Introducing: Queer Theory (in Three Shorts)

Antke Antek Engel, member of the editorial board of InterAlia, co-operated with Filmfetch (Magda Wystub; Tali Tiller) and FernUniversität Hagen to create three educational films which discuss the tenets of queer theory in a manner suitable for non-academic viewers. The films were released in 2021 and are available on the university’s website: https://e.feu.de/queer-theory-videos and on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh98rBDWATF6bkxKNvpR4gQ

Instrumentalization of the Border Zone. Environment and Ideology in the Educational Films Made between 1955 and 1989 by the Hungarian Ministry of Interior’s Film Studio

Analysing the output of the Hungarian Ministry of Interior’s own film studio, which produced educational films between 1955 and 1989, this essay investigates the modes in which the border zone was represented during the decades of state socialism. Considering the vicinity of the border as an area, where ideological confrontations are battled out, the article argues that there is a significant difference between the films produced in the 1950-60s, and those from the mid-1960s onwards. The earlier pieces depict an emotionally charged border zone the defence of which is a social-political duty: father-type superiors teach rookie soldiers about this obligation in coming-of-age stories. However, from the mid-1960s onwards, the films seem to confine themselves to an instrumental mode of persuasion, which presents border protection as a merely technical question. The article briefly ties these shifts to the changing modes in official discourses during the decades of state socialist Hungary.

MISE EN SCENE FILM CRITICISM IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FILM WAITING FOR HEAVEN

It is a need to tell, to share the experience. A human being is an entity that tells stories and also needs stories. Myths and tales have explained the world to human beings when rational mind was not used and science was not developed yet. Myths are the first teachers of humanity, and tales have continued to form new narratives with new tools in the later ages. By the 20th century, humanity meets with a new storytelling tool. Apart from narrative films, cinema, although there are genres such as educational films, documentaries or news films, primarily undertook the mission of 'storytelling' and attracted the attention of the masses by telling stories. The paradoxical relationships and distance presented by the contemporary world to humanity are presented to the audience through sounds and images, and the audience tries to make sense of the existence of its environment and itself in a critical framework. Director and cinema question themselves in contemporary cinema narratives. The greatest innovation brought by contemporary cinema is hidden in the feature that leads the narrative to questioning activism. In the study, Derviş Zaim's, one of the most important directors of modern Turkish cinema, film Waiting for Heaven, was used as an example. The film was evaluated under the titles of technical structure, light, sound, time and space, actor, movement and performance, decor, costume and make-up in order to gain a qualitative understanding of the work. Keywords: Cinema, Movie Criticism, Derviş Zaim, Waiting For Heaven

Cinema in Tanzania

Moving pictures have a long history in Tanzania. The first cinema shows appeared in the region at the turn of the 20th century. Indian entrepreneurs established tent shows before World War I and built permanent cinemas in the interwar period. Colonial officials feared cinema images would undermine their authority and attempted to censor films and segregate audiences. During and immediately following World War II Tanganyika and Zanzibar experienced a boom in cinema building as the popularity of going to the movies soared among urban Africans. Tanzanian audiences developed cosmopolitan tastes, embracing Bollywood actors, Elvis Presley, and Bruce Lee alike. After independence the new Tanzanian government adopted policies that ultimately encouraged the decline of cinema-going as a public leisure activity. Films have been made in Tanganyika and Zanzibar since the first decade of the 20th century. Under German rule, visitors to Tanganyika made ethnographic and wildlife films. After World War I the new British administration in Tanganyika continued to allow commercial and documentary filmmakers to operate in the territory. In the 1930s the British government considered several initiatives to make educational films for African audiences. During World War II the Colonial Office created a film unit to produce and disseminate educational and propaganda films throughout Africa, including in both Tanganyika and Zanzibar. This work continued up until Tanganyika became independent in 1961. After independence the government of the new nation of Tanzania continued producing didactic movies for its citizens. They also made a handful of feature films for commercial distribution. In the 1990s a new video industry emerged in Dar es Salaam, in part inspired by the importation of inexpensive video films from Nigeria. Dubbed “Bongowood,” this new industry has been extremely prolific, producing hundreds of low-budget videos annually. These Swahili-language videos are consumed avidly within the country, as well as in Swahili-speaking areas of neighboring nations, and throughout the Swahili diaspora.

THE PHILIA PROJECT – FOR THE SUCCESSFUL INTEGRATION OF THE YOUNG THROUGH THEIR EMPOWERMENT AND SOCIAL NETWORK DEVELOPMENT

The Philia+ project has been approved for funding within the Erasmus + Programme. Several partners from Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal and Romania (from higher education and social work institutions) have worked to support the academic success and social inclusion of (pre)adolescents aged 13-18 in foster care, and to enhance, preserve and develop their support networks. Training programmes were held for teachers, trainers and researchers involved in the project, as well as for students and social work professionals and young people in difficulty in the care of associations and organizations providing them social and psychological support. The aim has always been to change their position according to the theoretical DPAPC (empowerment of individuals and communities) framework and to the methodological RAC (collaborative research-action) framework, in order to enable them to understand the mechanism of the social determinism of success and failure and to enhance their support networks. We managed to create two training modules, teasers of experienced testimonies (focus groups, comprehensive conversations), educational films for the two modules, educational films on accompanying Roma and unaccompanied minors.

Advertising and Avant-Gardes: A History of Concepts, 1930–1940

The chapter takes advertising as an umbrella term for persuasive communication. Looking at screen advertising as a specific type of communication – one that is made to persuade – the documentary, educational films, and avant-garde works of the 1930s and early 1940s come into view together under the label of advertising. Focussing on the work of John Grierson, Paul Rotha, and Hans Richter, the chapter shows how debates among intellectuals, pedagogues, and artists on both sides of the Atlantic revolved around concepts of propaganda and education to promote democracy. The chapter contributes to the field of useful cinema studies by mapping the transnational network of people, ideas, and materials involved in using moving images as tools for shaping the human mind.

Ethnographic Films from Iran

Iranian ethnographic films began with a focus on preserving Iran’s diverse traditions and indigenous cultures. Many of these films were salvage documentaries marked by nostalgia for disappearing traditions of rural and tribal life. The earliest film from this tradition is Grass (1924), which is about tribal migration and was made by American explorers before ethnographic films were recognized as a tradition. The impetus to preserve rural and tribal cultures first came from a group of filmmakers who were trained by a team of specialists from United States Information Service’s (USIS) film program and a team of filmmakers from Syracuse University, who came to Iran in the late 1940s and 1950s to help with development and modernization. They made propaganda and educational films that promoted industrialization, health, agriculture, and education in remote regions of Iran. They also trained Iranian filmmakers who later made actuality films, some of which could be considered ethnographic, with support from state institutions such as the Ministry of Culture and Art and National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT). The notion of what constitutes ethnographic film has been debated by scholars and filmmakers since ethnographic film was first conceived. Ethnographic film has occupied a marginal space in the academic discipline of anthropology because many films that are considered ethnographic lack rigorous scientific research and are not made by anthropologists. Many of the films discussed here are documentaries that provide detailed documentation of daily life and customs of Iranian people but most are not films made by ethnographers. Meaningful university support for the production of academic ethnographic films was rarely available in Iran, except during the leadership of Nader Afshar Naderi at Tehran University’s Social Sciences division in the early 1960s. He introduced ethnographic film to Iranian academia and made several films with detailed attention to customs and traditions of Iranian tribes. Besides films about tribes and Iran’s cultural traditions that have continued into the present day, since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, films of ethnographic value have been made about the Iran-Iraq War and more recently about urban life. Filmmakers documented the eight-year war in a long-running television series that observed soldiers on the front lines. Finally, since the early 2000s, some independent filmmakers have made films that focus on city life, particularly documenting lives of young Iranians, or have made personal and autobiographical films by turning the camera on their own lives.