Film Culture Research Articles

Transatlantic Cinephilia: Film Culture between Latin America and France, 1945–1965

Transatlantic Cinephilia: Film Culture between Latin America and France, 1945–1965

‘Make it look a little like a festival’: Film exhibition and festival organizing at Films Femmes Méditerranée during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article attends to the strategies of survival, affective labour, and practices of care – for women’s film work and publics – within women’s film festivals during the COVID-19 pandemic through the case study of Films Femmes Méditeranée, a women’s film festival based in Marseille, France. The festival was founded in 2007 to give visibility to the work of female filmmakers from the Mediterranean through a curated program of films, showcased in art-house theatres, with free screenings for young audiences, students, the unemployed, and people living on social benefits. Drawing on interviews conducted with workers at Films Femmes Méditeranée, I first provide an overview of the history and the mandate of Films Femmes Méditeranée in relation to the legacy of early women’s film festivals by bringing to light the work of care carried on in the context of Marseille. I will then analyse Films Femmes Méditeranée’s practices of curation and care through digital media during the pandemic. Through a consideration of the labour of film programming and festival organizing vis-à-vis social distancing measures and an examination of curatorial choices, I interrogate how Films Femmes Méditeranée has adapted to the pandemic crisis through digital media to maintain its commitment to fostering transnational approaches to women’s film culture and to provide a space for encounters between female filmmakers and audiences.

Mumbai to Dubai: Promotional strategies and the celluloid journey of Bollywood films to the UAE

In recent years, the cinematic migration of Bollywood films from Mumbai to Dubai has captivated attention, prompting a focused investigation. This study aims to scrutinize the promotional strategies used in distributing Bollywood films in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) through meticulous analysis of questionnaire responses. Executing an extensive survey for UAE moviegoers and industry professionals, the research seeks quantitative data on the efficacy of diverse promotional strategies. The study underscores the importance of cultural variables in Bollywood-UAE film promotion, examining cultural similarities between India and the UAE, portraying UAE culture in Bollywood films, and using cultural festivals for marketing. Economic factors driving this collaboration, including box office success, coproductions, and the impact of Bollywood tourism on the UAE economy, are systematically analyzed. The study explores technological advancements in film promotion—social media, internet streaming, and virtual reality—and their impact on the relationship between Bollywood and the UAE. The survey investigates audience preferences, advertising impacts, and awareness levels by examining specific advertising tactics in the UAE, such as premieres, endorsements, tours, and participation in festivals and award shows. In addition to providing a comprehensive understanding of the promotional environment, the questionnaire data analysis identifies trends influencing the trajectory of Bollywood films in the UAE, offering empirical support to film studies and marketing. The hypothesis is tested on the Chi-square, Pearson Correlation, and Mann‒Whitney. The research’s conclusions contribute to understanding the globalization of the Bollywood film industry, guiding producers, marketers, and researchers in cross-cultural film promotion and global industry partnerships.

Adapting the Holocaust: Martin Amis’ and Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest

Abstract Critics and reviewers have frequently dismissed the adaptive relationship between Martin Amis’ novel The Zone of Interest (2014) and Jonathan Glazer’s 2023 film of the same name. This essay argues that this is an inaccurate characterization of the connection between two works that respond to one of the main cultural challenges of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: how best to represent the horrors of the Holocaust. Both, I argue, do so at least in part through strategies of adaptation, and should be seen not just as two parts of a source-text/adapted-text binary, but as part of a larger adaptive and intertextual network. This status has a direct impact on the overlapping ways they deal with the problematics of Holocaust representation. By addressing the challenges of Holocaust representation through strategies of adaptation, Amis’ novel and Glazer’s film reaffirm both the importance of the Holocaust to contemporary literary and cinematic culture and the importance of adaptation and adaptive processes to its representation.

Singing Against the Grain: How Ivan Kavaleridze Navigated Socialist Realism in His Film Opera Natalka Poltavka (1936)

Abstract The article discusses the first attempts of Soviet culture to produce a hybrid genre of film opera in the mid-1930s. It traces the artistic background of Ukrainian sculptor and filmmaker Ivan Kavaleridze who was chosen to pioneer the new genre, as well as the complex national dynamic between Russian and non-Russian Soviet republics amidst the stabilization of Socialist Realist conventions and the launch of the anti-formalist campaign in the ussr. Finally, it addresses the issues of russification, exoticization and alienation of Ukrainian film culture of the time.

Xiaomei Chen. Performing the Socialist State: Modern Chinese Theater and Film Culture

This book presents a nuanced, revisionist exploration of the development of modern and contemporary Chinese theatre and related arts, challenging the conventional demarcations between Republican, high socialist, and post-socialist periods. It discloses subtle entanglements in theatre theory and practice, underscoring the persistent approaches to aesthetics and politics across eras and theatrical genres.

Research on Social and Cultural Stereotypes of Chinese Men in Hollywood Films: A Case Study of "The Mask of Fu Manchu"

To better penetrate the international market and gain a wider international audience, Hollywood has made films with rich and varied themes based on the cultures of various countries. Given China's rich cultural heritage and vast market, Hollywood has made many films set in China t open up the Chinese market and carry out cultural exchanges between China and the West. However, due to the misunderstanding between cultures, there are prejudices and stereotypes of Chinese men's society and culture in Hollywood films. This study applies the case study method in the qualitative research method and takes〈The Mask of Fu Manchu〉 film as a case study to systematically analyze Fu Manchu's external characteristics such as gender, t, and form, as well as internal characteristics such as behaviors and personalities. It is found that the Chinese male socio-cultural symbols in the film are oversimplified and culturally misinterpreted, leaving the audience with a stereotypical impression of cultural homogeneity. Based on this, this study explores multiple perspectives from history, culture, and art to find ways to eliminate stereotypes of Chinese men in Hollywood films, promote producers' understanding of different cultures, build a positive image of China, and provide a path for viewers to correctly understand Chinese culture.

Cultural Export and Global Perception of the Mexican Film Industry

This paper examines the dynamic role of the Mexican film industry as a significant cultural exporter and its evolving perception in the global market. It traces the historical development of Mexican cinema from its Golden Age to its modern resurgence, highlighting the contributions of seminal filmmakers and landmark films that have shaped its international identity. The study explores the mechanisms of cultural export, including traditional and digital distribution channels and the pivotal role of film festivals and international awards. Further, it analyzes the global reception of Mexican films, noting the critical and audience responses across diverse cultural landscapes. The influence of Mexican cinema on global film practices and cultural trends is examined through its narrative innovations and thematic contributions. Finally, the paper discusses future trends and identifies potential challenges and opportunities for Mexican cinema, emphasizing the need for sustainable funding models and the balance between global appeal and cultural authenticity. This comprehensive review illuminates how Mexican cinema continues to contribute to and shape the global cinematic landscape, advocating for a more inclusive and diverse film culture.

The experience of cinema-going for women in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s

ABSTRACT In the field of Japanese film studies, the relationship between women and cinema during the 1920s and 1930s has been mainly explored through the perspective of women’s representation in films, largely neglecting the experiences of actual, historical female audiences in cinemas. This article examines how Japanese female audiences received films in cinemas and the experiences these venues offered to women. By analysing contemporary film magazine and newspaper articles, which discuss female film audiences or are authored by women themselves, this study sheds light on the cinema-going experiences of women in Japan during this period. It particularly focuses on schoolgirls’ experiences of watching Western-imported films, drawing on their testimonies found in film magazines. For schoolgirls, cinema visits constituted an adventurous escape from domestic confines. Watching foreign-imported, particularly American, films provided them with an opportunity to observe and imagine lives divergent from their own. Moreover, the widespread film culture among schoolgirls enabled them to share their affinity for these films. The article concludes that cinema-going offered schoolgirls an opportunity to momentarily escape their constrained lives and collectively envisage a life beyond their immediate realities.

The Earth in the Land: Internationalism, Regional Culturalism, and Cosmopolitanism in 1960s Films from Soviet Ukraine

Abstract In the film history of the Ukrainian ssr, the Thaw is regarded as the era of the rebirth of a national Ukrainian cinema. Both films celebrating regional diversity and films merely drawing on local crews and infrastructure are said to have contributed to a national film culture. I look at three distinct approaches to the Soviet concept of multinationality to show that the rebirth of a national cinema was characterized by approaches that did not claim a distinct national identity for Ukraine. Instead, directors facing regional diversity either transcended Ukraine’s cultural environment (through internationalism), undercut it (through what I call regional culturalism), or ignored it altogether (through cosmopolitanism). With the help of this typology, I point to the complex cultural politics of the time. The Soviet Ukrainian films I discuss exemplarily were not part of a common national project at the time, though they may have contributed to it as time passed.

UNDERSTANDING BOLLYWOOD CULT FILMS: EXPLORING THEIR ROLE IN CHANGING CONVENTIONS AND IMPACTING NEW THOUGHTS IN INDIAN YOUTH, SOCIETY AND CULTURE

This research explores the impact of Bollywood cult films on Indian society and culture, focusing on how they challenge preconceived notions and promote original thought. Cult films often address taboo topics and minority perspectives, encouraging viewers to think critically and explore alternative options. These films reflect social and cultural shifts in India, highlighting the concerns and opinions of younger generations and building passionate fan followings. Despite having a low return on investment, many cult films have a long-lasting influence, sometimes serving as catalysts for social and cultural movements and impacting the careers of performers and filmmakers. The study highlights the importance of filmmakers considering the social impact of their work and using their platform to support ideals that promote peace, justice and social harmony. Researchers and students interested in the film industry, popular culture and society can use this data to examine and compare various cult films and understand their cultural and social values. The results of this research can be used by scholars, students and researchers to better understand the cultural and social significance of Bollywood cult films and their impact on Indian society and culture.

Approaching a National Film History through Data. Network Analysis in German Film History

The present paper is an attempt at importing network analysis as a method and applying it to a field that has hitherto been examined in different ways: the study of national cinema. The approach was motivated by the perceived conundrum in the existing studies of German cinema that filmhistorical and political history usually do not match. The aim is to open up another perspective on the problem of periodization by looking at the data of film production, more specifically of collaboration. By using a comprehensive data set which is made availavable by the Filmportal, the central internet platform on German film, the approach in this paper is to look at the key creatives involved in the production of a film in the period from 1919 to 1939 and to conceptualize collaboration and connectivity in a (national) film culture through the use of network research methods.

A Digital Archaeology of Early Hispanic Film Culture: Film Magazines and the Male Fan Reader

As a sociologically-oriented study, this project contributes to an archaeology of cinema fandom broadly, and early Spanish fan culture specifically, by spotlighting male readers of popular film magazines. Taking as an exploratory case study reader interactivity with the magazine Popular Film, analysis of correspondence and published photos of readers participating in reader contests demonstrates that the magazine’s cinema fan base was composed of a strikingly large proportion of readers who were male and that these were ardent enthusiasts of celebrity consumer culture. This is a notable contradistinction to the widely-held idea of the star-struck female movie fan. Methodologically, in conducting this study we reflect on the challenges of digital approaches to historical periodical research, where particular challenges are posed when working with magazines in a non-anglophone language, and when there are few baseline studies to rely on to guide and contextualize patterns picked up through strictly macro methods. We advocate for the affordances of a mixed macro-micro approach that combines distant reading with traditional textual studies of close reading. By adopting such a hybrid framework, digital methods provide new opportunities towards reconstructing profiles of magazine readerships and to unearth evidence of male movie fans in Spain.

Quantifying Women’s Marginalisation in Ibero-American Film Culture During the First Half of the Twentieth Century: A Network-Science Proposal

The research presented here uses the tools of social network analysis to empirically show a socio-cultural phenomenon already addressed by the social sciences and history: the historical marginalisation of women in the field of cinema. The novelty of our approach lies in the use of a large amount of heterogeneous historical data. On the one hand, we built a network of interactions between people involved in the film field in Ibero-America during the first half of the twentieth century. On the other hand, we propose a k-core decomposition and a multi-layered analysis, as a quantitative way to study the position of women within the cultural melieu. After conducting our analysis, we concluded that women were mostly situated in the outer k-shells of the empirical network, and their distribution was not uniform across the k-shells. From a qualitative perspective, these results can be interpreted as the consequence of the lack of evidence of the participation of women in the public sphere.

Exploring the Intersection of Religion and Cinema: Trends and Reflections in Contemporary Film Culture

This article delves into the complex relationship between religion and film, and studies the latest trends and ethical reflections in the field of film culture. Through an interdisciplinary perspective, this article explores how movies serve as a medium for communication between audiences and religion. By paying attention to the use of religious symbols and themes in movies, audiences are invited to reflect on spiritual themes and religious culture. The analysis of the social response of religious expressions in movies highlights the interactive relationship between social beliefs, cultural backgrounds, and religious narratives. This study focuses on the rich and diverse interpretations of religious themes in global film works by showcasing different depictions of religious elements in global films. In addition, the study also explored the role of film festivals as active platforms for religious dialogue and cross-cultural exchange, promoting a deeper understanding of religious diversity in contemporary society. The article also showcases the constantly evolving trend of religion in movies, as well as the ongoing academic enthusiasm for the ethical significance of depicting religious elements in movies.

The Myth of Stalin and the Death of Hitler: André Bazin and The Fall of Berlin’s Transnational Travels

This essay explores aspects of the transnational and transhistorical impact of The Fall of Berlin (Padenie Berlina, Mikheil Chiaureli, 1949). Although the film is late Stalinist propaganda, and an outstanding manifestation of the Stalin personality cult, it cannot be reduced to those descriptors. It has had an ongoing impact upon viewers within different cultural contexts who do not necessarily subscribe to its politics. André Bazin’s seminal, frequently translated and reprinted essay ‘The Myth of Stalin in the Soviet Cinema’ (‘Le cinéma soviétique et le mythe de Staline’, 1950), is the most famous and frequently quoted piece of writing on Stalin personality cult films, but it is not the final word on them. It needs to be understood within the specific context of French film culture during the immediate postwar period. This essay therefore highlights the cultural specificity of ‘The Myth of Stalin in the Soviet Cinema’ by contrasting the debates within which Bazin’s essay was enmeshed with the equally culturally specific British reception of The Fall of Berlin in the early 1950s, exemplified by leading film critics and historians such as Dilys Powell, Fred Madjalany and Hugh Trevor-Roper.

Women, Feminism and Italian Cinema: Archives from a Film Culture, Dalila Missero (2022)

Review of: Women, Feminism and Italian Cinema: Archives from a Film Culture, Dalila Missero (2022) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 200 pp., ISBN 978-1-47446-324-9, p/bk, £19.99

Cinematic structures in Italo Calvino’s fictions

The article explores the influence of cinema on Italo Calvino’s writing. Critics and even Calvino himself have tended to construe visibility in his works as purely abstract, pictorial and geometric. However, the article shows that the writer’s style includes references to film form and culture. Precise transmediations of cinematic temporality, techniques and characterization are found in his literary production from Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (The Path to the Spiders’ Nests) (1947) to Palomar (Mr Palomar) (1983). Drawing on narratology and semiotics, the analysis retraces various para-cinematic techniques in Calvino’s literary corpus, pointing to the 1958 short story La signora Paulatim (Mrs Paulatim) as a prime example of full cinematization. Moreover, it points out that the characterization in Marcovaldo (1963) draws on classical slapstick comedies and anticipates some of the features found in the Fantozzi series. Finally, the article frames the contribution of film culture through the concept of ‘cinematic mode in fiction’.

O papel da cinemateca pernambucana na salvaguarda do patrimônio audiovisual

The objective of this research is to delineate the contributions of Cinemateca Pernambucana of the Fundação Joaquim Nabuco in the preservation and access to audiovisual collections, in order to understand how the institution develops methods and techniques to safeguard and disseminate the audiovisual heritage of Pernambuco, developed through the cinema cycles in the state’s audiovisual history. Regarding the methodological procedures, this is a qualitative research with exploratory purposes and bibliographic means. The data collection technique involved semi-structured interviews with the staff of Cinemateca Pernambucana, and the data analysis was carried out through pragmatic language analysis. As a result, it is evident that the Cinemateca, in the scope of preservation, develops strategies such as server archiving, generating backup copies, and LTO tape backups to ensure the long-term existence of Pernambuco films. Regarding access, the institution focuses on the development and education of the audience through educational practices, in addition to cinematic dissemination through its official site. It is concluded that the Cinemateca Pernambucana is an essential cultural, memorial, and educational facility, both in supporting the audiovisual production chain and in the digital preservation of representative audiovisual documents of Pernambuco cinema, contributing to their dissemination and fostering the development of cinematic culture in the state.

Review: Transatlantic Cinephilia: Film Culture between Latin America and France, 1945–1965, by Rielle Navitski

Review: <i>Transatlantic Cinephilia: Film Culture between Latin America and France, 1945–1965</i>, by Rielle Navitski