National Cinemas

CFP: International Film and Media Studies Journal: Acta Universitatis Sapientiae

by Ágnes Pethő

The International, peer-reviewed, open access journal of the Sapientia University (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) invites the submission of original, previously unpublished articles written in English. Articles in all areas of film and media studies are welcome. Deadline for the next issue: June 15, 2012. Previous issue available online here: http://www.acta.sapientia.ro/acta-film/, and here: http://issuu.com/actauniversitatissapientiae/docs/film4_2011

Ruina y refracción en el cine de Ignacio Agüero

by Ivan Pinto Veas

Ponencia leída en CONGRESO ASAECA 2010.

ACTAS II CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE LA ASOCIACIÓN ARGENTINA DE ESTUDIOS DE CINE Y AUDIOVISUAL II CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE LA ASOCIACIÓN ARGENTINA DE ESTUDIOS DE CINE Y AUDIOVISUAL - ISBN: 978-987-25871-2-3 1

http://www.asaeca.org/actas.php

El cine documental ha sido pensado como registro referencial y discurso realista del
mundo. Las líneas de... more El cine documental ha sido pensado como registro referencial y discurso realista del
mundo. Las líneas de interpretación vinculan al documental como un discurso transparente
de denotación donde las operaciones cinematográficas tienden a la sobriedad del estilo y la
utilidad argumental. Por otro lado el análisis narratológico de la ficción ha enfatizado la
autonomía de la imagen cinematográfica y los modos  de estructuración del relato,
supeditando sus contenidos a una relación externa y subjetiva con el contexto. La primera
discusión que queremos establecer dice relación con los modos de análisis del cine
documental, desde una perspectiva que integre tanto su función simbólica como sus
operaciones materiales; tanto su vinculación directa con el contexto social en el que está
inmerso como su tensión discursiva, llámese giro retórico, opacidad, reflexividad. Desde
aquí, nos interesa el documental como compleja operación simbólica que ha heredado de
las agendas modernas del cine su vinculación a un pensamiento vivo sobre su presente. Se
trata, en parte de encontrar un modo de analizar que rebase el descriptivismo y encuentre en
la forma cinematográfica un modo de pensar histórico. En el caso chileno, el documental ha
sido el lugar donde el cine ha mantenido un trabajo permanente en esta doble faz del signo,
estableciendo, por un lado una agenda temática contingente y reflexiva sobre el presente
político, y por otro, operaciones materiales que han confluido en el encuentro de alegorías e
imágenes que nos hablan de un país, un momento histórico, un entorno económico y social.
En ese marco, analizaremos dos documentales de Ignacio Agüero, uno de los realizadores
más relevantes de los últimos 20 años en Chile. Nos centraremos en Aquí se construye. De
la que tomaremos una metáfora temporal: la Ruina. En "Aquí se construye" Agüero filma
las nuevas políticas de construcción urbana y sus estilos arquitectónicos (arquitectura
efímera), ya su vez como la constante demolición de viejos barrios. Con música de Arvo Pärt, el film parece insistir en las formas de esta destrucción y de la aparición de una
modernidad ligada a la ruina.

Cine, política, memoria. Nuevos entramados en el cine documental chileno.

by Ivan Pinto Veas

Artículo aparecido en dossier "Cine documental chileno" de laFuga.cl, año: 2007. http://www.lafuga.cl/dossier/documental-en-chile/7/

Republicado en: Artes y Medios audiovisuales : un estado de la cuestión II : las prácticas mediáticas pre digitales y post analógicas. Publicación de MEACVAD 2008, editado por Aurelia Rivera y Fundación Telefónica. http://www.espacioft.org.ar/MediatecaDetalle.asp?media=1955

Una versión mejorada se publicó en "CINÉMAS D'AMÉRIQUE LATINE", Número 17, 2009, Tolousse. . http://www.cinelatino.com.fr/contenu/tous-les-numeros#17

http://books.google.cl/books?id=c84g866TIaAC&lpg=PA84&dq=Cinemas%20D%20Amerique%20Latine%20%20Escrito%20por%20Saint%20Dizier%20F&hl=es&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Este texto intentará circunscribir algunos gestos específicos en la producción cinematográfica de los últimos 4 años... more Este texto intentará circunscribir algunos gestos específicos en la producción cinematográfica de los últimos 4 años en Chile, asumiendo como contexto de tal producción un momento político-cultural que llamaremos provisionalmente “post-transicional”, entendiendo que la etapa “transicional” de la democracia en Chile se puede comprender desde 1990, año de ingreso a la democracia, al año 2003, cuando se cumplieron 30 años del golpe de estado.

Resplandores. Narraciones de la mercancía en el cine chileno contemporáneo

by Ivan Pinto Veas

Texto escrito como ponencia para el encuentro Audiovisual y política realizado por Instituto de Estética UC y Escuela de cine Universidad Arcis durante el 2010.

Apareció publicado el 2011 en una primera versión en la revista italiana La Furia Umana. http://www.lafuriaumana.it/index.php/archive/56-la-furia-umana-nd8-springtime-2011/318-resplandores

En enero del 2012 apareció una versión mejorada en laFuga.cl, que es el link que dispuse

La mercancía, como objeto y metáfora, condición y excusa, fantasmagoría y detonante, parece haber dejado sus huellas... more La mercancía, como objeto y metáfora, condición y excusa, fantasmagoría y detonante, parece haber dejado sus huellas detrás de diversos filmes recientes realizados en Chile. Aparece bajo una doble condición en el cine: bajo una primera, al ser, las películas, como objetos, mercancías culturales insertas en un mercado de bienes simbólicos, y por ende como condicionante de la narración misma. Luego, bajo una segunda condición, como tema y objeto de narración ligado a una interrogante sobre la capacidad de sostener una experiencia vital- como saber adquirido, como interioridad, como narración- desde su fábula cinematográfica. Una pregunta de entrada, al respecto, podría ser la siguiente ¿De qué modo figuran las relaciones entre mercancía, narración y experiencia los filmes recientes en Chile?  ¿Qué rol cumple la mercancía dentro de estas ficciones?

Articulating British Chinese experiences on-screen: Soursweet and Ping Pong

by Felicia Chan

Co-authored with Andy Willis, University of Salford.

The notion of the Sinophone according to Shu-mei Shih takes the delineation of Chinese identities out of... more The notion of the Sinophone according to Shu-mei Shih takes the delineation of Chinese identities out of ethno-geographic boundaries into linguistic communities. In the case of Chinese cinemas, the emphasis on linguistic communities fails to address Chinese diasporic cinemas that do not necessarily employ any Chinese language, yet speak to the tensions inherent in articulating Chinese identities on foreign shores. This article will explore these issues through a study of the British Chinese films Ping Pong (Po-Chih Leong, 1986) and Soursweet (Mike Newell, 1988) and argue that an emphasis on Sinophone cinemas, as a stand-in for the polyvalence of ‘Chinese’ and ‘Chineseness’, risks silencing non-Chinese-language Chinese cinemas such as British Chinese cinema. However marginalized it may be, the example of British Chinese cinema calls into question the political usefulness of a definition of Chinese identity that silences those who for artistic, cultural or economic reasons choose to work in non-Chinese languages.

Woolloomooloo or Wapping? Critical responses to The Sentimental Bloke in 1920s London and the normalization of the inner-city working class

by Stephen Morgan

Published in 'Studies in Australasian Cinema' (Intellect), Volume 5, Issue 3, March 2012.

This article explores the British reception of the first film adaptation of C. J. Dennis' verse poem The Sentimental... more This article explores the British reception of the first film adaptation of C. J. Dennis' verse poem The Sentimental Bloke, and traces the tendency of contemporary London critics to re-align the film's inner-city character 'types' with those much closer to home. Whilst contemporary Australian reviews tended to regard the central characters as typical Australian 'larrikin' types, London critics consistently compared them with – and occasionally even mistook them for – their own inner-city working class types. References to cockneys and costers abound in a process of normalization that saw Sydney's urban working class identities subsumed by that of their more familiar English cousins. Framed by an investigation of themes of 'realism', 'authenticity' and 'universality', this article asks why London critics may have needed to normalize certain aspects of the film and ponders what that process might say about urban identity and broader British notions of Australia and 'Australianness' in the 1920s.

Estonian Cinescapes: Spaces, Places and Sites in Soviet Estonian Cinema (and Beyond): Introduction

by Eva Näripea

Dissertationes Academiae Artium Estoniae 6. Tallinn: Eesti Kunstiakadeemia, 2011, pp. 9-38

Eesti filmi sajand / A Century of Estonian Cinema. Eessõna / Foreword

by Eva Näripea

Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi / Studies on Art and Architecture, vol. 20 (3-4): Special issue: A Century of Estonian Cinema (ed. Eva Näripea), pp. 7-10

Palestinian Women Filmmakers in the New World Diaspora

by Terri Ginsberg

forthcoming (in Arabic and English) in Palestinian Women Filmmakers: Strategies of Representation, Conditions of Production, ed. Alia Arasoughly (Shashat/Birzeit UP)

The National and the Transnational in Contemporary Greek Cinema

by Lydia Papadimitriou

New Review of Film and Television Studies
Volume 9, Issue 4, 2011, p, 493-512.

Due to its limited exportability, Greek cinema has often been examined as a national phenomenon, the cinematic... more Due to its limited exportability, Greek cinema has often been examined as a national phenomenon, the cinematic influences from Western and other cinemas often being derided as weaknesses. The search for an elusive Greekness has often disappointed critics of 1950s and 1960s popular cinema, while the artistic New Greek Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s has self-consciously tried to define itself in national terms. Focusing on contemporary Greek cinema, and in particular on films with box office success, this paper explores the extent to which contemporary Greek films display transnational configurations.

O Cinema Capixaba na Contramão da Retomada do Cinema Nacional

by Hudson Moura

Journal RUA, special edition Globalization and Regionalization, São Paulo, May 2011, pp. 16-18.

A busca pela qualidade da imagem e do som no cinema brasileiro nunca foi tão grande e tão “importante” quanto nos anos... more A busca pela qualidade da imagem e do som no cinema brasileiro nunca foi tão grande e tão “importante” quanto nos anos 1990. Para uma boa parte dos cineastas brasileiros era preciso conquistar o público e principalmente o seu respeito, no que o Cinema da Retomada desempenhou um papel fundamental. Entretanto, era preciso também simplificar a fala e a história e, principalmente, linearizar o roteiro, torná-lo de mais fácil “acesso” para que o espectador “padrão” brasileiro pudesse compreender e acompanhar a trama do filme e se identificar com os personagens, como nos cinemas de gêneros. O cineasta capixaba Ricardo Sá não acompanhou essa tendência do renascimento do cinema brasileiro nos anos 1990, muito pelo contrário. O seu filme A sabotagem da moqueca real, lançado em 2003, começou a ser produzido no auge da retomada e levou sete anos para ser concluído. Um filme politicamente regional que discute as mídias alternativas locais e combate a estética e a proposta do cinema mainstream nacional.

Technologies of Culture: Digital Feature Filmmaking in New Zealand

by virginia pitts

This article provides the first overview of contemporary low budget digital cinema in New Zealand, the first decade of... more This article provides the first overview of contemporary low budget digital cinema in New Zealand, the first decade of which has resulted in a body of fiction films that contest the national cinematic canon in terms of thematic and representational emphases as well as narrative and aesthetic strategies. To investigate the causes and consequences of these departures, the output and methods of New Zealand’s digital feature filmmakers are explored, revealing how shifts in creative processes and increased access to the means of production enabled by low cost, lightweight digital video intersect with the proliferating cultural affiliations of emerging filmmakers to produce change.  I thus argue that the very ontology of digital video and associated medium-specific practices are increasingly integral to culturally and aesthetically pluralistic projections in New Zealand cinema. As a consequence, I also argue for public investment in the sector and the alteration of funding policies designed for large-budget productions so that a tier of filmmaking ripe for experimentation and innovation can exist in fruitful dialogue with more mainstream fare.

Keywords: 
digital filmmaking
convergence
technology and creativity
New Zealand cinema
small nation cinema
policy
filmmaking process

The Indian of the North. Western Traditions and Finnish Indians

by Hannu Salmi

in Hollywood’s Indian. The Portrayal of Native Americans in Film. Edited by Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor. The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 1998, p. 39-57.

The articles focuses on Finnish westerns, made in the 1950s and 1960s. It can be read in Google Books, follow the link... more The articles focuses on Finnish westerns, made in the 1950s and 1960s. It can be read in Google Books, follow the link below.

Sylvi

by Hannu Salmi

published in: The Cinema of Scandinavia. Edited by Tytti Soila. Preface by Jacob Neiiendam. London & New York: Wallflower Press 2005: 25-33.

The article deals with the production of the first Finnish full-length feature film Sylvi, based on Minna Canth's... more The article deals with the production of the first Finnish full-length feature film Sylvi, based on Minna Canth's play, filmed in summer 1911 and premiered in 1913. The article can be read through google books, Follow the link below,

Isänmaan moninaiset äidinkasvot: sotavuosien suomalainen naisten elokuva sukupuoliteknologiana

by Anu Koivunen

Soulfulness, Sichtbarkeit and the sexual politics of national cinema

by Anu Koivunen

Performative histories, foundational fictions: gender and sexuality in Niskavuori films

by Anu Koivunen

Do You Remember Monrepos? Melancholia, Modernity and Working-Class Masculinity in The Man Without a Past

by Anu Koivunen

Image and event in recent Hungarian film (The Man from London, Delta, Milky Way)

by Izabella Füzi

Published in Orientation in Occurrence, ed. by István Berszán. Cluj-Napoca, 2009. 331-341.

The article deals with the visual dimensions of narrative film as a site of the film in which new forms of event can... more The article deals with the visual dimensions of narrative film as a site of the film in which new forms of event can emerge. The descriptions of narrative and spectacle as opposing forces cannot account for the event character of the visual component. Through three recent Hungarian films the article points out a shift which indicates the weakening of narrative (causal, motivational) structures and the foregrounding of a temporality different from the time of the story. In The Man from London (Béla Tarr, 2008), Delta (Kornél Mundruczó, 2008), and The Milky Way (Benedek Fliegauf, 2007) aspects of visuality create meanings on different levels (the mechanistic autonomy of the camera, and seriality of frames, the relation between the setting and characters, and dynamics of what is outside and inside the frame) outside, in opposition to, or alongside the narrative dimension of the film.

Queer Art of Parallaxed Document: the Visual Discourse of Docudrag in Kutlug Ataman's Never My Soul!

by Cüneyt Çakırlar

published in Screen 52:3, 2011, 358-375.

The video art of Kutluğ Ataman problematizes ethnography as method and documentary as genre. Ataman's subjects on... more The video art of Kutluğ Ataman problematizes ethnography as method and documentary as genre. Ataman's subjects on screen construct themselves in front of the camera, via talk and self-performance, where the artist's strategically unmarked authority reveals a critical ambiguity in terms of agency, identity and identification. Self-aware of their global reach and critically attentive to the contemporary ethnographic turn in the visual arts scene, Ataman's video-works enact a conscientious failure in representation. Through the performative storytelling of Ceyhan Firat Hizal, a Turkish pre-op transsexual living in Switzerland, Kutluğ Ataman's Never My Soul! (2001) translates to video-art practice the critical potentials of mockumentary and its pseudo-ontological relation to drag performativity. Queering genres of visual identification, Never My Soul! films and documents Ceyhan's self-performance in drag, where the drag act, autobiographical revelations, testimony and self-confession are intentionally supplemented by, and confused with, a strategically rewritten script of ‘original’ conversations. Oscillating between, and mocking, the generic truth claims of Yeşilçam melodrama, porn and confessional documentary realism, Ataman's video is a hybrid of multilayered artifice and excess. This essay treats Ataman's video Never My Soul! as a theoretical metafilmic object which simultaneously confronts the contemporary articulations of surface/depth in queer aesthetics and of the flattened indexicality in global art documentary.