An art film (also called an “art cinema”, “art movie”, or in the U.S., an "independent film" or “art house film”) is typically a serious, noncommercial, independently made film or a foreign language film that may have these qualities, but may have been made by a major company in its home territory and achieved popular success. It may thus be aimed at a niche audience, rather than a mass audience,[1] or the use of subtitles in foreign language films may limit audience appeal.
Film critics and film studies scholars typically define an “art film” using a “...canon of films and those formal qualities that mark them as different from mainstream Hollywood films.”[2] Film scholar David Bordwell claims that "art cinema itself is a [film] genre, with its own distinct conventions."[3] Art film producers usually present their films at specialty theatres (repertory cinemas, or in the US "arthouse cinemas") and film festivals. The term "art film" is much more widely used in the United States than in Europe, where the term "art film" is more associated with "auteur" films and "national cinema" (e.g., German national cinema).
Art films are aimed at small niche market audiences, which means they can rarely get the financial backing which will permit large production budgets, expensive special effects, costly celebrity actors, or huge advertising campaigns, as are used in widely-released mainstream blockbuster films. Art film directors make up for these constraints by creating a different type of film, which typically uses lesser-known film actors (or even amateur actors) and modest sets to make films which focus much more on main thesis, which in case of more ambitious (especially European or Asian) films means that the author (screenwriter and director) has actually something to say. Furthermore, the general perception is that a certain degree of experience and intellect are required to understand or appreciate such films - in contrary to regular main stream movies, which are geared more towards escapism and pure entertainment. For promotion, art films rely on the publicity generated from film critics' reviews, discussion of their film by arts columnists, commentators, and bloggers, and "word-of-mouth" promotion by audience members. Since art films have small initial investment costs, they only need to appeal to a small portion of the mainstream viewing audiences to become financially viable.
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