foreign-language films. Some trailers

went as far as including hardly any dialogue at all, like the American trailers for Samson &

Delilah (indiepixfilms, 2010) and Roma (Netflix, 2018).

Even though both trailers varied in length, it became a recurring theme that characters

spoke more dialogue during the run of international trailers, in relation to the total runtime of the

trailer. Broadly, a smaller percentage of the time of American trailers included dialogue.

Interestedly, the total number of seconds of spoken dialogue in the international version of

certain trailers was greater than the number of seconds spoken during the American trailer, even

if the American trailer was significantly longer. This was true even when the films were not

primarily in the most common language of the country they were representing. In these

instances, many had to include subtitles for the original trailers too, but that did not mean that

this resulted in less spoken dialogue.

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For example, The King’s Choice from Norway included spoken Norwegian, Danish, and

Swedish so the trailer was subtitled entirely in Norwegian; and there is still more dialogue in it

than in the American version (Nordiske Film Norge, 2016). This was an example that proved

that the reduction of dialogue was not entirely because the trailers for America were not in a

language that is the nation’s most commonly spoken.

Likewise, Canada’s War Witch was not in its more-predominant English, but still

included more spoken dialogue in the Canadian version of its trailer than in the American

version (metropolefilms, 2012). Even though both versions included a prize that was won by the

lead actress of the film—the titular War Witch, played by Rachel Mwanza from the Democratic

Republic of Congo—only the Canadian version included her name under the accolade (YouTube

Movies, 2013). Figures 10-a and 10-b show how the accolade was alluded to in both trailers for

the film.

Figure 10-a. Screengrab from Canadian theatrical-release poster for the film War Witch from YouTube Movies

Figure 10-b. Screengrab from American theatrical-release trailer for the film War Witch from Métropole Films

Figure 10. Trailers for War Witch

Excluding certain dialogue resulted in key elements being left out, including names of

characters. Throughout trailers like The King’s Choice, Life Above All from South Africa and

The Secret in their Eyes from Argentina, more names were mentioned during each. This included

the mention of more foreign-sounding names like Tiro, Bestefar, and Morales. In the American

version of Life Above All, the name Sarah is mentioned, which also introduced another trend of

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American trailers including any references to American culture or America itself that a film

might have. This was also seen in the trailers for Germany’s Toni Erdmann. In the original

German trailer, few English is spoken by the characters. Curiously, the English that is included

in the German trailer is not subtitled (KinoCheck, 2016), suggesting that English is well-spoken

enough in Germany that subtitles are not necessary. In the American trailer, more English is

included, even though the trailer is still predominantly in German (Sony Pictures Classic, 2016).

The American trailer for South Korea’s Burning included a line where one of the characters is

referred to as “the Great Gatsby” (Well Go USA Entertainment, 2018), a reference to the 1925

novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Similarly, the American trailer for Omar showed a

character using the name of American actor Brad Pitt as part of a joke (FRESH Movie Trailers,

2014), while the Arabic trailer for the film excluded this part (MAD Solutions, 2015).

Finally, international versions of trailers tended to show a larger number of people

talking. In the trailer for Sweden’s A Man Called Ove, there is more spoken dialogue in the

Swedish cut of the trailer partly because more characters were introduced during its runtime,

even if briefly (Nordiske Film Sverige, 2015). This trend can also be seen visually in posters,

where the number of faces or people in a poster were more likely to be reduced when the poster

was American.

An example of this was seen in the poster for the film Accused from the Netherlands. The

Dutch poster for the film can be seen in Figure 11-a. In the original poster from the Netherlands,

five characters can be seen (CineMaterial, 2014-a). They are placed side by side and some of

their faces were partially cropped. However, enough of their faces are shown that the gender,

race, and approximate age group of each person was clearly identifiable. In the American poster

(see Figure 11-b), on the other hand, the poster is reduced to only featuring one person, a woman

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whose photograph was also included at the center of the poster from the Netherlands. In this

poster, the woman is facing away from the camera, and her features cannot be seen too well, but

it’s clear she’s a female nurse (CineMaterial, 2014-a). Other film posters where this phenomenon

persisted included Serbia’s The Trap (2007), Sweden’s Everlasting Moments (2008) and Simple

Simon (2010), Hong Kong’s The Grandmaster (2013), and Finland’s The Fencer (2015).

Figure 11-a. Dutch theatrical-release poster for Accused from CineMaterial

Figure 11-b. American theatrical-release poster for Accused from CineMaterial

Figure 11. Posters for Accused

Likely, the number of actors included in a poster was in direct correlation to the

familiarity that the audience that the movie was being sold to had with the actors, but sometimes

even very high-profile actors were excluded from posters as they traverse to America. In the

original, Belgian poster for The Brand New Testament, four actors were included at the bottom

of the poster, each in an individual square (CineMaterial, 2015). The first of these actors is

popular French actress Catherine Deneuve, whose acclaim in Europe was so large that she has

starred in many English-language films including Dancer in the Dark, Repulsion, and the

American The April Fools alongside American movie star Jack Lemmon. However, Catherine

was eliminated from the American version of the poster. In fact, one of the few things that

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changed comparing the original poster of the film to the American one was the elimination of all

four actors near the bottom of the poster (CineMaterial, 2015).

Elevating the prestige factor In order to make foreign-language films more marketable once they enter the United

States, distributors made changes to their promotional material to make them all appear to be part

of one unified genre: the prestige foreign-language film. A viable audience for foreign-language

films in the United States is made up of cinephiles that watch films that are well-made and have

the stamp of approval of esteemed critics and fellow experts (Lang, 2019). Since these films are

sought after by a small group of movie lovers that are familiar with the promotional materials of

films that are of higher quality, they were packaged in a way that allows them to be of a kind,

easily recognizable by the audience they’re speaking to. There were a number of elements of

film trailers and film posters that allowed distributors to inject more credibility and pedigree to

their film products, and this study proved that they are often employed as the promotional

material became American.

The addition of elements and graphic changes that suggest a higher esteem was a trend

among the sample of film posters and film trailers that were studied. Across the findings, the

changes between the international posters and trailers and their American versions showed that

when the films were being promoted in America, the main purpose was to gain critical acclaim

more so than commercial success. Since they are a foreign product and those tend to perform

better in domestic markets, the distributors in America have a more difficult task when selling

these films than when selling other prestige, independent movies that were made in the United

States.

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Due to this additional hurdle, they had to add graphic elements and text to add validation

and provide visual “stamps of approval” to these posters and trailers to reassure moviegoers that

the films were of good quality. The elements of validation and of elevation of the prestige factors

of the foreign-language films that were studied included the addition of vague blurbs from

known sources, the prominence of laurels unique to film festivals and awards bodies, the

résumés of acclaimed directors or creators that worked on the film for additional validation, and

the editing of the color palette of the images on the poster to made them appear to be more

esteemed and less commercial.

The addition of generic blurbs First, a very common difference between promotional material of foreign-language films

created in their country of origin and created in the United States was the addition of vague,

generic blurbs that often crowded the American versions. In order to entice moviegoers to buy a

ticket for these films, distributors populated posters and interrupted trailers with pull-quotes and

excerpts from journalists and critics from American publications like The Hollywood Reporter,

Variety, Deadline, and New York Magazine. A simple graphic depiction of five stars also is used

instead, or along with, these blurbs. Oftentimes the blurbs that were included in film posters and

trailers were short and vague.

These types of generic pull-quotes were less common in the promotional material created

abroad. They were also less prominent when they were included. The posters for the Lebanese

film Capernaum (see Figure 12-a and 12-b) both used the same photograph that took up the

entirety of both one-sheets. The photograph was that of two children—both facing away, in line

with another theme previously identified—on a bridge. However, the difference comes with how

text was distributed in each. In the Lebanese poster, the title was included in two languages,

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including Arabic, very prominently in the top half of the poster (CineMaterial, 2018-c). In the

American poster, however, the title was placed less conspicuously in the bottom of the poster.

Almost the entire top half of that poster was filled with generic pull-quotes that included praises

like “stunning” and “outstanding” (CineMaterial, 2018-c).

Figure 12-a. Lebanese theatrical-release poster for the film Capernaum from CineMaterial

Figure 12-b. American theatrical-release poster for the film Capernaum from CineMaterial

Figure 12. Posters for Capernaum

The American poster for Omar from Palestine contained similarly generic blurbs that did

not contextualize much of the movie or its redeeming aspects. For Omar, these included

“masterpiece” and “incredible love story” (CineMaterial, 2013-a). The original, Palestinian

poster for the film did not include any blurbs. This trend was seen among many posters, which

included Japan’s Confessions (2010), Argentina’s Wild Tales (2014), Poland’s Ida (2014,

Sweden’s Force Majeure (2014), and Russia’s Paradise (2016).

The overuse of blurbs in American promotional material was also noted in film trailers. A

recurring theme among American cuts of film trailers of foreign-language films was the constant

interruption of scenes from the films with short pull-quotes that took over the majority of the

screen. Like in posters, most of these blurbs were generic and did not do much more than credit

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it to an ostensibly-reliable publication to validate the film product. The blurbs were usually seen

as text on a solid-color background or, at times, over establishing shots from the film itself.

Like the tendency with posters, international cuts of film trailers rarely included many, if

any, blurbs during their runtime. The American trailer for Germany’s Never Look Away included

many blurbs, including “a gorgeous example of provocative storytelling” from The Boston

Herald and “a marvel” from The Hollywood Reporter (Sony Pictures Classic, 2018-b). The

international trailer for this film did not include any blurbs throughout its run (KinoCheck,

2018).

Another similar example of this trend was Denmark’s Land of Mine. In the original,

Danish trailer for the film, no blurbs were included. There was only some text narration that set

the scene and described some of the action, presumably because the trailer was largely in

German and not the country’s native Danish (Nordisk Film, 2015). The American trailer,

however, had many blurbs throughout its run. These included “will have you on the edge of your

seat” from HitFix (Movieclips Indie, 2016-a). The blurbs for both of the cited films were

included over solid, black backgrounds. This trend appeared among many other sets of trailers,

like Taiwan’s Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (2011), Belgium’s Bullhead (2011),

Greece’s Dogtooth (2011), and Chile’s No (2012).

Figure 13-a. Screengrab from Chilean theatrical-release trailer for the film No from cameo

Figure 13-b. Screengrab from American theatrical-release trailer for No from Fandango All Access

Figure 13. Trailers for No

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The prominence of laurels Second, similar to how the inclusion of blurbs from well-known publications added

prestige and esteem to foreign-language films as they were introduced to American moviegoers,

so did the addition of a variety of laurels. This proved to be a major trend among both posters

and trailers for the American market. Even though the inclusion of laurels—which included

participation or competition laurels from international film festivals, award wins, award

nominations, and inclusion in best-of list—was also common in international promotional

material, they tended to be more frequent and prominent in American versions. In fact, curiously,

many of the inclusion of laurels in international posters were the only bits of English text in the

entire poster. In the Peruvian poster for the country’s The Milk of Sorrow, all the text is in

Spanish except for the laurel from being part of the “Competition” lineup of the Berlin Film

Festival (IMDb, 2009).

The inclusion of laurels in international posters was likely due to the fact that many of the

laurels come from participating in global film festivals that welcome films from a variety of

places. These included the Cannes Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, the Toronto

International Film Festival, and the Sundance Film Festival. The laurels were found as logos that

represented an awards body or festival.

The Estonian and American posters of the film Tangerines were almost identical: the

design and imagery used in the posters was exactly the same except for part of the American

poster being grainier. The bigger difference came with how laurels and recognitions for the film

were displayed in each. In the Estonian poster (see Figure 14-a), three laurels that represented

participation in various film festivals were placed subtly near the corner of the poster

(CineMaterial, 2014-b). In the American poster of the same film (Figure 14-b), the space where

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the three laurels were placed in the original poster was populated by six laurels that are slightly

larger and more focus-pulling. At the very top of the American poster, in the space that the

Estonian poster reserved for listing the names of the four main actors of the film, the names were

replaced by a large banner that confirmed the film was Academy Award-nominated in the

category of Best Foreign Language Film (CineMaterial, 2014-b). The film also included a

similar banner representing its Golden Globe nomination, along with a graphic symbol of the

Golden Globe statuette, near the bottom of the poster. Similar additions could be seen in the

posters for Waltz with Bashir (2008) and Foxtrot (2017) from Israel, The White Ribbon (2009)

from Germany, The Missing Picture (2013) from Cambodia.

Figure 14-a. Estonian theatrical-release poster

for the film Tangerines from CineMaterial Figure 14-b. American theatrical-release poster

for the film Tangerines from CineMaterial Figure 14. Posters for Tangerines

The prominence of laurels was also emphasized in American trailers, where they were

often shown within the first few frames of a trailer. It was more common to see them recur

throughout an American trailer. Some were grouped together and presented in one frame, while

others were presented one at a time, in separate frames. Examples of laurels recurring with more

prominence in American trailers included Italy’s The Unknown Woman (2008), Denmark’s The

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Guilty (2018), Lebanon’s The Insult (2017), and France’s The Intouchables (2012) and Mustang

(2015).

In the Italian trailer for The Unknown Woman, there were no frames that included laurels

or award wins (Danios12345, 2009). In the American version of the trailer, however, about five

frames from the poster were dedicated to presenting laurels and awards recognition that belonged

to the film (thelostroom1880, 2008). These included the official selection of Italy and subsequent

nomination in the Best Foreign Language film category at the Academy Awards, the five awards

won at the David Di Donatello Awards, and three additional prizes won at different film

festivals. It is understandable why international posters don’t always include accolades like the

Academy Awards because their release ordinarily precedes nominations, as its one of the

requirements for a nomination or consideration itself. However, the inclusion in film trailers is

not always of American awards, as evidenced by trailers for The Unknown Woman and Mustang

(see Figure 15-b).

Figure 15-a. Screengrab from French theatrical-release poster for the film Mustang from UniFrance

Figure 15-b. Screengrab from American theatrical-release trailer for the film Mustang from Cohen Media Group

Figure 15. Trailers for Mustang

The résumés of international auteurs Another frequent practice that applied to both film posters and trailers of foreign-

language films when they were promoted in the United States was the listing of past works of the

auteurs that directed the films, or of the rest of the creative or production team. There were less

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frequent allusions to the past work of a director or writer involved in a film—even if they’re

extremely prolific and acclaimed—on international promotional material. It was common of both

American versions of trailers and posters to extend a portion of each to namecheck previous

works of creators, especially if the work was American or resulted in either commercial or

critical success.

The international poster for Michael Haneke’s Amour (Figure 16-a) only credited the

director by saying it’s “a film by Michael Haneke” (CineMaterial, 2012-a). It did not list off his

previous work. The American poster of the same film (Figure 16-b), however, included a

disclaimer that the film comes from “the acclaimed director of Cache and The White Ribbon” at

the very top of the poster, with more prominence than the director’s own name on it

(CineMaterial, 2012-a).

Figure 16-a. International theatrical-release poster for the film Amour from CineMaterial

Figure 16-b. American theatrical-release poster for the film Amour from CineMaterial

Figure 16. Posters for Amour

Listing the previous success in America was a way for the distributors to reassure

audiences that the work of the director has been considered good in the past and is likely to be as

good. It served as an additional form of validation that they provided to the filmmakers and their

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film. At the top of the poster for the American version of Chile’s A Fantastic Woman, it reads

that the film comes “from the producers of Jackie, Spotlight, and Toni Erdmann”, two of which

are American films (CineMaterial, 2017-a). The Chilean poster—as well as the Chilean trailer—

for the film did not include the same description, or any other allusion to the creative team’s past

work.

Trailers for those films and others ape the practice of their own American posters and

credit the previous work of their creative team. This was exemplified by the trailer for Poland’s

Black Book (2006) by director Paul Verhoeven. Paul Verhhoeven is an acclaimed Dutch director

that came to prominence for his contributions to the genre of the erotic thriller. He became well-

known in the United States in the nineties for directing films like Total Recall and Showgirls.

The trailer for Black Book included a credit to another one of his well-known American films,

Basic Instinct (Sony Pictures Classic, 2006). Similar credits were awarded to Susanne Bier for

Denmark’s In a Better World (2010), Asghar Farhadi in the trailer for Iran’s The Salesman

(2016), Ruben Östlund’s The Square (2017), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck for Germany’s

Never Look Away (2018), and Alfonso Cuarón for Mexico’s Roma (2018).

Figure 17-a. Screengrab from Swedish theatrical-release poster for the film The Square from TriArt Film

Figure 17-b. Screengrab from American theatrical-release trailer for The Square from Magnolia Pictures & Magnet Releasing

Figure 17. Trailers for The Square

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The muting of the colors Finally, another way prestige was edited onto promotional material of foreign-language

films, like their respective film posters, was by muting the colors of the images that are used on

the one-sheet. Movie poster expert James Verdesoto explains how color is a major part of selling

a film through a poster, and how decisions surrounding this element are very deliberate and

meaningful (Vanity Fair, 2019). Verdesoto explains how blockbusters and commercial films tend

to be more highly saturated and in brighter colors, like blue and bright orange. This trend is

particularly popular with comic book movies and action films, which tend to perform better at

the box office. These types of films are less affiliated with critic darlings or prestige films. The

latter tend to have posters that are more serious or plain, with less additional effects added

through Photoshop or other photo editing tools.

In movie posters, bright, lighter colors like white and pink suggest a comedy, or a film

that’s less serious (Barackman, 2013). Even though, as foreign-language films make their way to

the United States, the same images for them are used, the colors of similar images were edited to

make the film appear to be more prestigious. For Italy’s The Great Beauty, the original image

used in the Italian poster is bright and full of light (CineMaterial, 2013-b). The American poster

used the same image, but increased the blacks within it to make a statue included in the poster,

and its surroundings, appear grittier (CineMaterial, 2013-b).

The American poster for Hungary’s On Body and Soul (Figure 18-b) faded and muted the

colors of a juxtaposition of images used in its Hungarian poster, desaturating them drastically

(CineMaterial, 2017-c). For Body and Soul, the fading also involved making an image of a

European forest scene, with a pair of deer, included at the bottom of the poster almost disappear.

Other films that applied filters of seriousness to identical or similar images included Canada’s

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War Witch (2012), Romania’s Beyond the Hills (2012), Germany’s Labyrinth of Lies (2015),

Germany’s In the Fade (2017), and Sweden’s The Square (2017).

Figure 18-a. Hungarian theatrical-release poster for On Body and Soul from CineMaterial

Figure 18-b. American theatrical-release poster for On Body and Soul from CineMaterial

Figure 18. Posters for On Body and Soul

Prioritizing different themes A third major, overarching trend that was identified as the sample of film posters and

trailers was coded included the glamorization of darker themes to make them appear more

palatable as they were introduced in America. Generally, American posters also proved to be

more conservative. This allowed them to be circulated more freely, especially in public spaces

where its culturally frowned upon to show graphic images to vulnerable audiences like children.

As the American market is more formulaic in terms of marketing, the agencies that created this

material for foreign-language films kept in mind the cultural values and tendencies of American

people.

The prestige factor helps sell movies to lovers of film, but distributors also often keep in

mind what their general audiences do and do not respond to. There are many ways in which

promotional material in the United States prioritized conveying more palatable, audience-

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friendly themes. Primarily, distributors glamorized darker themes and replaced them with more

palatable ones, but conversely exalted violence and artifacts of violence in promotional material

distributed across the United States.

The glamorization of dark themes American posters of foreign-language films tended to conceal darker themes and more

elusive content, usually by presenting it in a way that was more conformist and less provocative.

International trailers tended to be more daring in the imagery they used, whereas the American

market leaned towards the conservative. Even with matters like nudity, American posters and

trailers clearly did not leave room for that.

This is true even when the nudity is in a non-sexual context. For example, in both the

trailer and poster for Australia’s Tanna, there was mild nudity because the traditional clothing of

the aboriginal group that the film is about do not cover every body part. The Australian trailer for

the film included nudity that was not censored. The American version uses an almost identical

cut of the trailer, but it censored the nudity (Movieclips Indie, 2016-b). The posters for Tanna

both also used the same image. The image included a couple, one man and a woman. The man is

seen facing away. They are both in traditional costumes. The man’s buttocks are not covered,

however. In the Australian poster, the nudity was shown as the title for the film is placed slightly

below the waists of the actors (CineMaterial, 2016-c). In the American version, however, the title

of the film was strategically placed to cover up the spot of nudity (Amazon Prime Video, 2016).

In terms of the experimental, American posters prefered to leave less to the imagination.

Greece’s Dogtooth had two very different posters (see Figures 19-a and 19-b). The Greek poster

for the film was very unconventional, as all that was presented was three lines of different colors

that appear to create a set of distorted wavelengths on a plain backdrop (CineMaterial, 2010).

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The designer of the poster, Vasilis Marmatakis, confirmed each of the lines was meant to

represent each of the children featured in the movie (Chen, 2019). In the American poster,

however, the image used was that of a girl with what appears to be blood on her mouth. It was a

little more provocative than your average American poster, but it still abided by conventional

norms of modern, American poster design (CineMaterial, 2010).

Figure 19-a. Greek theatrical-release poster for the film Dogtooth from CineMaterial

Figure 19-b. American theatrical-release poster for the film Dogtooth from CineMaterial

Figure 19. Posters for Dogtooth

When it came to conveying themes, American posters tended to prefer lighter ones on

their promotional material. Darker and more elusive themes in international trailers became

glamorized and lightened up in American posters. The original poster (Figure 20-a) for Russia’s

Paradise simply showed a woman in an empty room, covering her face and likely crying. This

poster was in black and white (DRIFE Productions, 2016). In the American poster for the film

(see Figure 20-b), a similar image of hardship was included slightly faded in the top half of the

poster, where you can see a woman with a stern look on her face under intense conditions.

However, underneath this image is the image of a glamorous woman standing seaside with a

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wide-brimmed hat that covers her face (Medium, 2018). This poster’s focus was on the more

alluring, luxurious woman.

Figure 20-a. Russian theatrical-release poster for the film Paradise from DRIFE Productions

Figure 20-b. American theatrical-release poster for the film Paradise from Medium

Figure 20. Posters for Paradise

Sweden’s A Man Called Ove also had a very different set of posters, after a careful look.

The central conflict of the film is that the main character plans to kill himself. In the Swedish

poster of the film, the lead character can be seen holding what is clearly a noose against a bright

sky, making it stand out even more (CineMaterial, 2016-a). The noose was still present in the

American poster of the film, but in this version, the noose is looped on the floor, under the main

character’s left foot (CineMaterial, 2016-a). It did not appear to be much more than rope, here.

Conveniently, in the American poster, the titular Ove carries a bouquet of flowers in the same

hand where he was previously holding a noose.

The exception of violence

One notable exception to the trend of glamorizing darker themes within American

promotional material of foreign-language films was the focus of violence that was added to a lot

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of posters and trailers that did not feature it as a focal point. Even though American material

usually shied away from suggesting dark, personal themes, they did not prove to shy away from

showing violence, weapons, and other war-related artifacts. The inclusion of explosions and

firearms in both posters and trailers proved to be quite common, even if the international version

of the same film’s poster did not include explicit suggestions of violence or war initially.

The original Polish poster for Katyn featured four soldiers smiling, with the focus of the

poster on their faces as they take up the majority of the one-sheet (CineMaterial, 2007). In the

American version, however, the faces of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were the only

distinguishable ones. In the center of the poster, moreover, there was an image of a group of

soldiers holding a gun directly to the back of another man’s head (CineMaterial, 2007). Another

film from Poland, Black Book, had an original poster that made the movie appear to be a period

piece about royals upon first glance, until you noticed the uniform of the man that was facing

away from the camera (CineMaterial, 2006-b). The American poster used the same image, but

edited the color on it to highlight that the man is wearing a general’s uniform. The poster also

included additional images. One of the images was placed inside the man’s uniform, where a

scene of an explosion and battle planes is included (CineMaterial, 2006-b).

The posters for Winter in Wartime from the Netherlands (see Figure 21-a and Figure 21-

b) featured the same scene framed very differently. In both, a boy rides his bike by a group of

soldiers. In the Dutch poster, the boy was the focus, while the soldiers are far removed and small

within the one-sheet (CineMaterial, 2009-b). It was barely noticeable that they were soldiers. In

the American poster, the soldiers are closer to the camera than the child is. It was very clear that

they are soldiers as you can see their helmets and uniforms explicitly (CineMaterial, 2009-b).

This trend could also be seen in smaller ways, like how in the American poster for Austria’s

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Revanche, a character is holding a gun unlike in the film’s original poster (CineMaterial, 2008-

b).

Figure 21-a. Dutch theatrical-release poster for Winter in Wartime from CineMaterial

Figure 21-b. American theatrical-release poster for Winter in Wartime from CineMaterial

Figure 21. Posters for Winter in Wartime

Furthermore, this trend was present in trailers, too. American trailers tend to be louder

with gunfire and explosions. In the American trailer for The King’s Choice from Denmark, there

was additional emphasis placed on the military elements of the film, and battle scenes and

explosions were shown throughout (Samuel Goldwyn Films, 2017). This pattern was also seen in

the promotional material for other films like Israel’s Ajami (2009), Argentina’s The Secret in

their Eyes (2009), Algeria’s Outside the Law (2010), and A War (2015) and Land of Mine (2016)

from Denmark.

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DISCUSSION Complementing Current Literature

The results presented show that there is a clear relationship between the influence of

culture and marketing strategies in the United States. There were three major themes that were

discovered throughout the coding process for this project, all phenomena that occur as foreign-

language films move from the international market to the domestic market in the United States:

the erasure of cultural dimensions in promotional material, the addition of marks of approval by

American standards, and the minimization of darker themes that are not related to love or

violence.

The first theme, in particular -- the erasure of cultural dimensions in promotional material

-- supports the idea that culture plays a large part in influencing purchase decisions when the

product is not domestic. Previous literature suggests that there are different dimensions of culture

that impact the decision of shoppers when it comes to buying an item or not (Sojka & Tansuhaj,

1995). When these cultural dimensions are explicitly present in the product itself, they make it

even less likely to make the audience or shoppers have interest because they can discern that the

product comes from a place with values, beliefs, traditions, and practices different from their

own (Laroche, Heslop, Mourali, & Papadopoulos, 2005). The study conducted proved that

distribution companies for films and the marketing teams they hire to create their promotional

materials make an effort to reduce many strong suggestions of culture or national origin.

This tendency explains the reason why cultural artifacts—like clothing and religious

garments—and geographic locations are excluded or made vague in posters of foreign-language

films in the United States. It also explains why spoken dialogue is minimized in American

trailers, as they predominantly feature a language that is not English. This suggests specific ideas

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about the American market’s relationship with xenophobic views of other cultures. Namely, that

foreign-language films are being marketed under the preconception that Americans are less

likely to pay to watch a film if it features an audience that is not predominantly Caucasian or that

involves issues that take place outside of the United States.

The deliberate hiding and opacity of faces of people of color speak to the expectation that

people are less likely to watch a film if they see that it stars a Japanese family, for instance.

Posters with Caucasian faces, even if they were not well-known celebrities, were less likely to do

this. These themes and trends confirm that the departments in charge of the marketing foreign-

language films in America deliberately clear the films of as many suggestions of where they

come from to placate an audience that could potentially share problematic ideas about foreign

races and cultures, whether they recognize it or not. This bias agrees with previous literature that

dictates that there is a strong correlation between intention of purchase of a client from a

particular market and the perceived cultural dimensions of the product in question (Kouba,

2008).

The second theme found American promotional material placing a greater emphasis on

laurels, accolades, positive reviews and previous work. This reinforces the idea that

underrepresented groups in the United States have to work harder to prove themselves and to

succeed in that market. Many workplace studies have shown that minorities in the United States,

like black workers, are more likely to receive greater scrutiny from employers and earn less

stellar reviews for the same level of performance as their white peers (Cavounidis & Lang,

2015). This phenomenon is also very present in the entertainment industry as female directors

are less likely to be nominated for major awards, or as black actresses need more years to prove

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themselves worthy of lucrative careers to achieve the success their white peers generally enjoy

earlier despite having similar experience (Perkins, 2017).

The same is true with foreign films trying to make it in America: they have to make their

case louder than their American counterparts, regardless of who actually has the superior quality.

American posters tend to tell a more explicit story and provide users with more information to

help them make a purchase decision. International posters don’t often rely on all of this

additional information to please audience members to see their film. American moviegoers prove

to prefer more information beyond the story that the film itself has to say from a number of

additional sources that they find credible.

Finally, different genres and themes from films were transformed in the promotional

material designed in the United States. Difficult themes like sorrow and suicide are replaced with

more uplifting, family-friend themes like hope and love. Transforming posters that originally

depict individuals or families into posters that focus on heteronormative love also speaks to what

is culturally significant and celebrated in American culture. It also suggests that stories from

non-Americans matter mostly when they are about love, or when there is a hopeful message

attached to them. A clear exception to an avoidance of dark themes is the predilection for

military and violent imagery in posters and trailers released in the United States. American

culture has a clear affinity and respect for military material, which is why it is so often

highlighted in the images presented to sell movies. This is less true in international posters and

trailers, suggesting military efforts and the promotion of war is less of a priority in their

respective countries.

Previous literature has scarcely studied how culture influences trailer and poster design

across different regions of the world. This study provided more insight into international

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tendencies in these areas in order to compare them to a juggernaut, Hollywood. The poster

design and trailers of Hollywood itself have been studied at great length, studying factors like the

sexualization of women (Ghaznavi et al., 2017) and portrayals of non-heteronormative intimacy

(Cabosky, 2017). The study also agrees with previous literature that finds that American

marketing is more conservative and less daring or experimental than international creations.

Impact on the future of the foreign-language film industry in the United States

In February 2020, Parasite from South Korea became the first foreign-language film to

ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture (Arthur, Donnelly, Murphy & Vary, 2020). This

happened just one year after Roma from Mexico was among the favorites for the prize when it

was nominated in that category—the award show’s most coveted—in 2019. Seven days after

Parasite won its Oscar, it was met with equal acclaim commercially as it made $5.5 million at

the box office that week, representing a boost of ticket sales of 234% (Rubin, 2020). By

February 2020, the film had grossed over $200 million in worldwide ticket sales (Rubin, 2020).

The film’s great success is a testament to the great success that foreign-language films can enjoy

in the United States beyond the bubble of the Best International Feature category. Parasite not

only won for Best International Feature and Best Picture, but also collected trophies for Best

Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design, and Best Film Editing. Furthermore,

the film’s director, Bong Joon-ho, went on to tie the record for most personal Oscar wins in one

night as he was part of four of the film’s wins (Sarkisian, 2020).

The major critical and commercial success that Parasite enjoyed proves the importance

of marketing a foreign-language film in the United States in a way that represents the movie

accurately and responsibly. Currently, many distributors that take on foreign-language films

admit that they have limited box-office potential and so they limit their marketing efforts and the

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budget that goes into making sure the movie is well-represented in its promotional materials.

NEON, the relatively-new company in charge of distributing Parasite, treated the film like any

other in its roster, not a niche find (D’Alessandro, 2019). It didn’t let the foreign-language aspect

dictate how it would promote the film, or to what audience it would direct it towards.

The NEON team trusted they had a movie that could be a great hit and they made sure to

market it to show their audiences that potential. The first thing they did was cut a successful

trailer. NEON Chief Marketing Officer Christian Parkes discusses how they cut the trailer

specifically to “give this film its own voice” and make sure the film’s trailer was reminiscent of

Hitchcock’s films and teases (D’Alessandro, 2019). The film’s director, Joon-ho, himself also

collaborated with the marketing team at NEON to help cut the US trailer for the film. The team

discusses how elements like the film’s Palme d’Or win at Cannes and being South Korea’s

international feature entry at the Oscars worked to the film’s advantage greatly (D’Alessandro,

2019).

Part of the purpose of the present content analysis was to study the promotional material

of foreign language films in the United States to understand how they are marketed to be

successful. In previous years, the American market has not been the most inviting to

international features as distribution companies invest less in taking on films with subtitles and

box office performance for similar films has been underwhelming. However, the success of a

juggernaut like Parasite, coupled with the findings of this study, can encourage distributors to

market international features proudly and without focusing on reducing elements related to

culture since it’s been proven that films from abroad can be just as successful, if not more, in the

American market regardless of who is starring in the feature.

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The future of the foreign-language film industry, now, is more promising than ever. The

precedent set by Parasite will have both audiences and critics looking at future foreign-language

film entries more closely. Since there will be more interest in their potential, it’s important for

distributors to represent them fairly in their printed material and trailers as they can make waves

as critics and audiences look to find the next Parasite (Buchanan, 2020). Part of the reason that

the international feature film category was made the focus of the present study is because of its

fragile state in the American market currently. Highlighting what has worked in the past and

what elements of distributing efforts should be corrected would greatly change how the films are

perceived and how they perform in the United States. This ripple effect will lead to more

international films being distributed widely in America and greater exposure to world cinema in

a market that has had a difficult history with embracing it.

Shaping the perceptions of the public

Studying the promotional material of many other foreign-language film entries across the

years was a way to see what the focus of the distributors was when adapting promotional

material, but also seeing how they take on the responsibility of selling the narrative of a film.

Marketing presents a great opportunity to shape the perception of a public that has high

expectations and many offers coming to them at once, as more films of all sizes and genres are

distributed to theaters across America and their posters crowd their walls.

According to New York Times film correspondent Kyle Buchanan, an aversion to

subtitles exists among American audiences because they associate them with “glacially paced art

films” (Buchanan, 2020). Several factors can contribute to this perception, like the exclusion of

dialogue in cuts of trailers. As distribution companies are mindful of the ability of their posters

and trailers to shape the perceptions of their audiences and entice them to watch their film, they

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will be able to focus on not cutting out key elements of what could make a film enticing or

successful because it suggests that it comes from another country: cultural artifacts, spoken

language, the mention of foreign names.

As international features compete with English-language films for ticket sales and

accolades, it’s a great opportunity for distributors to highlight aspects they had previously been

working to conceal to add to the film’s novelty within the market. After all, Parasite wasn’t only

the first foreign-language film to win an Oscar for Best Picture, it was South Korea’s first

nomination in the category. This shows that there didn’t need to be much precedent for the film

to perform as well as it did. Its origin didn’t work against its success, clearly, so there should be

no effort gone into hiding, through its marketing, where the film comes from or what the

protagonists look like. This should be seen as an opportunity to celebrate films from around the

world in a place where there is an audience that could allow it to thrive continuously, not just

every few years. The storytelling that is adopted through the marketing material is powerful and

influential, not just to sell the movie to audiences, but to represent elements of the film that make

it resonate with audiences across the world, despite it being from a place foreign to America.

The importance of representation

Another of the reasons this study was conducted was to study the marketing of

underrepresented groups in a predominantly-Caucasian market. The study looked at the approach

of different companies to presenting minorities to an audience that largely does not identify with

their ethnic makeup. The approach was studied across different variables that were previously

cited, to see if elements like race, language, and cultural artifacts were represented differently.

The results found that many of these elements were concealed or diminished when marketing

efforts were directed towards the American market. This was a discouraging finding, as the

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megaphone effect that enhances the impact that foreign products have in a new space can also be

used to enhance values like acceptance and the celebration of cultural identity.

Moving forward, companies that coordinate and create marketing material for foreign-

language films should not actively conceal cultural elements within them. Films with a cast of

unknowns, like Roma and Parasite in recent years, have performed well on streaming services

and in the global box office respectively, which shows that there is much potential in films

succeeding in America regardless of what language they’re in. As Bong Joon-ho said in his

Oscars speech after winning Best Director, global filmmakers don’t make films that represent the

entirety of their nation, but attempt to make a story that will resonate universally (Oscars, 2020).

With that in mind, the cultural elements that should remain in a poster should be those that

represent the world of the film, and not be an attempt to represent a nation as a whole if it does

not apply.

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A Guide for Industry Professionals

In order for professionals in the film and advertising industries to apply the findings of

this study, the following guide has been created for some informed advice on how to create

promotional material for foreign language films in the United States.

I. Do not hide the stars of the film: Actors of color still have a difficult time breaking it

through in the industry. When they’re hidden from the promotional material of films, like

posters, it makes it more difficult for them to get attention for awards or future roles. It

also undermines the importance of inclusion and diversity beyond domestic products.

II. Culture matters: Hiding the cultural practices and artifacts, as well as minimizing the

spoken language of the country where foreign films are set, does a disservice to their

origin and implies that this is something that is not desirable among American audiences.

It is important to not reduce important elements to appeal to xenophobic pretenses.

III. Advertise films and stories, not countries: There is a fine line between not reducing

cultural elements and fetishizing a culture. It is equally important not to lean towards

selling a film primarily because it comes from a certain place, or represents a location.

Artists make films as a universal product with human—not location-specific—stories.

IV. Do not mislead audiences: Promotional material, like trailers and posters, communicate

important themes of films. The themes that are portrayed in each should be true to the

content of the film, to avoid misleading audiences. Misleading them may result in

negative audience scores that will potentially hurt the film’s commercial performance.

V. Celebrate work and accomplishments: Celebrating laurels and previous work of

collaborators is key, but not excessively. Not all countries have access to prestigious

festivals and extensive previous work, so an even playing field should be encouraged.

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LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

This content analysis was performed under some limitations. In order to get a more

representative sample from films across the world, the shortlist for the Academy Awards’ Best

Foreign Language Film category was used. However, not every entry in this category was

distributed in the United States, which is why there were a few films that were left out of the

study as no available promotional material made for the United States was found. Additionally,

the list proved to favor entries from developed countries that make more films annually and

could spend more money campaigning for films. Using this list also excluded films targeted at

diaspora audiences that come from production companies based in countries that include Mexico

and India. Movies from Bollywood are some of the best performing, commercially, in the United

States. India has not been shortlisted for an Academy Award since 2001, however, and the

sample studied only included films from as early as 2006. This also meant that the movies that

were studied here were, for not most part, not commercial hits. That means that their marketing

was either not successful, or aware of the niche genre in question.

The study opens the door for much interesting future research. The study was done on a

global scale, seeing how films from all over the world enter the American market. Future studies

could be done that focus on specific regions and what differences can be found in those. For

instance, a study could focus on the marketing of films from the Middle East to identify trends

that are exclusive to films from this area of the world. Similarly, studies could be conducted to

inspect other elements more specifically. For instance, the inclusion and depiction of women in

international posters and trailers could be compared to their inclusion and depiction in American

material. Beyond the cultural, there are many other elements that could be zeroed in on to expand

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insights into how the American market transforms the portrayal of foreign language as titles of

projects change and the use of technology and animation, among others.

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APPENDIX Appendix A: Examples of the obscuring of faces of non-Americans

Figure 22-a. Mexican theatrical-release poster for Pan’s Labyrinth from CineMaterial

Figure 22-b. American theatrical-release poster for Pan’s Labyrinth from CineMaterial

Figure 23-a. Turkish theatrical-release poster for Three Monkeys from CineMaterial

Figure 23-b. American theatrical-release poster for Three Monkeys from CineMaterial

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Appendix B: Examples of geographic ambiguity

Figure 24-a. Peruvian theatrical-release poster for The Milk of Sorrow from CineMaterial

Figure 24-b. American theatrical-release poster for The Milk of Sorrow from CineMaterial

Figure 25-a. Screengrab from Lebanese theatrical-release poster for the film Capernaum from moukal tv

Figure 25-b. Screengrab from American theatrical-release trailer for the film Capernaum from Sony Pictures Classic

Figure 26-a. Screengrab from Norwegian theatrical-release poster for the film Kon-Tiki from Nordisk Film

Figure 26-b. Screengrab from American theatrical-release trailer for the film Kon-Tiki from Movieclips Trailers

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Appendix C: Examples of the reduction of cultural artifacts

Figure 27-a. Iranian theatrical-release poster for A Separation from CineMaterial

Figure 27-b. American theatrical-release poster for A Separation from CineMaterial

Figure 28-a. Romanian theatrical-release poster for Beyond the Hills from CineMaterial

Figure 28-b. American theatrical-release poster for Beyond the Hills from CineMaterial

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Appendix D: Examples of the prominence of blurbs and laurels

Figure 29-a. Swedish theatrical-release poster for Force Majeure from CineMaterial

Figure 29-b. American theatrical-release poster for Force Majeure from CineMaterial

Figure 30-a. Screengrab from Swiss theatrical-release poster for the film Sister from Bandes Annonces Cinéma

Figure 30-b. Screengrab from American theatrical-release trailer for the film Sister from Movieclips Trailers

Figure 31-a. Screengrab from Belgian theatrical-release poster for the film Bullhead from Eyeworks Film

Figure 31-b. Screengrab from American theatrical-release trailer for the film Bullhead from Drafthouse Films

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Appendix E: Example of the résumés of the film’s creative team

Figure 32-a. Screengrab from Argentinian theatrical-release poster for the film Wild Tales from Trailers in Spanish

Figure 32-b. Screengrab from American theatrical-release trailer for the film Wild Tales from YouTube Movies

Appendix F: Examples of the obscuring of the glamorization of dark or personal themes

Figure 33-a. Swedish theatrical-release poster for A Man Called Ove from CineMaterial

Figure 33-b. American theatrical-release poster for A Man Called Ove from CineMaterial

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Figure 34-a. Arabic theatrical-release poster for Omar from CineMaterial

Figure 34-b. American theatrical-release poster for Omar from CineMaterial

Appendix G: Examples of the reduction of risqué imagery and experimentation

Figure 35-a. Australian theatrical-release poster for Tanna from CineMaterial

Figure 35-b. Australian theatrical-release poster for Tanna from CineMaterial

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Appendix H: Examples of the predilection towards depicting violent themes

Figure 36-a. Austrian theatrical-release poster for Revanche from CineMaterial

Figure 36-b. American theatrical-release poster for Revanche from CineMaterial

Figure 37-a. Polish theatrical-release poster for Black Book from CineMaterial

Figure 37-b. American theatrical-release poster for Black Book from CineMaterial

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WORKS CITED Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (2019, April 23). Academy announces rules for

92nd Oscars. [Press release]. Retrieved from https://www.oscars.org/news/academy- announces-rules-92nd-oscars

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