Theorizing transnational cinema, part 1

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Theorizing transnational cinema, part 1

• Mari Maasilta
• 6.2.2006

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Why do we need the concept of transnational
cinema?

• existing categories of national cinema, third
  world cinema, Third Cinema do not correspond the
  conditions of the globalised world

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• National cinema
• cinema industry of a certain nation
• cinema consumed by national audiences
• the best cinematic works of the nation
• in relation to national and cultural identity and
  traditions
• But who are real nationals?
• Third World Cinema, Third cinema
• World cinema

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Consequences of falling between categories

• discursive ghettos
• participation in festivals
• distribution
• lack of criticism

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Definition of transnational cinema

• Cinema made by displaced filmmakers living in
  exile or in diaspora
• Interstitial and artisanal modes of production,
  distribution and consumption
• Hybridity of style, identifications and ideology

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Displaced filmmakers

• Two periods of displacement
• 1950s-1970s Third World decolonisation, national
  liberation wars, Westernisation
• 1980s and 1990s varied reasons including such as
  the failure of nationalism, socialism, and
  communism, economic globalisation, the rise of
  militant Islam, the changes in immigration
  policies, technological developments

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Reasons for displacement

• Political reasons, exile (Chile, Turkey, Iran)
• Labour/service possibilities (Indians)
• Trade/business possibilities (Chinese and
  Libanese)
• Education/training (colonialism)
• Cultural reasons
• Family reasons

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Transnational filmmakers

• Exilic filmmakers
• Diasporic filmmakers
• Postcolonial ethnic and identity filmmakers
• Not stable categories, individuals can move from
  one category to another

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Exilic film makers

• have left their homeland voluntarily or
  involuntarily because of political reasons
  (interrogations, censorship, imprisonment)
• ambivalent relationship with the homeland
  anger/desire for return
• accent homeland and their people in their works
  more than themselves

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• typical positive chronotopes of home nature,
  mountains, monuments
• negative chronotopes of home or exile prison
• Yilmaz Güney Yol (1982)

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Diasporic filmmakers

• different motivations desire for better and
  welthier life, labour and education etc.
• nostalgic relationship with the homeland shared
  with compatriot diasporic communities
• collective memories of idealised homeland

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• accent both homeland and compatriot diasporic
  communities in their works
• Paulin Vieyra Afrique sur Seine (1955)

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Postcolonial ethnic and identity filmmakers

• immigrants or decendants of nonwhite,
  non-Western, postcolonial émigrés
• Black British cinema, Beur cinema in France
• accent in their works their ethnic and racial
  identity whithin the host country
• Mathieu Kassowitch La Haine

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How do displaced filmmakers contribute to the
filmmaking of their homeland?

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How do displaced filmmakers contribute to the
filmmaking of their homeland?