I think that you stated in your message that the logo is transcultural. What about the guillemet (« ») used in French, Italian, and a host of other European languages? They are commonly used worldwide. They are even used in China to indicate the title of a book or a document.
One could see the use of quotation marks (international or not) as skewing the content or subject matter of the film festival towards the English speaking world. Or even make the statement that the festival will only be from the English speaking perspective.
And finally, I thought I'd throw this out there only because I know it exists. It is another organisaion (non-profit) using similar symbols: http://www.stammering.org/
