A Companion to Eastern European Cinemas

A Companion to Eastern European Cinemas is the first comprehensive exploration of Eastern European film cultures. Featuring contributions from both established and emerging film scholars, essays trace the development of Eastern European cinemas utilizing a variety of approaches—from political, economic, and cultural contexts to aesthetics and themes pertinent to the cinemas of the post–Soviet region. Topics explored include well–established areas of film study such as dissident national art cinemas and auteurs, as well as issues that have received scant attention—popular cinemas, transnational production, distribution and exhibition, and the effects of Europeanization and global media convergence on film cultures.  More than 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, A Companion to Eastern European Cinemas offers a timely reassessment of the cinematic traditions of Eastern Europe while paving the way for future areas of study.

Notes on the Editor and Contributors viii Foreword xv Dina Iordanova 1 Introduction: Eastern European Cinema From No End to the End (As We Know It) 1 Anikó Imre Part I New Theoretical and Critical Frameworks 23 2 Body Horror and Post–Socialist Cinema: György Pálfi’s Taxidermia 25 Steven Shaviro 3 El perro negro : Transnational Readings of Database Documentaries from Spain 41 Marsha Kinder 4 Did Somebody Say Communism in the Classroom? or The Value of Analyzing Totality in Recent Serbian Cinema 63 Zoran Samardzija 5 Laughing into an Abyss: Cinema and Balkanization 77 Kriss Ravetto–Biagioli 6 Jewish Identities and Generational Perspectives 101 Catherine Portuges 7 Aftereffects of 1989: Corneliu Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006) and Romanian Cinema 125 Alice Bardan 8 Cinema Beyond Borders: Slovenian Cinema in a World Context 148 Meta Mazaj and Shekhar Deshpande Part II Historical and Spatial Redefinitions 167 9 Center and Periphery, or How Karel Vachek Formed a New Government 169 Alice Lovejoy 10 The Polish Black Series Documentary and the British Free Cinema Movement 183 Bjørn Sørenssen 11 Socialists in Outer Space: East German Film’s Venusian Adventure 201 Stefan Soldovieri 12 Red Shift: New Albanian Cinema and its Dialogue with the Old 224 Bruce Williams 13 National Space, (Trans)National Cinema: Estonian Film in the 1960s 244 Eva Näripea 14 For the Peace, For a New Man, For a Better World! Italian Leftist Culture and Czechoslovak Cinema, 1945–1968 265 Francesco Pitassio Part III Aesthetic (Re)visions 289 15 The Impossible Polish New Wave and its Accursed Émigré Auteurs: Borowczyk, Polañski, Skolimowski, and ¯u³awski 291 Michael Goddard 16 Documentary and Industrial Decline in Hungary: The “Ózd Series” of Tamás Almási 311 John Cunningham 17 Investigating the Past, Envisioning the Future: An Exploration of Post–1991 Latvian Documentary 325 Maruta Z. Vitols 18 Eastern European Historical Epics: Genre Cinema and the Visualization of a Heroic National Past 344 Nikolina Dobreva 19 Nation, Gender, and History in Latvian Genre Cinema 366 Irina Novikova 20 A Comparative Study: Rein Raamat’s Big Tõll and Priit Pärn’s Luncheon on the Grass 385 Andreas Trossek 21 The Yugoslav Black Wave: The History and Poetics of Polemical Cinema in the 1960s and 1970s in Yugoslavia 403 Greg De Cuir, Jr . Part IV Industries and Institutions 425 22 Follow the Money – Financing Contemporary Cinema in Romania 427 Ioana Uricaru 23 An Alternative Model of Film Production: Film Units in Poland after World War Two 453 Dorota Ostrowska 24 The Hussite Heritage Film: A Dream for all Czech Seasons 466 Petra Hanáková 25 International Co–productions as Productions of Heterotopias 483 Ewa Mazierska 26 East is East? New Turkish Cinema and Eastern Europe 504 Melis Behlil Index 518

Anikó Imre is an Associate Professor of Critical Studies at University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Her books include East European Cinemas (2005); Transnational Feminism in Film and Media (co–authored with Katarzyna Marciniak and Áine O’Healy, 2007); Identity Games: Globalization and the Transformation of Media Cultures in the New Europe (2009); and Popular Television in Eastern and Southern Europe (co–authored with Timothy Havens and Kati Lustyik, 2011). She is also co–editor of the Global Cinemas book series.

“This work is well laid out, nicely bound (it lays beautifully flat on opening pages). This is an extremely scholarly work which will be welcomed by dedicated students of Eastern European cinema and those seeking detailed source material on pre and post–Cold War East European cinema.”  ( Reference Reviews , 1 October 2013) “Challenges outdated modes of examination, revealing Eastern European cinema′s connection to European, transnational, and global media productions ... Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper–division undergraduates and above.”  ( Choice, 1 July 2013)