Film School Research Articles

Mapping Artistic Research in Film

The idea for this special issue came out of the recognition that an association such as GEECT must react to this state of affairs and should contribute to its member schools’ ability to offer learning and teaching programmes that are built on state-of-the-art knowledge in the field. We envision this special issue as a show case of the research being conducted in different schools and also as a statement in favour of the relevance of artistic practice based research. The articles here included are all examples of how artistic research is undertaken in film and media arts, and achieves its results both within those disciplines, as well as often in a transdisciplinary setting, combining artistic methods with methods from other research traditions. In a context where film schools have been increasingly driven to conduct artistic research, we believe the development of the research environment is essential. This objective is just as important as the research outputs and their impact, and this has become a high strategic priority for GEECT that we also try to materialize via this special issue.

Editors’ Introduction

Editorial| October 20 2020 Editors’ Introduction: Habitation: Of Space and Absence Shelleen Greene, Shelleen Greene Shelleen Greene is an associate professor of cinema and media studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include Italian cinema, postcolonial studies, and feminist digital studies. Her book Equivocal Subjects: Between Italy and Africa—Constructions of Racial and National Identities in the Italian Cinema (Bloomsbury/Continuum, 2012) examines the representation of mixed-race subjects of Italian and African descent in Italian cinema. Her work has also been published in the edited volume Postcolonial Italy: Challenging National Homogeneity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and in the journal California Italian Studies. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Ellen C. Scott Ellen C. Scott Ellen C. Scott is an associate professor and head of the Cinema and Media Studies program at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Her research focuses on the meaning of film in African American communities and the relationship of media to the struggle for racial justice and equality. She is author of Cinema Civil Rights (Rutgers University Press, 2015). She is working on two projects, one exploring Black women film critics and another examining the history of slavery on the screen in the United States, which has received grant funding from the Academy Film Scholars program of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Feminist Media Histories (2020) 6 (4): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2020.6.4.1 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Shelleen Greene, Ellen C. Scott; Editors’ Introduction: Habitation: Of Space and Absence. Feminist Media Histories 20 October 2020; 6 (4): 1–12. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2020.6.4.1 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFeminist Media Histories Search If in the first installment of this special dual issue of Feminist Media Histories, we entered the hollows of Marie Jeanne’s cave, enacting an excavation of the hidden and suppressed histories of the Haitian Revolution as told in Shirley Bruno’s short film An Excavation of Us (2017), this second issue approaches habitation, or the way in which we in-habit space—marginal, sub-merged, de-centered—in order to put forth feminist counter-histories of the body and embodiment. This volume recognizes that the term “habitation” gives a sense of the “lived in,” but one that is not completely “natural,” comfortable, or given. With embodied habitation, the body becomes not only a place where selfhood becomes fleshed, but an extension of the external world’s spatial logics, which must be adapted to in order to be made livable. This process of habitation signifies adapting to both the space of the body and the spaces that surround... You do not currently have access to this content.

Subalternidad antes del concepto

Revisión de la propuesta fílmica que fue construida, desde el feminismo, por mujeres egresadas de las escuelas de cine e interesadas en narrar personajes e historias que rompieran con los modelos convencionales de objetualización, y ponerla a la luz del panorama actual desde la construcción de discursos con una gramática audiovisual distinta. El ensayo aborda el cine feminista desarrollado por mujeres en los ochentas, particularmente de las egresadas de la escuela de cine de la UNAM, Rosa Marha Fernández, María Eugenia Tames y la autora.

Seeking relevancy and transformation: The journey of valuing agency at a South African film school

AFDA (The School for the Creative Economies) South Africa, has a consciousness – framed by the emerging landscape of decolonization – that storytelling needs to be more socially relevant than ever before. Student filmmakers find themselves at a crossroad of needing to capture characters that are relevant with a view to engendering diversity and transformation. This paper discusses the explicit need for integrating the skill of critical thinking, framed by academic argument, into the conceptual process of student film development. This is because the conceptual relevance of films has to be deepened and well expressed. In addition, the identities of characters have to be as authentic and as representative as possible. By teaching students critical thinking, and its integration into the creative process, AFDA believes that the end product will have succinct social/political meaning. AFDA has devised an innovative way to integrate student agency and research into the conceptual development stage of the student filmmaking process. This paper demonstrates how this is done and motivates how this type of approach enables promising results.
 Keywords: Critical thinking, Agency, Creative process, Identity, Academic argument
 How to cite this article:Underhill, J.L. 2020. Seeking relevancy and transformation: The journey of valuing agency at a South African film school. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South. 4(2): 22-34. https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v4i2.117.
 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Adriana Estrada Álvarez, Nicolás Défossé and Diego Zavala Scherer (eds), Cine Político en México (1968–2017)

This is the second book in the Transamerican Film and Literature series published by Peter Lang. The first, Mexican Transnational Cinema and Literature, reveals the series’ primary focus on Mexican culture,1 while Cine Político en México (1968–2017) is an insight into the breadth of research that is being undertaken in Mexico on film. Its publication by a European-based editorial provides a welcome opportunity to access such scholarship on this side of the Atlantic. ‘Politics’ is included in the title of the book because it is relevant to all the films under consideration. Another primary focus for most of the essays is violence, whether in the still open case of the students killed by government forces in the days leading up the Olympic Games in 1968, examined by Adriana Estrada Álvarez, or the structural violence of migration and displacement explored by Nicolás Défossé. The dates in the title are significant in this regard: 1968 was a moment of social rupture around the world, marked in Mexico by student and worker protests. After a summer of activism by students in Mexico City, the government killed an unspecified number in the run-up to the Olympic Games, hosted by the city in October that year. Using borrowed cameras from the film school, the protests were well documented by students and bystanders. In their introduction the editors posit this as a moment that established the urgency and responsibility of cinema to document and represent events, whilst acknowledging film’s limitations as a vehicle for truth-telling. They share with others the understanding that 1968 is pivotal; where they differ is in their level of optimism over its long-term effect. While others may suggest that 1968, despite culminating in violence, inspired social and political change, the editors question the consensus that this was a foundational moment of rebellion, and argue instead that it could be read as a moment when dissent was silenced. Their pessimism may well be influenced by the absence of justice for those who were killed in 1968 and the long history of subsequent violence and injustice in Mexico, right up the state’s complicity with the drug violence in recent decades.

Bolexwerkstatt/Bolex-Workshop at the Berlin Film School

In 2015 after I gave a two-week 16-mm Bolex Seminar at the Berlin Film School (dffb) an enthusiastic woman film student wanted to continue to work with the Bolex. So I proposed a Bolex-Workshop for all interested film students, no matter if they study directing, camera, production, editing or scriptwriting. They would work by themselves without a team, without actors, without scriptwriting and without technical devises, only with the silent Bolex camera. Simple and alone. The administration agreed to my idea and twenty students attended the first meeting in March 2015.

Zofia Dwornik: Becoming a Female Film Editor

In this article the author intends to recall the figure of Zofia Dwornik, one of the most appreciated and nowadays rather forgotten female film editors of post-war communist Poland. For the twenty-five years of her creative activity, Dwornik cooperated in the production of more than thirty films with the most important directors of the Polish cinema in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In the Polish post-war cinema, the profession of film editor was strongly feminised. In the case of Dwornik, her decision to choose this particular profession was, however, based on additional objective considerations, closely related to the context of the Stalinist period in Poland, and was not her first choice of career – she had wanted to become a film director. In this article the author takes a closer look not so much at the achievements of Dwornik in the 1960s and 70s, but at the complex circumstances that influenced her later career. Therefore, the author tries to reconstruct the most important moments in Dwornik’s student and professional life in the first years after WWII and analyse one of the film études she made at the Film School in Łódź, in order to examine the reasons for her decision to become a film editor. This allows also to formulate some hypotheses how her career might have developed, had she been given the chance to graduate and try her hand at directing.

“I like it close” – Jolanta Dylewska’s art of cinematography

The author presents the cinematographer and director Jolanta Dylewska, striving to define her cinematographic style. Although Dylewska began working independently as a cinematographer only after the turn of 1989, her position in the history of Polish and European cinema can be determined through awareness of her female pioneership in this profession, set against the background of generations of graduates of the Cinematography Department at the Lodz Film School. The researcher focuses on films that are the result of Dylewska’s collaboration with transnational directors, Agnieszka Holland (In the Darkness, Spoor) and Sergey Dvortsevoy (Tulpan, Ayka). The cinematographer denies that she has developed her own individual style, her goal is to find a style that will communicate the director’s vision. The researcher, however, finds characteristic features in her images, such as telling stories through landscapes and faces, including animals, and immersing the viewer in images – by using light and sharpness and bringing all the cinematographer’s technical expertise into play.

Contemporary Women Filmmakers in Myanmar: Reflections on a Visit in February 2019

Existing accounts of Myanmar’s film industry available to English speakers are more than twenty years out of date. Opening with a brief overview of cinema in Myanmar since 2000, this article is based on a recent visit to the Myanmar Motion Picture Development Department and the Yangon Film School, on conversations with staff, students and alumnae of these institutions and of the National University of Arts and Culture, and with local independent filmmakers. The purpose of my visit was to begin the groundwork needed to answer basic questions: Who are the women making films in Myanmar today? Where are they trained? What are the conditions in which they work? What kind of films they make? How do they fund production? How do their films circulate? And finally: Is there a women’s cinema in Myanmar? What follows thus outlines the context in which women in Myanmar make films today and introduces the work of a small number of them. I conclude with reflections on three short films: A Million Threads (2006, by Thu Thu Shein), Now I am 13 (2013, by Shin Daewe), and Seeds of Sadness (2018, by Thae Zar Chi Khaing), two of which can be found online (at http://yangonfilmschool.org/___-free-yfs-film / and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX0LUZQcMCQ ).

Violence Reframed: Constructing Subjugated Individuals as Agents, Not Images, through Screen Narratives

Violence Reframed: Constructing Subjugated Individuals as Agents, Not Images, through Screen Narratives

Eksplorasi Visual Naratif Indonesia-Tionghoa dalam Film Karya Mahasiswa

Indonesian-Chinese in Indonesian films rarely become the main subject of the narrative and even still marginalized. Marginalization in Indonesian-Chinese looks back at the Indonesian history, which doesn’t provide the similar space as other Indonesian citizens. The development of Indonesian films now gives new space to new filmmakers, especially those academicaly speaking graduated from film schools. Narative and visual analysis was carried out on two works on Indonesian-Chinese by using a narrative research methodology with a qualitative approach. Stages of research conducted by the director will be the starting point in this research, especially in studying history. The research objects of these studies taken the biopic documentary "Lebih Cina dari Tionghoa" (2019), and the fiction genre film "Bulikan"(2019). These two films represent present-day and Indonesian-Chinese representations. This research is a study of representation on the visualization and narration of film by young generation.

Searching for Betty Chen: Rediscovering the Asian American Filmmakers of UCLA in the Seventies

Of the group of filmmakers of color who arrived at UCLA in the late 60s and 70s, as part of an affirmative action initiative called the Ethno-Communications Program, a growing body of award-winning scholarship has been devoted to the black filmmakers now known as the L.A. Rebellion. There is also an important body of work on the Asian American men who founded the nation's oldest and still vibrant Asian American media organization, Visual Communications (VC). This essay aims to expand this scholarship by centering the contributions of the group of Asian American women who trained at UCLA film school during this period, highlighting in particular the activist work of Betty Chen and Laura Ho.

Rousseau’s Environmentalism in Pierre Maillard’s La Faute à Rousseau

To celebrate the 300th anniversary of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s birth, Swiss director Pierre Maillard invited filmmakers from around the world to contribute to a collection of cinematic interpretations of Rousseau’s work. Directors were given carte blanche to treat any aspect of Rousseau’s thought in a short film lasting no longer than four minutes. Released in 2012 under the title La Faute à Rousseau (Blame it on Rousseau), the fifty-five short films that make up the collection shed light on the place that Rousseau occupies in the twenty-first-century imaginary. The filmmakers come from eleven different countries in Europe, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia, and they range from early-career film school students to accomplished directors, such as Nicolas Philibert and Alain Tanner. One of Pierre Maillard’s objectives in initiating the project was to demonstrate the modern relevance of this eighteenth-century thinker—in his words, to demonstrate that “Rousseau speak[s] to each one of us directly and with a contemporary voice, far beyond the eras, the places, the customs, the social ranks and generations” (Maillard 3). Distributed internationally, the films were screened at tercentenary celebrations and film festivals all over the world.1

ВІДРОДЖЕННЯ ФОЛЬКЛОРНОЇ СТИЛІСТИКИ В УКРАЇНСЬКОМУ КІНО 2000-Х РОКІВ

The article deals with the process of revival of folklore stylist in domestic cinema, which took place in the early 2000s. The paper points out that during the 1960s and 1970s Ukrainian moviegoers suffered almost the greatest number in the second half of the twentieth century harassment by official Soviet power. Most films of the notorious poetic direction, started by director S. Paradzhanov and continued by his colleagues and associates – L. Osika, V. Denysenko, Y. Illenko, M. Maschenko, I. Mykolaychuk and other artists, were banned; much of the interesting ideas were not realized.With the beginning of the 1990s and the gaining of independence by Ukraine, the situation began to change gradually: the focus of attention of domestic writers and directors was the history of Ukraine, in particular the pages of its previously forbidden chronicle; a new original reading of Ukrainian literary classics appeared, involving many ethnographic components in the film process; there was a revival of the mystical and folklore trend in cinema.Initiated in the 1990s, the processes intensified in the early 2000s and continue to strengthen in our time. In particular, a number of feature films have been released into Ukrainian cinema, in which the naturalistic nature of the shoots, the picturesque visual series, the attraction of authentic music, folk dances, the use of various dialects of the Ukrainian language, the reliance on literary classics and other stylistic features, have directed them to poetic folk. Philosophical understanding of the surrounding world, rooted in the sources of folk wisdom, was observed in short films and national documentary, which continued the development of stylistics of Ukrainian folk film school in the mid-twentieth century.

Zapomniane zwycięstwo 4 czerwca — o mitologii politycznej filmu „Psy” Władysława Pasikowskiego

Forgotten victory of 4 June: about the political mythology of the movie Dogs by Władysław PasikowskiThe article analyzes the victorious election of Solidarity on 4 June 1989. Władysław Pasikowski, a young Polish director, has shown in the movie Dogs 1992 a metaphor of the 4 June victory, which is analyzed in this article. Other issues from the movie are not presented, neither is the contemporary political situation. Only the contemporary context of the movie is presented. The movie Dogs shows a wide political and cultural background of a political change, probably because Pasikowski is a cultural anthropologist, not only a director. The article consists of three parts. In the first part of the article I present a concept of mythology by Roland Barthes in my own interpretation; I named my interpretation a political mythology. In the second part of the text I explain the phrase “forgotten victory” and discuss the political context “forgetfulness”. In the last part of the article I analyze the movie Dogs. Pasikowski presented a story of a police officer and his community political police during transformation in Poland. Pasikowski showed in the film the last days of the People’s Poland, her moral and political downfall. This film gave rise to many voices and commentaries, both positive and disapproving. The film was recognized by victims fighting about liberty as hurtful. Especially, a scene in a policemen canteen was recognized as derogatory. In a few scenes of the movie Pasikowski described the elite of People’s Poland. Pasikowski told a story about the last days of People’s Poland in the context of a crime. Since the movie Dogs, Pasikowski has debated with the Polish Film School and at the same time he has carried on with moral issues of the Polish Film School. He said and showed where the winners of Maciek Chełmicki, the protagonist of the film Popiół i diament Ashes and Diamonds of Andrzej Wajda director and Jerzy Andrzejewski writer, are now. Moreover, Pasikowski has discussed in films with Polish right-wing parties and right-wing journalists about the beginning of the Third Republic of Poland.

Eisenstein: Revolutionary and International Modernist

Early Soviet filmmakers’ relationship with modernism, like that of film generally, is problematic. Yet Sergei Eisenstein’s challenging productions utilised Constructivist and Eccentrist principles evolved from pre-revolutionary Futurism and Symbolism. Core to the project of the Moscow State Film School, they were lauded internationally as avant-garde before distribution and exhibition difficulties, matters of taste, and politics compromised their accessibility, reputation and broader appeal. Piecemeal publication of Eisenstein’s translated writings have continued to maintain his centrality as a theorist whose insights, particularly into montage as a structuring principle, extend beyond cinema. This chapter argues for recognition of Eisenstein’s centrality to modernism, even though the term is imprecise, does not necessarily embrace most films, and is complicated by the political context, mass address, and status as propaganda of his output. It identifies affinities in his work with modernist Western literature, about which Eisenstein was highly knowledgeable, such as his attempt to realise interior monologue audio-visually. Having already completed his most formally experimental projects, he worked and travelled extensively in the West, and met leading writers, artists, and other intellectuals. This was during the height of modernist creativity, a period that nevertheless also saw consolidation of Stalinist dogma in the USSR as well as frustration of serious artistic ambitions for cinema everywhere with commercial imposition of expensive and unimaginatively conceived sound techniques. In particular, the proto-modernist influence of Walt Whitman on Eisenstein’s vision is traced through the American ‘city symphony’ short film Manhatta by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler.

African Women on the Film Festival Landscape

African Women on the Film Festival Landscape Beti Ellerson (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure C. Women gather at FESPACO festival. Courtesy of FESPACO. [End Page 59] A vital function of the film festival is in its capacity to showcase on a local, continental and international level, the works of African women, and to serve as a networking space to professionalize their experiences as stakeholders on the global film festival landscape. As these entities proliferate on the continent and internationally, African women are leading the way, often at the helm of or in top-level positions at these institutions. The objective of many local film festivals is to facilitate an interconnected triadic relationship between the film, filmmaker and audience—especially with the organization of press conferences and panel discussions. Hence cultivating a critical audience via ciné-clubs and after-screening debates has been a long-standing practice of these local film initiatives. Drawing from this background and historical context, this article and the associated timeline, outline: women's film festival practices in Africa as a vehicle for promoting leadership and featuring women as role models; the cultural leadership functions that African women have taken on at the helm of film festivals on the continent and the diaspora; the diverse film festivals in Africa and their initiatives toward the empowerment and advancement of women in cinema; the showcasing of African women at African film festivals around the world; the flagship international film festivals and their interest in including African women in the global cinematic conversation. As there is an abundance of African and women-related film events, because of their obvious relevance they are described in the timeline that follows the discussion, while a few select festivals receive more detailed focus because of their historical importance, longevity and significance to this analysis of African women and film festival practices. Furthermore, this piece examines film festival practices and discourses to demonstrate the strategic function they have played in strengthening African women's participation in the myriad spheres of the moving image and beyond. Notably, Burkinabe Alimata Salembéré's trailblazing role in the creation of FESPACO carved a space for women who journey in her [End Page 60] path, as founders, organizers, curators, and stakeholders of film festivals (film events, screening venues, cinema conferences-symposia-colloquia). Likewise, it reveals the importance of film festival practices in the promotion, advancement, and visibilization of African women in cinema, visual media and screen culture over the past Fifty years. One of the particularities of the article is that it is informed by my primary-source based research derived from interviews with organizers, programmers, curators, festival planners, and other key players; the collection of posters, festival programs and catalogues; as well as my own participation at festivals as jury president and as member, as consultant, panelist, facilitator, and as festival participant. What inspired me to frame the film festival as a site of inquiry developed as I recognized the undeniable role that FESPACO—from its inception in 1969—and the cinema-related structures that it supports, have played in the capacity building of women in cinema as leaders. The interplay between FESPACO and the initiatives that derive from its prominence for a generation are now part of the cinematic landscape across the continent. The MICA marketplace, the Cinémathèque, Journées Cinématographiques de la Femme Africaine de l'Image (African Women Image Makers Cinema Days). This is the first mention of the JCFA, Institut Imagine, the historic film school INAFEC that existed between 1977 and 1987, all based in Burkina Faso, are important stakeholders in the country's cinema culture. While film festival scholarship highlights the significance of women's film festivals towards the global visibility of women in cinema since their rise in the 1970s, the emergence of continental-based film festivals/days in the 1960s marks the beginnings of an African-women presence in the milieu of the film festival event, notably the Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage (JCC), the Carthage Film Festival, created in 1966 in Tunisia and as noted, FESPACO in Burkina Faso. The JCC's recognition of women dates to its early history, particularly at...

FESPACO—Promoting African Film Development and Scholarship

FESPACO—Promoting African Film Development and Scholarship M. Africanus Aveh (bio) If there is any single event that has significantly developed and promoted African film over the past half century, then it is the Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou (Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou), or FESPACO, based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, West Africa. The festival also has been a source of great scholarship in film studies. Historical Development At a meeting in Algiers in 1969, a group of African filmmakers decided to organize a "Film Week" to showcase African films produced on the continent and share creative ideas. The event was hosted in Ouagadougou, and its initial success led to the repeat of the event in the subsequent two years, with increased participation not only of filmmakers but also of attendees. This led to the formation of the Fédération Panafricaine des Cinéastes (Federation of Pan-African Filmmakers) with the acronym FEPACI. In 1972, the festival was instituted. It received official state support in Burkina Faso and was placed under a ministry. This marked the birth of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou with the acronym FESPACO. For fifty years, FESPACO has grown to become the most significant event in the promotion and development of African film through its biennial festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It has become the converging point for showcasing African film as well as a congregation of the continent's filmmakers in one place. But for this festival, little would have been known of Burkina Faso even by its neighbors in the region. [End Page 117] The Organizational Structure FESPACO is organized as a body corporate headed by a chief executive and staff operating a secretariat located in Ouagadougou. It is currently headed by Ardiouma Soma.1 The secretariat is funded with budgetary allocations from the Burkina government and donor support from international agencies. The secretariat also houses the African Film Library, established in 1989 to preserve African film heritage. The library boasts a collection of original prints of African films and a restoration center for processing films for storage. It is a major resource for African film research in the world.2 The Festival Structure FESPACO is a biennial film and television festival on specific themes. For the 2019 edition, the theme was "Memory and Future of African Cinema." Calls are made for full-length films to be submitted in competition for the grand prize, which takes the form of a stallion named after a royal princess warrior, Yennenga.3 Other categories in competition are short films, documentaries, animation, television series, and student films from African film schools. Each competitive category has its own jury that adjudicates separately. Films in competition must be made by African nationals. There is, however, a Paul Robeson Prize for films made by Africans in the diaspora. There are non-competitive special prizes awarded by juries according to certain laid-down objectives. The festival also screens a selection of non-competitive films from around the world. The dates of the festival are fixed, beginning on the last Saturday in February and ending on the first Saturday in March in odd years. There is an opening ceremony, normally held at the sports stadium on the opening Saturday evening, with musical fanfare, dances, and gymnastic displays. The festival is symbolically opened with a giant clapperboard operated by the prime minister. The closing ceremony on the evening of the last day also normally has taken place at the sports stadium, with the juries' reports accompanied by the announcement of the winners of the awards in the various categories. Each winner is called to a podium to collect a statuette and a dummy check of the accompanying cash prize, culminating in the ultimate grand prize, which is presented by the president amid fanfare. After the awards ceremony comes a massive display of celebratory fireworks. In the past there was then a screening of the grand prize–winning film on a giant inflatable screen mounted in the middle of the soccer pitch. This has not been done for the past four or five festivals, so the closing ceremony ends...

Nasza mapa filmowa

Omówienie książki Barbary Hollender Od Munka do Maślony (2017), która jest trzecim ogniwem cyklu po poprzednio wydanych tomach Od Wajdy do Komasy (2014) i Od Kutza do Czekaja (2016). Ciężar gatunkowy tej pracy nie sprowadza się do dokumentacji, a ambicją Hollender nie było stworzenie leksykonu. Jej książka stanowi niebanalną rekonstrukcję biograficzną, która opiera się na świadectwach reżyserów, jednak ostatecznie swój kształt zawdzięcza ich rozmówczyni – autorce. Barbara Hollender opisała przemiany kulturowe, które wpłynęły na kształt dzisiejszego polskiego kina. Wyróżniła kilka punktów granicznych związanych z historią najnowszą, poczynając od polskiej szkoły filmowej, przez kino moralnego niepokoju, które w drugiej połowie lat 70. wyraziło jej – wówczas młodej dziewczyny – własny bunt i osobiste tęsknoty. Ostatnim z tych punktów, szczególnie eksponowanym, jest przemiana ustrojowa po 1989 r. Narracja jest prowadzona ponad podziałami zarówno generacyjnymi, jak i tymi wynikającymi z doświadczenia czy stylu. Bohaterowie książki, nawet jeśli należą do jednego pokolenia, nie tworzą wspólnych manifestów ani nie realizują jednolitego – światopoglądowo czy estetycznie – programu. Portret zbiorowy rozszczepia się na wyraziste, zindywidualizowane wizerunki.

Reaching for the stars: The importance of reputational rank in creative career development

This study draws on vacancy competition and the role-theoretic perspective on reputation to develop and test a sociological theory of how reputation formation and creative career development coevolve in project-based labor markets in the cultural industries. We use vacancy competition to emphasize the importance of identifying the correct reference groups and the role-theoretic perspective on reputation to emphasize the importance of reputational rank within the correct reference group. Specifically, we distinguish between local reputational rank among the peers at the same career stage, entry reputational rank among the peers from the same entry cohort, and global reputational rank among all the peers in an industry. However, unlike prior sociological research on creative careers and reputation, we argue that local reputational rank, not entry cohort or global reputational rank, predicts career development. We find support for our arguments using a comprehensive sample of complete career trajectories of successful and unsuccessful aspirant film directors that graduated from The National Film School of Denmark between 1968 and 2013.