The Photo-filmic and the Post-human: Picturesque Landscapes at the Peripheries of Global Cinema

The chapter describes a slightly paradoxical form of the picturesque tableau that has emerged in a globalized, markedly transnational cinema. The relative autonomy of such a tableau, defined by the aesthetic of high definition digital photography, foregrounds both the single photograph’s inherent connection to death and its close ties with the art of painting. As such, it also becomes a perfect form to unfold a kind of post-human landscape, a setting for eschatological narratives told in the minimalist mode, staging a clash between elemental, biological existence and powerful forces of society that threaten this existence with imminent destruction. In the international arthouse film festival circuit we see a number of films made in the context of so-called peripheral cinemas which engage in this way the in-betweenness of photography and film in an unsettling mixture of documentary realism and pictorial detachment. The chapter focuses on the photo-filmic qualities of three such films: Timbuktu directed by Abderrahmane Sissako, Test (Ispytaniye) by Alexander Kott, and Nabat, by Elchin Musaoglu (all made in 2014).

Greek Cinema and Migration, 1991-2016

Greek Cinema and Migration examines the ways in which the cinema of Greece has responded to the post-1990s phenomenon of becoming a host country for immigrants. The book focuses mainly on migration from Albania that dominated social discourse and cinematic representation in the 1990s and 2000s, but also sheds light on cinematic responses to the mid-2010s ‘refugee crisis’. Placing contemporary Greek cinema within the context of European film production and transnational cinema, the book explores the fascination of Greek filmmakers with migration, mobility, borders and identity between 1991 and 2016. With case studies such as The Suspended Step of the Stork (1991), The Way to the West (2003) and many more, Greek Cinema and Migration provides an in-depth understanding of contemporary Greek cinema and its direct correlation to the country’s struggles to implement European modernity. It tackles important questions on identity and representation, highlighting the role of migrants as constitutive ‘others’ who help to redefine national identity in times of encroaching globalization. The book raises in addition important questions on representations of migrants and refugees in film and mainstream media, focusing primarily on the role of migrant-related violence and its links to both humanitarianism and the agenda of the Far Right which gained a strong footing in crisis-era Greece. The author thus argues that migrants and refugees appear as either perpetrators or victims of violence in an intolerant host society, strengthening thus the role of stereotypes – both negative and positive.

Transnational Chinese Cinemas

The term “transnational Chinese cinemas” first appeared in 1997 in the anthology Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender. It was coined, theorized, and introduced in the book by editor Sheldon Lu. That was also the first time the phrase “transnational cinema” was used as a book title in world film studies. The immediate occasion for the rise of this concept had to do with the cultural landscape of Greater China and of the world in general in the post-Cold War period. Film coproduction across national and regional borders became a possibility again and was done more frequently. In the case of the Greater Chinese region of the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, filmmakers began to cooperate across the Taiwan Straits to make joint productions; they secured funding and established channels of circulation beyond their immediate territories. Simply put, transnational cinema is a cinema of border crossing, and transnational film studies transcends the unit of the nation state in film analysis. It can be understood as a model of film studies, a critical paradigm, a description of the film industry, and a type of film. The full methodological, historical, and critical implications of transnational Chinese film studies are first outlined in the introduction to the book Transnational Chinese Cinemas. Transnationalism is grasped at the following levels: First, the split of China into the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in modern history and consequently the coexistence of three competing national and local Chinese cinemas; second, the globalization of the production, circulation, and consumption of Chinese film in the age of transnational capitalism since the 1990s; third, the representation and questioning of “China” and “Chineseness” in filmic discourse itself—namely, the cross-examination of the national, cultural, political, ethnic, and gender identity of individuals and communities in the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Chinese diaspora; fourth, a re-viewing of and revisiting the history of Chinese ‘national cinema’ as if to read the ‘prehistory’ of transnational filmic discourse backwards in order to discover the ‘political unconscious’ of filmic discourse—the transnational roots and condition of cinema. Transnational film studies have become a major paradigm in Chinese film studies, along with the models of Chinese national cinema, Chinese-language cinema, and Sinophone cinema. It shares certain assumptions with the other three paradigms but also has its own characteristics and differences. Transnational Chinese film studies have also evolved into a broader study of “transnational visuality.” Transnational visual culture includes feature film, documentary, video, digital media, and visual arts. This situation is especially relevant in the so-called ‘postcinema’ stage when the film medium, the platform of film circulation, and the venue of viewing have changed tremendously. There are also various forms of transnational films. For instance, there exist the commercial-global blockbuster, independent art-house film, and exilic transnational cinema. Transnational cinema emerges and flourishes in the age and condition of globalization and transnational capitalism. However, this does not mean that transnational cinema necessarily serves the interests of transnational capitalism. Such a cinema can be liberating and counterhegemonic as well, depending on the particular situation.