The Eclipse of Scottish Cinema

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Petrie

The 1990s marked the beginning of a period of unprecedented film production activity in Scotland, part of the wider outpouring of artistic expression – notably in literature, theatre and painting – that occurred in the aftermath of the 1979 Scottish Assembly debacle and which came to constitute a kind of cultural devolution in the absence of political self-determination. The ‘new Scottish cinema’ provided a steady stream of films like Rob Roy (1995), Trainspotting (1996), Small Faces (1996), Regeneration (1997), My Name is Joe (1998), Mrs Brown (1998), Orphans (1998) and Ratcatcher (1999). These were underpinned by a fledging infrastructure that included significant new sources of finance for feature development and production, short film schemes designed to develop new talent and encouragement and assistance for incoming international productions. Therefore, it is all the more disappointing that since the achievement of political devolution in 1999, this creative energy and excitement has largely dissipated with the result that there is now less funding available for Scottish film-making than in the period before the return of a parliament and executive to Edinburgh. This article explores the implications of this ‘cultural eclipse’, exploring the power of the moving image to contribute in powerful ways to national projection and identity and charting the ways in which cinematic representations of Scotland have changed and developed before considering some of the reasons why the creative energy of the 1990s was subsequently dissipated. This state of affairs is contrasted with the success of film and television in Denmark, another small European nation that has adopted a markedly more enlightened approach to policy-making and institution-building.

Author(s):  
Timothy Boon

This article is concerned with the triangular territory between biomedicine, relevant moving image media production, and lay people — sometimes cinematic subjects, sometimes patients, and sometimes audiences. The examples quoted — mainly British — arise from the period stretching from the late nineteenth century up to the 1960s. The significant costs and effort involved in producing medical films and programmes make their existence in certain times and places particularly interesting evidence for the terrain of biomedicine in the past. The three modes of medical film and television are discussed and they stand for different aspects of biomedicine. This article provides an understanding of how biomedicine came to be made and used and gives access to the politics and social attitudes of participants in interesting ways. The coverage of each mode of film-making is concentrated in the decade of its emergence.


Screen Bodies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Lara Bochmann ◽  
Erin Hampson

This article is a theoretical, audiovisual, and personal exploration of being a trans and non-binary person and the challenges this position produces at the moment of entering the outside world. Getting ready to enter public space is a seemingly mundane everyday task. However, in the context of a world that continuously fails or refuses to recognize trans and non-binary people, the literal act of stepping outside can mean to move from a figurative state of self-determination to one of imposition. We produced a short film project called Step Out to delve into issues of vulnerability and recognition that surface throughout experiences of crossing the threshold into public space. It explores the acts performed as preparation to face the world, and invokes the emotions this can conquer in trans and non-binary people. Breathing is the leading metaphor in the film, indicating existence and resistance simultaneously. The article concludes with a discussion of affective states and considers them, along with failed recognition, through the lens of Lauren Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism.”


1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gino J. Naldi

Since its founding in 1963, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) has placed special emphasis on the preservation of the territorial integrity of African states. It has actively contributed to the development of relevant rules of international law, such as that of uti possidetis. Its opposition to the fragmentation of states has been absolute. However, the small island state of Comoros has challenged this state of affairs. The seemingly successful secession of ‘Anjouan’ has threatened the cherished principles of the OAU. This article critically analyzes the relationship between the principles at the heart of the dispute, those of self-determination and uti possidetis, and concludes that there is no legal proscription on the secession of ‘Anjouan’.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
ARINDA KARINA RACHMAWATI ◽  
R. BASKORO KATRI ANANDITO ◽  
GODRAS JATI MANUHARA

Rachmawati AK, Anandito RBK, Manuhara GJ. 2010. Extraction and characterization of pectin on green cincau (Premna oblongifolia) in edible film production. Biofarmasi 8: 1-10. The use of green cincau pectin was presumed to influence the result of edible film characteristics, i.e. thickness, solvability, elongation, tensile strength, and water vapour transmission (WVTR). The aims in this research were: (i) to find out the chemical characteristics of green cincau pectin on the physical (thickness and solvability) and mechanical properties (elongation and tensile strength), (ii) to determine the edible film inhibition of green cincau pectin against the water vapour transmission rate, and (iii) to find out the edible film capability in inhibiting the weight loss on green grape by wrapping and coating method. The five major steps in this research were material preparation (making green cincau powder and pectin extraction), the characterization of extraction result pectin, making edible film, edible film characterization, and edible film application. This research used a completely randomized design with twice replications in edible film making for each treatment concentration and twice replication for edible film characteristic testing in each edible film making replication. Variance analysis was used to analyze data, if there was a significant difference, it will be continued with a Duncan Multiple Range Test at a significance level of 0.05. The yield of green cincau powder and pectin were 27.5% and 15.2%, respectively. The extraction result pectin consisted of 5.09% water, 11.06% protein, 0.35% fat, 28.5% ash, 55.00% carbohydrate (by different), and 12.15% crude fiber. The increasing of pectin concentration tends to increase the thickness and tensile strength, but reduced the water vapour transmission rate. The lowest water vapour transmission rate occurred at the edible film with 30% pectin concentration. Its water vapour transmission rate was 0.317 g.mm/m2.hour. The green grape weight loss with a wrapping method was 0.0212 g/hour, and the green grape weight loss with a coating method was 0.0634 g/hour.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (14) ◽  
pp. 95-98
Author(s):  
J.V. Rodionova ◽  
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Caroline Merz

What was the potential for the development of a Scottish film industry? Current histories largely ignore the contribution of Scotland to British film production, focusing on a few amateur attempts at narrative film-making. In this chapter, Caroline Merz offers a richer and more complex view of Scotland’s incursion into film production,. Using a case-study approach, it details a production history of Rob Roy, produced by a Scottish company, United Films, in 1911, indicating the experience on which it drew, placing it in the context of other successful British feature films such as Beerbohm’s Henry VIII, and noting both its success in Australia and New Zealand and its relative failure on the home market faced with competition from other English-language production companies.


Author(s):  
Eileen Anastasia Reynolds

The author shares her directorial experience in the making of her short film where she invited her aunt to participate in the production process. As her aunt had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in the past and was going through depression when the film was planned, it was supposed that perhaps the film-making process would help improve her mental health with her being part of a creative project. From script-writing, to acting, and even animating, the author had fully engaged her aunt from start to finish. The essay documents the author’s reflections of her aunt’s participation and how her sense of mental wellbeing improved dramatically as the film project progressed. The issue of exploitation is also considered in the essay as there is a difference between engagement and empowerment as opposed to deception and participation. Though the film did not win any awards at the 48-Hour Film Festival; the cinematic therapy experience highlighted the potential of seeking new pathways in supporting mental health patients.


Author(s):  
Omar Ahmed

This chapter assesses Shyam Benegal's seminal Ankur (The Seedling, 1972). The emergence of state-sponsored film-making in the late 1960s with Mrinal Sen's Bhuvan Shome (1969) laid the foundations for a new cinematic discourse, giving way to the next phase in the development of Indian art cinema, dubbed by many as ‘parallel cinema’. The work of film-maker Shyam Benegal forms a major part of the parallel cinema movement, and the rural trilogy of films characterising his early work not only sympathised with the oppressed underclass but also established an influential political precedent for many of the young film-makers emerging from the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India. The chapter looks at the origins and context of New Indian cinema, as well as the definitions of parallel cinema and its importance to the development of art cinema. It also considers Shyam Benegal's authorial status, key ideological strands, and the film's role in helping to politicise cinema in India.


2018 ◽  
pp. 84-105
Author(s):  
Leon Gurevitch

In this chapter Leon Gurevitch discusses computer-generated documentary simulations that function both as spectacular attractions and visual signifiers of expertise and authority. Gurevitch explores the increasing prominence of such images within a variety of documentary contexts since the digital revolution that began during the 1990s. The chapter underscores the extent to which CG-animated documentary spectacles are today routinely encountered within a range of fields, many not readily associated in the popular mind with animated aesthetics, production technologies or histories: military, scientific, architectural and engineering, for example. Gurevitch explains that in the absence of live footage (or even in support of it), animated and simulated spectacle is frequently deployed within documentary film making in the interests of “expertise”. In this sense, CG simulations function to persuade the audience of the time and effort put into making the documentary and therefore act as an index of a given moving image work’s veracity.


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