How Do Festival Curators Use Transnational in Programming and Publicity?

Festival curators use transnational in two linked ways: as a programming lens for selecting and connecting work across borders, and as a publicity frame for explaining those connections to audiences, funders and partners. It is not simply a synonym for an international line-up. The term becomes useful when it names specific relationships — co-production, translation, touring, diaspora, regional exchange or cross-border collaboration — rather than functioning as a cosmopolitan adjective.

Much of the documented discussion of the term comes from film festivals, especially the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. That evidence is not a template for theatre festivals, but it clarifies choices theatre curators also face: how to programme across borders, how to describe that work publicly, and how to avoid letting the language of transnationalism hide the local and material conditions of production.

What transnational means in a festival context

International describes relations between nations. Transnational describes flows, networks, institutions and identities that cross national borders. Intercultural points to encounters between cultural traditions; multilingual points to the use of more than one language. A festival may be all four, but the terms are not interchangeable. A transnational programme might include works from several countries without being intercultural in method; a multilingual production might be profoundly local in its audience and funding.

Ileana Nicoleta Sălcudean’s study of the transnational identity of European film festivals treats festival venues in relation to transnationalism as a “supranational sphere” with political and economic implications, and discusses international film festivals as cosmopolitan spaces and potential public spheres. Her article focuses on TIFF and on the new media and cultural branding employed there. This is a useful starting point because it shows that transnationalism is not only a property of the works programmed; it is also produced through the festival’s public account of itself.

Programming: selection, co-production and local grounding

Selection and thematic framing

At the level of selection, curators can use transnational ideas to group works by production history, by thematic concern or by artistic method. A strand might bring together co-productions, touring collaborations, works about migration or diaspora, or pieces that use translation and multilingual dramaturgy as part of their form. The frame should be visible in the programme note and in the introduction to the work, not only in the marketing copy.

There is a risk of continental shorthand. The Association for Curators and Programmers of Asian Cinemas asks whether Asian cinema is a regional collection of national industries or a set of more fluid, shifting boundaries that blur distinctions between regions of Asia and the Pacific. The same question applies to theatre: a strand called “Asian theatre” can flatten specific traditions, languages, communities and histories. A transnational frame should identify the actual relationship being presented — a collaboration between artists in two cities, a translation from one language into another, a touring history, a shared regional funding scheme — rather than using a continent as an explanatory label.

Co-production platforms and markets

TIFF offers a concrete film example of how a festival can move from showcase to broker. A 2021 Screen Daily discussion reports that TIFF started in 2002 as a strictly audience-focused festival, with a formalised industry strand introduced in 2014: the Transilvania Pitch Stop (TPS), designed to support co-productions with neighbouring countries within the region. TIFF artistic director Mihai Chirilov noted that more titles began as projects in Cluj and later appeared at festivals where they were awarded prizes. The festival thus used a transnational industry structure to connect local and regional projects to wider circuits.

For theatre curators, the analogous work is often done through pitch sessions, co-producing markets, residencies, commissioning partnerships and informal introductions rather than film-style pitch stops. The principle is the same: transnational programming is strongest when it supports relationships over time, not only a one-off international showcase. A festival can programme a finished production and also create the conditions for the next collaboration.

Balancing global and local

The same Screen Daily discussion brought together festival directors from Transilvania, IndieLisboa, Thessaloniki and New Horizons to discuss how their festivals contribute to local and regional film industries while forging connections with the wider international community. That double orientation is central to curatorial use of the term. Transnational publicity can present a festival as a bridge, but the local audience, local crew, regional partners and public funding remain part of the story. A festival that describes itself as transnational while treating its home city as a backdrop is using the term incompletely.

Publicity: branding, evidence and audience address

Sălcudean’s title explicitly links transnational identity to new media and cultural branding at TIFF. This is a useful description of how festival publicity works: the festival does not simply have a transnational programme; it produces a public account of itself as transnational through web copy, social media, catalogues, partner lists, artist biographies and press material. For theatre, accurate publicity should make the transnational relationship legible. That means naming the countries, languages, artists and institutions involved; distinguishing a co-production from a host presentation; explaining translation and surtitle arrangements; and crediting translators, dramaturgs and local collaborators. The point is not to overload the copy with bureaucracy but to let audiences see the work’s actual conditions of travel and exchange.

Publicity can also overstate transnationalism. A festival may use the term to signal cosmopolitan openness while leaving funding inequalities, visa constraints or language access unmentioned. Sălcudean notes the political and economic implications of festival transnationalism, and the Association for Curators and Programmers of Asian Cinemas observes that cross-regional co-production is often facilitated by funding channels linked to major festivals. Curators should therefore treat the term as a claim that needs evidence, not a decorative label. If a festival says it is transnational, readers should be able to see which borders were crossed, by whom, with what support and for which audiences.

Sector guidance can help with the operational side. The Festival Academy’s toolkit Programming and Curating a Festival is aimed at festival managers and sector practitioners and collects information on current trends, examples from the industry and contextual material on specific issues. It does not resolve questions of cultural politics, but it is a useful complement to the critical questions raised by festival studies.

A practical checklist for theatre festival curators

• Define the term locally. State whether the festival is using transnational to describe production history, artistic method, audience, funding or public positioning.
• Name the relationship. Use co-production, touring, translation, residency, commissioning or exchange rather than relying on transnational as a catch-all.
• Verify credits. Check the names of artists, translators, dramaturgs, producers and partner organisations against programmes and contracts.
• Specify languages and access. Say which languages are spoken or signed on stage and how surtitles, captioning or interpretation are provided.
• Avoid continental shorthand. Identify regions, cities, languages and communities instead of treating a continent as a single tradition.
• Balance international and local. Show how international invitations connect to local audiences, regional partners and longer-term industry support.
• Use publicity as explanation. Let audiences understand why a work is transnational, not merely that it comes from elsewhere.
• Document the exchange. Keep records of partners, rights, translation permissions and access agreements for future programming and evaluation.

Common misconceptions

Transnational is not the same as international. An international festival may present one national company after another without creating cross-border relationships. A transnational frame asks what crosses, how and with what consequences.

Transnational is not automatically intercultural or multilingual. A work can be co-produced across borders while remaining monolingual, or it can be multilingual without being transnational in its production. Precision matters in both programming and publicity.

Transnational is not neutral. Cross-border programming depends on funding, visas, travel, translation and institutional power. The sources on TIFF and Asian film curation both point to the political and economic dimensions of festival transnationalism. Curators should not present the term as an ethical guarantee.

Transnational is not only a marketing category. It can be a marketing category, and Sălcudean’s focus on cultural branding shows why that matters. But it should also describe verifiable curatorial choices: who was invited, who co-produced, what was translated and how the work reached audiences.

Why this matters for theatre across borders

Theatre curators work with liveness, language and hospitality, so the stakes of transnational programming are concrete: who travels, who is translated, who is paid, who speaks and who is subtitled. The film-festival evidence shows that transnational identity can be a serious curatorial and public-facing project, not just a slogan. For theatre, the test is whether the programme and its publicity make cross-border relationships visible, specific and accountable.