Independent Film for Solidarity of Traumas in the Cinema of Turkey

Michael Rothberg introduced the concept of multidirectional memory in Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (2009). Later, many other scholars used his idea to analyze works of art, including films. Although multidirectional memory generally focuses on the possibility of establishing solidarity between memories/traumas that are geographically or culturally distant from each other, in this article it will be argued that this concept is also crucial within coexisting multicultural and multitraumatic societies. The concept of multidirectional memory, and subsequently concepts such as travelling memory and postmemory, will be examined through the analysis of an independent production from Turkey, Özcan Alper’s film Future Lasts Forever (Gelecek Uzun Sürer, 2011). With the help of critical film analysis, the multidirectional memory of Turkey’s traumatic past will be discussed as an opportunity to practice solidarity.

Product Placement in Cinema-Good Model or Irritative Advertising

Product placement is one of the forms of financing in cinema. This is a legal form for realizing hidden advertising. Adherence to strict rules when implementing a product in the final version of the film for advertising purposes is a good tool, both to fill the budget and purely plot. In American film production, product positioning is intended to add a few percent to the film's budget. In Bulgarian cinema, product positioning is used as the main source of funding for the creation of an independent film outside those funded by the National film center (NFC).

Another Cinema

James Baldwin was a vocal critic of Hollywood, but he was also a cinephile, and his critique of film was not so much of the medium itself, but of the uses to which it was put. Baldwin saw in film the chance to transform both politics and art—if only film could be transformed itself. This essay blends readings of archival materials, literature, film, and print culture to examine three distinct modes in Baldwin’s ongoing quest to revolutionize film. First, I argue, literature served as a key site to practice being a filmmaker, as Baldwin adapted cinematic grammars in his fiction and frequently penned scenes of filmgoing in which he could, in effect, direct his own movies. Secondly, I show that starting in the 1960s, Baldwin took a more direct route to making movies, as he composed screenplays, formed several production companies, and attempted to work in both Hollywood and the independent film scene in Europe. Finally, I explore how Baldwin sought to change cinema as a performer himself, in particular during his collaboration on Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley’s documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1982). This little-known film follows Baldwin as he revisits key sites from the civil rights movement and reconnects with activist friends as he endeavors to construct a revisionist history of race in America and to develop a media practice capable of honoring Black communities.

Landscape of Possibility

This essay is driven by the question of how Candra, the writer and director of Dewi pulang (2017), is able to sustain his cinematic practice, despite the controversial nature of his films. Considering the notion of landscape of possibility, this essay traces processes that precede and go beyond the production of a particular film, but which are nevertheless constitutive of its becoming. These entanglements are explored through concrete stories in dialogical engagement with film practitioners in Indonesia. Adding these to the conversation of what constitutes a film conceptually and analytically, the desired gesture of this essay is less a representation or documentation of Candra’s practice or Indonesian film communities but rather a provocation to approaches in film studies that operate on binary assumptions of landscape as an external backdrop (of text and context, film and maker, state and film production). I will argue that the evolution of film communities in Indonesia challenges commonly held assumptions about the role of the state in ‘independent’ film, and the linear ‘assembling logic’ from ‘grassroots’ to ‘mainstream’.

A catalogue and inventory for Roberto Ariganello's personal collection at Canadian filmmakers distribution centre

This is an applied project wherein 86 films by independent filmmaker Roberto Ariganello were catalogued at Canadian Filmmaker Distribution Center (CFMDC) from January-June 2018. Ariganello is acknowledged as one of the most vital cultural workers when it comes to his devotion to the independent film and art industries, and as a grouping of orphan films, this collection of Ariganello’s has been ignored for a long period of time. The outcome is an inventory for a box containing Roberto Ariganello’s collection, which is stored at CFMDC. There are two chapters: the first is a biography, and study of the status and achievement of Ariganello as an independent filmmaker, as well as a brief history of different gauges of film. The second chapter offers a reflection on the process of cataloguing, a critical analysis of the collection, and preservation recommendations.

A catalogue and inventory for Roberto Ariganello's personal collection at Canadian filmmakers distribution centre

This is an applied project wherein 86 films by independent filmmaker Roberto Ariganello were catalogued at Canadian Filmmaker Distribution Center (CFMDC) from January-June 2018. Ariganello is acknowledged as one of the most vital cultural workers when it comes to his devotion to the independent film and art industries, and as a grouping of orphan films, this collection of Ariganello’s has been ignored for a long period of time. The outcome is an inventory for a box containing Roberto Ariganello’s collection, which is stored at CFMDC. There are two chapters: the first is a biography, and study of the status and achievement of Ariganello as an independent filmmaker, as well as a brief history of different gauges of film. The second chapter offers a reflection on the process of cataloguing, a critical analysis of the collection, and preservation recommendations.

On Women of Rido: A Film Analysis of “Women of The Weeping River” by Sheron Dayoc (2016) Through the Lens of Hamm-Ehsani, Wang, Feldman, and Hsu

Several films today include the narratives of Muslim communities. Due to the vast array of movies on the subject, Muslim communities’ representation has opened many representations and interpretations, whether positive or negative. The independent film “Women of the Weeping River” (WOTWR), by Sheron Dayoc, is one of the many indie films in the Philippines that includes the Muslim community. Using the lenses of Stuart Hall (1997) “Theory of Representation,” the researchers focused on how producers utilize elements of the film in crafting their representations towards cultural groups. This study focuses on this film to elaborate the potential of independent cinema in terms of minorities and highlight social issues. In the case of WOTWR, the study also emphasizes how the Muslim community throughout the film also portrays Islamic women and the film’s influence regarding the formation of viewers’ perspectives towards the selected cultural group. Through an analysis of WOTWR, this study also aims to discuss how indie films can break away and are capable of breaking away and alluding to mainstream cinema milestones. Several frameworks like Yihan Wang’s “Ethnic Boundary and Literature/Image Representation,” Mark B. Feldman and Hsuan L. Hsu’s “Introduction: Race, Environment, and Representation,” and Karin Hamm-Ehsani’s “Intersections: Issues of National, Ethnic, and Sexual Identity in Kutlug Ataman’s Berlin Film Lola und Bilidikid,” were utilized in close reading, providing the reader with several perspectives. The study proved that independent film such as WOTWR is a powerful tool when it comes to representation because of having the privilege of autonomy.