Infrastructures of Influence: The British Federation of Film Societies and the Circulation of Soft Power, 1960–2000

This article examines the role of the British Federation of Film Societies (BFFS) in the international circulation of film culture from 1960 to 2000, arguing that the Federation functioned as an infrastructural conduit for cultural diplomacy through which soft power could be generated. Drawing on newly catalogued archival materials from the recently established BFFS Archive in Sheffield, the article analyses seven case studies of film societies affiliated with the BFFS between the 1960s and 1990s, in contexts ranging from postcolonial India and post-Soviet Poland to the pre-millennium Faroe Islands, Switzerland, and London. While Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power has typically been applied to state-led cultural diplomacy, this article extends recent critiques by showing how cultural influence can emerge from the logistical and bureaucratic structures of non-governmental institutions. It proposes a four-part typology—coincidental, strategic, logistical, and negated soft power—to account for the varied ways in which the BFFS created the conditions for influence to be accrued depending on local conditions, institutional design, and audience access. In doing so, the article repositions the BFFS not as a purely domestic cultural body, but as part of a wider transnational infrastructure that linked national film cultures with international publics in often unexpected ways.