Australian Film and the Cultural Cold War

2004 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
David McKnight
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Slow Development ◽  
Cultural Cold War ◽  
The 1950S

This article examines whether, and in what way, anti-communism was a factor in the slow development of an Australian film industry in the 1950s and early 1960s and in the kind of film culture developed in Australia, particularly through film festivals. In particular it examines the activities of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) towards left and liberal filmmakers and film lovers. It briefly examines the effect of anti-communism on the struggle for Australian content by Actors' Equity in the early years of television.

Between Idealism and Pragmatism

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-72
Author(s):  
Jing Jing Chang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Integral Component ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Cold War

Chapter 2 traces the development of Hong Kong’s official film culture during the 1950s and 1960s within the contexts of the documentary film movement, the imperial legacy of the British Colonial Film Unit, and the colonial rhetoric of film literacy. In particular, it uses such Hong Kong Film Unit-produced short features as Report to the Gods (Dir. Brian Salt, 1967), starring local opera talent Leung Sing-por, as archival sources to argue that the colonial regime’s relationship with Hong Kong’s population was not a static vertical imposition of the “culture of depoliticization,” but one that was shifting and characterized by manipulation, misunderstanding, and negotiation amid bipolarized Cold War tension. I argue here that British Hong Kong’s involvement in filmmaking activities expose the top-down imposition of a colonial regime as well as the transformative nature of colonial rule during the Cold War period of the 1950s through 1960s. Official film culture should not be seen merely as tools of colonial governance or a means of indoctrinating subject audiences, but rather was part of an overall “strategy for survival” as well as an integral component in the process of screening the local Hong Kong “colonial” citizenry during the Cold War.

Culture, Politics and the Cold War: The Sociedad de Escritores de Chile in the 1950s

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (03) ◽  
pp. 549-571
Author(s):  
Jorge A. Nállim
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
Transnational Networks ◽  
Local Branch ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cultural Cold War ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cultural Freedom ◽  
Political Groups

AbstractIn the 1950s, the Sociedad de Escritores de Chile experienced bitter disputes caused by the efforts of the Chilean Committee for Cultural Freedom, the local branch of a major institution in the US cultural Cold War, to gain control of the association. These disputes reveal the role played by the cultural Cold War in the breakdown of older political and intellectual alliances in Chile. They also highlight the transnational networks that connected Chilean writers during the Cold War, and the complex articulation of local and international contexts and agendas that influenced Chilean cultural and political groups.

The Asia Foundation’s Motion Picture Project

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-46
Author(s):  
Sangjoon Lee
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Motion Picture ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The 1950S

This chapter investigates how and to what extent the Asia Foundation (TAF) and its field agents covertly acted to construct an alliance of anticommunist motion picture producers in Asia. It explores how US government–led Cold War cultural policies influenced the Asian regional film industry in the 1950s. It also scrutinizes the ways TAF agents responded to the various needs of local film executives and negotiated with the constantly changing political, social, and cultural environments in the region during the project's early activities. The chapter reviews the origin of TAF, the Committee for a Free Asia (CFA), which is intended to advance US foreign policy interests in Asia. It discusses the CFA's core activities, which include the broadcasting of Radio Free Asia.

scholarly journals From the event to the everyday: distributor-driven film festivals

2020 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2093847
Author(s):  
Stuart Richards ◽  
Lauren Carroll Harris
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
European North ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Important Field ◽  
Primary Focus

Film festival research is an important field within screen and cultural studies, with festivals mainly theorised as a cinephile phenomenon occurring in European/North American contexts. Though cinephilia is indeed a major aspect of film festivals, adopting cinephilia as a primary focus for festival research obscures, and cannot explain, other motivations for running festivals, as well as how festivals fit into other trends in the film industry and film culture today. As researchers and film critics working in Australia, we have observed trends in festival culture that do not fit the dominant cinephilic framework. Principal among these trends is the emergence of Palace Cinemas, an arthouse cinema chain, and Palace Films, its distribution arm, as the curator and presenter of its own chain of film festivals. This essay presents an interesting case study that considers Palace Cinemas in relation to dominant understandings of the film festival. These film festivals do not exclusively fit either of Mark Peranson’s ideal models of festivals – audiences festivals or business festivals – but rather between these two positions. These distributor-driven film festivals, such as those run by Palace, greatly diminish any association with festival time, defined by Janet Harbord as a key feature of festivals.

The Lattimore case

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Penrose
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Witch Hunt

Edith’s career and collaboration with Fritz Machlup at Johns Hopkins University flourished and she began work on the growth of the firm, and studied the Hercules Powder Company. As Cold War tensions increased during the 1950s she and Penrose became involved in the defence of their friend and colleague Owen Lattimore who was named as the top Soviet spy by Senator McCarthy. The chapter covers the persecution of Lattimore, his trials, the role of Judge Luther Youngdahl, and the operation of his defence fund. Other friends of E. F. Penrose became victims of the anti-communist ‘witch hunt’, he grew increasingly disillusioned with the USA, and determined he must leave. In 1953 Edith and Penrose testified before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. They were also investigated by the FBI. After five years the case against Lattimore was dropped. Edith’s father died and her brother Harvey was killed in an air accident.

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