Young Directors Research Articles

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction Jordana Blejmar and Cecilia Sosa This special issue is the result of a series of screenings titled Meeting the Directors: Dialogues Between New Argentine Cinema & Theatre, held in 2013 at Senate House in London. A joint venture between the Institute of Latin American Studies and the Institute of Modern Languages Research, both part of the University of London, the screenings were open to the general public and were designed to explore the dialogues and exchanges taking place between the so-called New Argentine Cinema and the less-well-known New Argentine Theatre. The series was the first time that such a range of diverse experimental productions had been shown in the United Kingdom alongside conversations with the young directors, who were either present at the venue or interviewed via video conferences on the day of the screenings. This special issue builds on those conversations, identifying an upcoming genre in contemporary Argentine cultural production, one that is marked by a hybrid aesthetics, a blending of fact and fiction, a playful spirit, and transnational dialogues that take place on both stage and screen. The various contributions included in this publication highlight the innovative uses of technology, humour, live music, and dance in this up-and-coming body of work, one that, over the last few years, has challenged the rigidity of generic boundaries. The essays engage critically with a particular series of films and theatrical pieces by directors such as Romina Paula, Lola Arias, Mariano Pensotti, Alejo Moguillansky, Matías Piñeiro, Edgardo Dieleke, and Daniel Casabé, among others. While most of these pieces were screened at Senate House, some of them, such as Campo minado (Minefield), which debuted in 2016 in the UK, were included especially for this issue. It is our contention that together these works exemplify the emergence of a fresh and exciting generational, transnational, and trans-disciplinary voice within Argentine performing arts. [End Page 9] Beyond New Argentine Cinema and Biodrama While the emergence and development of the so-called New Argentine Cinema during the 1990s and the new millennium have received considerable attention from local and international scholars, critics have suggested that this trend has recently reached a standstill. As Jens Andermann has pointed out: “[A]fter the cusp of social and political emergency in Argentina had passed and the initial excitement had worn off, critics could predictably do little but detect the ‘exhaustion’ of the very movement they had conjured up” (xxi). Thus, Andermann concludes, “the time has perhaps arrived for looking at new Argentine cinema without the capital letters” (xxi). In contrast to the arguable exhaustion of New Argentine Cinema, a community of Argentine theatre-practitioners and young filmmakers has fashioned a unique and lively creative space within both the domestic market and major international festivals. In the current post-New Argentine Cinema period, this collection of essays addresses the way in which cinema and theatre have been experiencing a fruitful exchange of interests, directors, writers, castings, and audiences, giving room to a new circuit that renovates and enhances both art forms. More specifically, this dossier examines how a playful overlapping of documentary and fiction has managed to push forward and reanimate not only the ostensible wave of neo-realist stories and dry humour introduced by New Argentine Cinema, but also a particular form of documentary theatre that has come to be known as “biodrama.” The term was originally coined by director Vivi Tellas to describe a series of biographical pieces in which performers re-enacted episodes of their real lives on stage. As Philippa Page points out in her contribution, Tellas coined the term “biodrama” in 2002 as a response to the critical aftermath of the economic and political crisis of 2001. Page argues that biodrama “uses theatre to explore the possibilities of rebuilding a sense of community [. . .] in what was, at the time of its inception, a severely debilitated post-crisis social fabric.” For Tellas, the return of experience was also the return of the personal, albeit a particular type of self, one immersed in politics and culture. Many of the films and theatrical plays studied in this issue could arguably be considered enhanced forms of biodrama. However, they have acquired...

Ever the Land: A People, A Place, Their Building

Reviewed by: Ever the Land: A People, A Place, Their Building David Lipset Ever the Land: A People, A Place, Their Building. Documentary, 93 minutes, dcp or Blu-ray, color, 2015. Written and directed by Sarah Grohnert; produced by Alexander Behse. Distributed by Monsoon Pictures International and the New Zealand Film Commission. See http://evertheland.com/ for prices and availability. Ever the Land: A People, A Place, Their Building celebrates the Tūhoetribe, the Māori people who live in a heavily forested corner of the North Island of Aotearoa/New Zealand. The Tūhoe filed compensation claims with the Waitangi Commission in 2007 and subsequently decided to allocate nz$15 million for the construction of a large tribal center at the valley entrance of their contested, tragic land. Designed by Ivan Mercep, the center was meant to adhere with the Living Building Challenge, whose stringent standards of sustainability require careful attention to material sourcing and a great deal of compliance documentation. Called Te Uru Tamatua, it was to be the first such building in Aotearoa. In a visually compelling way, Ever the Land tracks the building process by embedding it in the context of the dialogue surrounding it. That dialogue, on which the filmmaker unobtrusively dotes, tells a thought-provoking story. Through voices and actions, we learn of the contested relationship between Tūhoe green ideology and tribal solidarity. This view is asserted in lovely scenes in which children are put to bed by mothers with stories about ancestor-spirits who hate trash, [End Page 197] bricks are handmade for the new building, and, in shots interspersed throughout the narrative, fog rises over thick forests that cover their mountainsides. But some Tūhoe voices complain. It is to the great credit of the young director, Sarah Grohnert, that scenes are included in which men rather forcibly object to money being allocated for a tribal purpose rather than to help buy individuals houses to live in. The Tūhoe are poor, the movie makes clear, and live day to day in subsistence pursuits, sending children to school as best they can. The implication would be that, for dissenters, the tribal center is nothing but a vain extravagance. Use is also made of voiceovers from the radio announcing the project, the death of the building’s architect, and the pending settlement from the New Zealand government. The latter agreement is indeed signed in 2013 in Parliament. The tribe is compensated and receives more control over the Urewera National Park on its land. The state apologizes for a past of violence, indignities, and land theft. Brick by brick, board by board, solar panel by solar panel, Tūhoe and Pākehā laborers and managers erect the building. Images of the fog, the forest, trucks dumping cement, rooms stuffed with scaffolding, and so forth appear like a kind of call-and-response chorus throughout the movie. Meanwhile, impromptu meetings of orange-vested men and women in hard hats take place on the job site. Building products imported from Europe are banned, as are red-list chemicals. In more formal settings, Tūhoe discuss the pending settlement with the Crown and are kept in the loop about the roject. Will it be earthquake proof? How will it contribute to a sustainable future for the tribe? The movie more or less culminates with the opening ceremony for the building. An intense haka (ritual dance) is performed, after which a large throng of onlookers make their way across a parking lot. A couple of children cut a braided ribbon made of leaves and enter the edifice for a first look at its cavernous rooms, display cases for artifacts of tribal history, and recycling bins. The narrative begins and ends with a scene of the same rural setting, as if to suggest that the new building has not had any demonstrative impact on the relatively remote and basic quality of life of the Tūhoe. At first, we see through a window, perhaps of a car in which the filmmakers arrive, a somewhat distant image of a modest home at the foot of a forested mountainside. A grassy field that is fenced in several ways, perhaps as...

Una política de autores para Latinoamérica. (Nuevos cines y nueva crítica: Argentina, Brasil, México en los sesenta) / A politique des auteurs for Latin America. (New cinemas and new criticism: Argentina, Brasil and México in the sixties)

Las décadas de 1950 y 1960 son las de la transición modernizadora en Latinoamérica: es el momento en que las estructuras industriales (ya sea que hubieran llegado a desarrollarse o no) parecen desfasarse en relación a los intereses de los nuevos cineastas. En esos años de grandes cambios estéticos, culturales y políticos, los directores jóvenes definen sus poéticas por contraste con el viejo cine de los estudios. Siguiendo el modelo de la politique des auteurs enunciada por los críticos de Cahiers du cinéma , la aparición de los nuevos cines en Latinoamérica adquiere características específicas según los contextos nacionales. Este ensayo pretende documentar las distintas reacciones de esos films de autor en las tres cinematografías que eran reconocidas como las más poderosas del continente: Argentina, Brasil y México. Palabras clave: Política de los autores / Nuevo cine latinoamericano / cine culto y cine popular / poética y política / Industria vs. revolución. The 1950s and 1960s are the decades of modernization in Latin America: it is the moment when industrial structures seem to fall out of phase in reference to the goals of the new filmmakers. During those years of aesthetic, cultural and political transformations, young directors define their poetics in confrontation with the old Studio system. Following the model of the politique des auteurs proposed by the critics of Cahiers du cinéma , the emergence of new cinemas in Latin America develops specific qualities according to the various national contexts. This essay explores the different reactions of these auteur films within the three national cinemas aknowledged, at that time, as the most powerful of the continent: Argentina, Brasil and Mexico. Keywords: Politics of Authorship / New Latin American Cinema / Popular cinema and highbrow cinema / Poetics and politics / Industry vs. revolution

MAKNA KHITAN PEREMPUAN DALAM FILM PERTARUHANSEGMEN “UNTUK APA”

Feminism is one of issues which always talked about. It is a reason for a young director like Nia Dinata in Kalyana Shira Films Production House makes some documenter films about woman (feminism). One of them is Pertaruhan. In this film, there is 4 segmens, and in the second segmen has title “Untuk Apa?” raises about female circumcision. In this segmen there are many symbols and signs which has hidden meanings. Semiotic used to reveal that denotation sign of female circumcisionin this film is as an implementation of syari’ah Islam. Connotative sign in this film is female circumcisionas a tradition and culture in society. They believe that female circumcisionis one of legitimate terms for being a Moslem. Myths in this film is an animism culture in society, people’s belief that female circumcisionable to decrease number of cheating in marriage and able to give more satisfy to her partner when doing intimate relationship.

The Hairy Ape

The Hairy Ape

Julius Brachetka und die Zeit nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg – Zur 100. Wiederkehr des Geburtstags des Schönbrunner Altdirektors

In July 1945, the veterinarian Julius Brachetka (1916–2011) took over the released direction of Schoenbrunn Zoo after the suicide of Otto Antonius. Only 29 years old, he was the youngest director in the history of the zoo and moreover, he was without any prior experience with zoos at all. When Brachetka occupied office, he had to deal with supply difficulties and the reconstruction of the zoo after the end of World War II as well as with the hostility from parts of his staff. Nevertheless, within a short time span, the damage caused by the war was repaired, and the declined number of animals was raised. Brachetka already wrote a history book in 1947. He initiated the first real advertising campaigns of the zoo and was responsible for the celebrations of the zoos’ 200-year-anniversary in 1952. However, he was not able to enjoy his achievements, as investigations against him led to his suspension in 1954. In January 1959, he finally had to leave the zoo. From 1961, until his retirement in 1982, Brachetka worked as a border veterinary at the „Iron Curtain“ between Austria and Hungary. In the same year, he received the Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold for Services to the Republic of Austria.

La construcción de la niña y la adolescente en el cine de Céline Sciamma

Cinema is still a men’s field more than women’s, something that studies from the New York Film Academy, the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative or the Bechdel Test Movie List have backed up. However, statistics are slowly showing optimistic results, and Celine Sciamma is one of the women who are making them improve. She is a young French director, whom trilogy (Naissance de Pieuvres, Tomboy y Bande de Filles) is focused in women, specially little girls and teenagers, and how the puberty process affects their feelings and the discovery of their identity and sexuality. These pages will analyze how Sciamma is contributing to the seventh art with her films and how she transforms woman into an active subject, not a passive one, changing this way the established narrative structures in the prevailing cinema.

“Let the Cuban Community Aid its Haitian Brothers”: Monsignor Bryan Walsh, Miami’s Immigrant Church, and the Making of a Multiethnic City, 1960–2000

Between 1960 and 1962 Father (later Monsignor) Bryan O. Walsh, a young Irish immigrant priest and assistant director of Miami Catholic Charities, supervised the provision of federally-funded foster care to more than 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children whose parents sent them alone to the United States through a program later known as Operation Pedro Pan. Remembered almost exclusively for his leadership of the Cuban Children’s Program, Walsh’s ministry nonetheless reflected a much broader commitment to immigrant rights that transcended his advocacy on behalf of Miami’s anti-Castro exiles. This article analyzes the relationship between Walsh’s career, the city’s increasingly activist Catholic Church, and the diverse waves of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants that transformed Miami-Dade County between 1960 and 2000. It argues that Walsh’s enduring support for the Cuban exile community, while motivated in part by his unwavering anti-communism, also reflected a lifelong concern for “the stranger and the poor,” deeply rooted in the priest’s diasporic Irish identity, his difficult experience as an immigrant to 1950s America, and the evolution of his spiritual and political worldview within the parameters of the Cold War-era Catholic Church. It concludes that Walsh’s activism, which predated but harmonized with the Church’s evolving priorities following the Second Vatican Council, played a catalytic role in transforming the Archdiocese of Miami into a consistent advocate for hundreds of thousands of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants.

Framing the "Weird Body" in Contemporary Greek Cinema: Dogtooth (2009), Attenberg (2010), Alps(2011)

New filmmaking practices within European art cinema are responding to current socio-political realities of the European crisis with new cinematic images of the human body. Particularly since 2009, a group of young directors from Greece has produced a number of independent films that feature grotesque characters embedded within plots of comic absurdity. Dogtooth (Lanthimos, 2009), Attenberg (Tsangaris, 2010) and Alps (Lanthimos, 2011) are by now the core of what has been coined outside Greece The New Weird Cinema.This thesis offers an aesthetic analysis of the films Dogtooth, Attenberg and Alps in the conceptualization of the weird body as a new image of the human body in contemporary arthouse cinema. It aims at introducing the weird body as a cinematic trope with which to address lived experience in the shadow of a contemporary societal crisis. In order to sustain its political and aesthetic power, this study will bring Deleuze and Guattari's theory of the body in dialogue with the phenomenological approaches of Vivian Sobchack and Laura U. Marks.

To be and not to be... at once: Daniel Špinar, Czech director extraordinaire, enters the European stage

Abstract A review of a very unusual and highly topical Hamlet, as seen at the Pilsen Theatre Festival, and directed by Daniel Špinar, the young director of the National Theatre in Prague. In the year of the 50th anniversary of Jan Kott’s influential book Shakespeare Our Contemporary, it’s remarkable to see how this Hamlet reflects the way Kott read the play and the main character – as a character who is not defined by the situation imposed on him, at any rate not beyond doubt, and who “accepts it but at the same time revolts against it” – and then how he goes even a step further.

From Past To Present A Cognitive Work On “New Turkish Cinema”

In recent years, “new” concept has become very consumable especially within the context of politics in our country. Generally, after certain periods in Turkey, “new”, representative of political changes and emphasizing reconstruction process, has been a concept that frequently used in paralel with political, social, economic and cultural use, from past to present. Turkish cinema has had many periods from its constructive years to present; some of which have been in diffuculties and crisises. Having been overcome after every crisis, Turkish Cinema has always recovered itself. After this recovery, process to be rising or expected to be shown up, has wanted to be emphasised by the characterisation of the “new” concept, needed to be created or created different structure. New Cinema concept is considered as a genre as not possible to mention a real stream in the Turkish cinema. The search of the young directors for an alternative cinema language, experiencing types, using various production and filming styles have revealed a richness in development of our cinema. In this essay, New Cinema concept will be introduced in terms of its usage and meanings attributed to it in Turkish cinema. Moreover, its place and importance in Turkish cinema history will be discussed.

Alive, Kicking – and Kicking Back: Russia’s Golden Mask Festival 2015

The Golden Mask and National Theatre Award and Festival, founded in Moscow in 1994, has showcased some of the most exciting theatre to be found across Russia’s vast territories: ‘theatre’ including opera, ballet, contemporary dance, puppetry, and newer forms that have taken root with changing artistic practices. Maria Shevtsova’s brief overview of the 2015 Russian Case, a selection for foreign producers and critics, prominently features ‘new drama’, not least because of the difficulties recently imposed on Teatr.doc, a founding player within this powerful movement. Major young directors appear here, with crossover to their work as represented in past editions of the Russian Case, and with reference to current socio-political factors. Reviews of earlier festivals appeared in NTQ 85, 95, and 103. Maria Shevtsova, Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, is co-editor of New Theatre Quarterly. Her most recent book is the co-authored Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Directing (2013). Her seminal Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance (2004) has been translated into Romanian, Korean, and Mandarin and, in 2014, Russian.

Cinematic Revolution: Cosmopolitan Alter-cinema of Pre-revolutionary Iran

In the late 1950s, when Iran was witness to the withering away of social norms and everyday practices concomitant with the country's rapid urbanization, a group of young Iranian film directors embarked upon a new cinematic trend, in attempts to screen the ethereal quotidian of Iranian life. Defining itself against what was perceived to be the “cheap” and “repetitive” commercial “Film Farsi” industry of the time, this alternative (alter-)cinema fused the local and global, by incorporating international cinematic elements in socially and politically conscious national films, and projecting them on local and international screens. Problematizing a homogeneous conception of historical time that subsumes the history of cinema into a conventionalized grand narrative of the Iranian 1979 revolution, this article works with a conception of heterogeneous historical time that first interrogates cinematic temporality autonomously and then in relation to the political history of Iran, especially the events of the 1978–79 revolution. This article explores how the distinct cosmopolitan alter-cinema of pre-revolutionary Iran was born from a cinematic rupture in the 1950s, prompted by series of critiques and professional expectations that colored the attention paid to the vernacular and quotidian in film production.

Passionately Documenting: Taiwan’s Latest Cinematic Revival

in his opening talk for the 2011 Conference on Literature, Cinema, and Landscape, Taiwanese writer and film critic Lee Yuan (also known as Xiao Ye) remarked on the decentering disposition of Taiwan's latest cinematic revival.1 He notes that these films in similar ways forgo Taiwan's national and metropolitan center, Taipei, in favor of other localities. Lee's observation on decentering also opens up more complex discussions regarding the popular success of recent Taiwanese small-budget blockbusters' combination of feature-film qualities with documentary-style realism. This article offers a case study on recent Taiwanese film productions that not only decenter Taiwanese cinema's internationally renowned image as primarily producing auteur films portraying postcolonial and postmodern ethos, but that also hybridize Taiwan's diasporic Chinese image with Taiwan's local dialect, culture, and landscape. Debuting films featuring passionate road trips around the beautiful island of Taiwan, such as Chen Huai-En's Island Etude (2007) and Fung Kai's Din Tao: Leader of the Parade (2012), stimulated public interest in local Taiwanese landscapes and cultures. Personally inspired memorial stories by young directors, such as Lin Yu-Hsien's Jump Ashin! (2011), also became box office hits. During these past few years, Taiwanese cinema has gradually overcome its late-twentieth-century city of sadness image created by Hou Hsio-Hsian's A City of Sadness (1989), which has greatly influenced Taiwanese cinema's national and international representation.2 This article argues that these new-millennium films reconstruct and activate a sense of Taiwanese nationalism through the fluid intermix of documentary style with entertainment qualities as well as local with global appeal. Their highlighting of passion rather than pathos proposes a new turn and possibility for the revival of Taiwanese cinema and nationalism in the age of transcultural globalization.Different from the canonized Taiwanese films that put Taiwanese cinema on the international map over two decades ago, the new-millennium films discussed in this article approach Taiwanese culture and nationalism by experimenting with possibilities of flexible creativity. In Sentimental Fabulations, Rey Chow raises the importance of cinematic identification by opening with the question Where is the movie about me? (1). Chow's question points to the contemporary Chinese-speaking subject's simultaneous need and desire for individual uniqueness and collective belonging. Her concern also relates to Taiwanese people, who face problems such as recovering from Japanese colonialism, reinterpreting Chineseness through peripheral conditions, reincorporating local cultural diversity, and distinguishing themselves from Western standards. Recent films such as Island Etude, Din Tao, and Jump Ashin! continue to tackle these questions; however, they do so in a more lighthearted and aspiring manner.In a country with a history of negotiating with international and domestic challenges to na- tional identity determinants, the development of Taiwanese cinema reflects continuous efforts at national reconstruction. With the end of Japanese rule in 1945 and the official establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China in 1949, Taiwanese cinema turned to localism during the 1950s. Having a status different from Hong Kong's as the inheritor of Shanghai's cinema, and hence in the position of having a better-developed film industry environment that represented the legacy of authentic Chinese cinema as opposed to the communist mainland, Taiwan's film productions at the time were mostly localized, low-budget taiyu pian (Taiwanese dialect films) affairs.3 Apart from propaganda films of healthy realism and social realism supported by the KMT nationalist government, melodramas and martial arts films became the ruling genres along with productions of Taiwan xiangtu dianying (native-soil films) during the 1960s and early 1970s. …

Women's cinema, world cinema: projecting contemporary feminisms

In Women’s Cinema, World Cinema , Patricia White explores the dynamic intersection of feminism and film in the twenty-first century by highlighting the work of a new generation of women directors from around the world: Samira and Hana Makhmalbaf, Nadine Labaki, Zero Chou, Jasmila Zbanic, and Claudia Llosa, among others. The emergence of a globalized network of film festivals has enabled these young directors to make and circulate films that are changing the aesthetics and politics of art house cinema and challenging feminist genealogies. Extending formal analysis to the production and reception contexts of a variety of feature films, White explores how women filmmakers are both implicated in and critique gendered concepts of authorship, taste, genre, national identity, and human rights. Women’s Cinema, World Cinema revitalizes feminist film studies as it argues for an alternative vision of global media culture.

Dramaturgia "Dwóch ludzi z szafą"

The Dramaturgy of Roman Polański’s Two Men with a Wardrobe Marek Hendrykowski’s case study on Polański’s famous student etude Two Men with a Wardrobe reconstructs this wonderful short movie take-by-take: a must for anyone who cares about cinema as art. The young (24 years old) director, together with a team of talented colleagues (cameraman Maciej Kijowski, actors Jakub Goldberg and Henryk Kluba, director’s assistant Andrzej Kostenko and film music composer and jazzman Krzysztof Komeda), demonstrated a very modern way of thinking about the art of the moving image and about the various possibilities hidden in the simple poetics of screen drama. From its opening scene on the beach to the dramatic and nostalgic ending with a comeback to the sea, the film charts two men’s struggles on the difficult path to becoming independent human beings enjoying their own freedom.

Theatre as a document of our time

Theatre performances, produced on the professional scene in Serbia in the past five or six years, seem to be a fine illustration of the theatre as a document of our time. The wars of the nineties that lead to the disintegration of Yugoslavia left traces in young directors and inspired them to create new plays. Furthermore, the massive emigration, a number of problems of the transitional period, the problems of unemployment, addiction-related treatment and rehabilitation, and an abundance of accompanying turmoil of the traumatised society led to creation of current theatre plays which, in a broad range, depict all those 'documents' of present and past time. From the wide spectrum of (younger generation) directors' personal styles, the following have been systematized: the works by Boris Liješević- The Waiting Room, Fertile Days, Elijah's Chair; the political theatre of Oliver Frljić - Cowardice, Zoran Đinđić, Aleksandra Zec; Dino Mustafić's work - Born in YU; Ana Grigorović's - Fifty Blows; Boban Skerlić's - They Have Suffered; the work of Sanja Krsmanović Tasić - About the Conscience and Consciousness, and others. Although the aforementioned plays may not completely reflect the overall number of plays created in the society weighed down by many a problem and contradiction, they surely are an indicator that a document from the life itself has managed to find its dramatic expression. What is reassuring is that the society in crisis makes a good and interesting theatre.

La Shoah e l'esperienza dei lager nei documentari televisivi di Liliana Cavani (1961-1965)

Liliana Cavani is well-known as the director of the controversial Holocaust fi lm The Night Porter (1974), which inspires the birth of the new cinematographical genre of Nazisexploitation. In order to trace Cavani’s interest on the Holocaust theme we have to come back to the early 60’s, when the young director starts working for the national broadcasting television RAI. In the fi ve years between 1961 and 1965, in fact, Lilian Cavani directs three documentary fi lms: a four-episodes serie called History of the Third Reich (1961-1962); a documentary about the divided World War II memories between two generations in post-war Europe, The Day of the Peace (1965); fi nally, The Woman in the Resistance (1965), a fi lm about the role of Italian women during the Partisan struggle, where she also interviews several Jewish Italian women who were deported between 1943 and 1945. Each one of these productions has different and specifi c modalities of dealing with the Holocaust memory. But the relevance of these fi lms lays in the fact that they represent the fi rst attempt of the Italian television to deal with the memory of the Holocaust, and this happens through the screening of both audiovisual and oral sources. Until then, no previous visual expressions have described the Italian responsability in the deportation of thousands of Italian Jews. The paper is structured by using several kind of sources: audiovisual archives, production and distribution strategies, an original interview to Liliana Cavani about her early carreer.

Directing the Hamlet Story in Hamlet—The Actor

MJCompany’s production of Hamlet The Actor, the three actor version of Hamlet, was first staged in 2012 and won ‘the 1st Korea Shakespeare Awards’ for Best Young Director and Best Actress. The production was restaged with a new cast in 2013 and attracted the attentions of international Shakespearean scholars in particular, who were invited to attend the International Shakespeare Conference organized by the Shakespeare Association of Korea, delighted with this production as an eye-opener to them, and convinced that Hamlet can be adapted to a purely theatrical play without involving cultural concerns and political arguments. Hamlet The Actor portrays Hamlet as a player-director, rehearsing with two players his own play on revenge to overcome the state of dissociation and witnessing instead the disastrous effects his revenge might have on his beloved Ophelia. Directing the Hamlet story becomes not about whether to kill Claudius or not, but about whether to continue a rehearsal or not. The play’s adaptive strategy is the making of a classical work, that is, the collaboration between Hamlet and two players; it is characteristic of what distinguishes itself from a metadramatic device. Hamlet relies on the rehearsal process for the realization of his intentions and expects two players to make a creative contribution. Their collaborative work is characterized as a dynamic process of reshaping a classical work by means of stage production. The play’s circular and open-ended structure facilitates the dynamic process and stimulates the audience’s imagination to fill gaps in the story.

‘Bollywood’s fourth Khan’: deconstructing the ‘hatke’ stardom of Vidya Balan in popular Hindi cinema

This article, seeking to address a gap in the study of post-millennial female stars in popular Hindi cinema, examines the reasons behind the rising stardom of Vidya Balan, tagged as ‘the fourth Khan’ in the Bombay film industry. It represents an early intervention in understanding how a female star in a predominantly male-oriented industry has become a ‘gamechanger’ as a result of the conjuncture of favourable industrial and technological changes, and transforming spectatorial tastes and practices. These include radical changes in the sites of exhibition such as the multiplex; shifts in cinephilia driven by urban youth audiences; distinctive marketing and promotional strategies that have partially engendered Balan’s ‘hatke’/offbeat stardom; and the establishment of new production houses that have encouraged a new generation of young directors and scriptwriters to create substantive female characters endowed with narrative agency and a feminist sensibility. It also argues that Balan’s stardom is an intriguing anomaly when compared with her female contemporaries in terms of her performance style, consistent box-office success, and choice of unconventional roles that have narratively reduced the male hero to a formality.