Dino Murtic, PhD Candidate, Social Science (Communication and Information)

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• Dino Murtic, PhD Candidate, Social Science
  (Communication and Information)
• Thesis (working) title Towards a new
  cosmopolitanism cinema on borders and the Other 
  
• Primary data/field for research
• Particular feature films produced in the Western
  Balkans (post-Yugoslav successor states)
• Research question
• What is within, around, and what is left outside
  contemporary cinematic narratives about the Other
  that may contribute to a new cosmopolitan
  project?

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• Purpose and (possible) value of the research
• To add to the understanding of a specific set of
  recent filmic texts made inside Yugoslavian
  space(s)
• Furtherance of previous studies on the Balkan
  cinema
• Iordanova, D 2001, Cinema of Flames Balkan film,
  culture and the media BFI, London.
• Levi, P 2007, Disintegration in Frames
  Aesthetics and Ideology in the Yugoslav and
  Post-Yugoslav Cinema, Stanford University Press,
  New York.

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• Yet,
• thesis ideological/discursive framework
  has the objective of simultaneously making the
  pursuit for borders as insignificant as possible,
  and the acknowledgement of the Other an
  imperative for the humanisation of humankind.
• PS. Ideology should not always have a negative
  connotation. There are, perhaps, some affirmative
  ideologies (Schwarzmantel 2008)

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• Body of the research
• Introduction
• Yugoslavian contemporary society and cinema
  (Why does it matter over there and right
  here?)
• Part 1
• Theories and methods
• Cosmopolitanism(s) revisited (multidisciplinary
  perspective)
• Cosmopolitan enemies isolated (borders and
  othering of the Other)
• Role of the visual for the cosmopolitan project

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• Part 1 continues..
• Theorising visual
• Visualisation of the theory
• Film (art) in the middle of C-A-C circle
• A film is always political (Levi 2007)
• Artists/filmmakers responsibilities
• Methods and Methodologies
• A dialog between written and seen
• From the particular to the particular -
  generalisation in suspension
• From the universal to the particular -
  deduction
• From the particular to the universal -
  induction (Agamben 2002)
• Studium and Punctum (Barthes 1981)

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• Part 2
• ..is a critical examination of strategically
  chosen films in which the narratives have the
  entire focus on or have embed some form of the
  Other
• Films are clustered in regards to the subaltern
  subject they portray and analysed through
  socio-political and aesthetic-cinematic
  languages

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Much more than filmmakers
Emir Kusturica - anti-globalist the owner of the
mountain
Danis Tanovic - the founder and vice-president of
the only multi-ethnic party in Bosnia
Jasmila Zbanic - human rights activist
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Snow (Begic 2008)
Grbavica (Zbanic 2006)
Cluster 1 A woman speaks after the war
Tears for Sale (Stojanovic 2008)
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No Mans Land (Tanovic2001)
Cluster 2 A man on margin
The Living and the Dead (Milic 2007)
Buick Riviera (Rusinovic 2008)
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Cluster 3 The Other in the Other - Roma people
in the Western Balkans
Gipsy Magic (Popov 1997)
We are people, Gypsies, cursed by the
destiny Somebody always comes around and
threatening us (Stulic, 1981)
Black Cat, White Cat (Kusturica 1998)
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• Conclusion (so far)
• Far-reaching art(illery) of cinema - a truly
  cosmopolitan media
• yet
• In the process of human humanisation,
  supposedly ethical filmic/artistic commitment
  has a peripheral status
• In the end, film is a tool and not the
  foundation of creation (Benjamin 1978/1936)
• Yet, the research welcomes and asks for further
  visualisation of the
• Other.
• Those on margins are reminders of the
  imperfections of those who create
• and govern socio-political affairs.