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Deglobalization has arrived as a symptom of globalization's overextendedness. Organized through policies and thought practices that take ideological, economic, and cultural forms as significant to the homeland — these deglobalist agendas which accord a worldwide phenomenon since the 2010s – are implemented via a decoupling from cosmopolitan outlooks, multilateral trade deals and even cross-cultural and intercultural exchanges in media. This article wishes to theorize deglobalization to shed light on how it helps us to identify the localization of capital, tariff increases, and a new phase in cinema history: 'the deglobal cinema phase'. I will also argue that Cloud Atlas (2012) and Okja (2017) are permutations of global cinema and films that are counterhegemonic to deglobal cinema's focus on national seclusion and deglobalization's cordoning off national from global space. Thus, global cinema's currency and the systems it builds and critiques has presupposed a pathology of the outside, to turn film into the collective life of the planet in the face of forces that now purport the inside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the absence of African cinemas in three key fronts of western-led global film canons: cinema history, film criticism and the industry. It reflects on the mechanisms and processes that, invariably, have been creating and replicating in mass form the so-called global film culture that reveals itself in a more or less evident, hegemonic way. It also argues that as world cinemas advance on these three fronts, African cinemas have not made much headway to impact global directions in cinema canons significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the capacity of refugee images to evoke compassion and incite political action. I argue that the Christian image economy perseveres in the Western mediascape and that the religious icon displaces the depicted suffering into a spiritual realm, thus blocking an active engagement with distant events. The argument builds on a close analysis of Fatih Akin's The Cut (2014), a filmic depiction of the 1915 Armenian genocide and the ensuing odyssey of an Armenian man in search of his daughters. In a self-reflexive manner, The Cut illuminates audience responses to suffering as it is displayed in the visual media of cinema, the icon, and photography. I emphasize a photograph's ability to convey the mourning of another exactly through what remains oblique to a general audience. The paper suggests that mourning, rather than compassion, provides an effective model for ethical responses to contemporary crises of mass displacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the commercial success of Black Panther (Coogler 2018) and its ostensible achievement of making Hollywood more representative of black people and “their” narratives, the film is limited in terms of the progress on inclusion it can achieve. This is because, as a Hollywood superhero film, its success is predicated upon perpetuating the colonisation of the imagination of its (still largely white) spectators and it does not represent black people on their own terms. A close focus on form exposes the film as retaining the spectacular and action-orientated visual language of Hollywood that engenders cinema as fundamentally voyeuristic and imperial. In this way, a close examination of Black Panther supports the examination of limits of what the commercial structure of an industry established upon the colonial gaze of spectacle is currently able to produce. This paper goes further and also argues that decolonisation in cinema should involve a more radical confrontation of Hollywood aesthetics and the formal language of Hollywood’s gaze itself, so that the embodied visual languages of global cinema and New Black cinema may be more widely employed to reveal the world of those colonised by Hollywood as materially different, on their own terms. It is only by going beyond the success of films like Black Panther in the box office and through a radical investigation of form and haptic visuality that the considerably unequal structure of the Hollywood boardroom − which produces such films in the first place − may be transformed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carol O’Sullivan and Jean-François Cornu (eds.), The Translation of Films, 1900–1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for The British Academy, 2019), pp. xxii + 321, ISBN: 9780197266434 (hb), £70.00.

Túndé Kèlání's films have mostly been analysed in relation to their social and cultural context of origin; they have hardly been made the object of larger comparisons with the work of non-African filmmakers. However, Kèlání's conscious and articulate intermixing of both local and international cultural and stylistic influences, the wide international circulation of his work, and its explicit autonomy in relation to commercial filmmaking (Nollywood in particular) suggest the possibility of comparing his work with that of filmmakers from other regions of the world who position themselves in relation to comparable socio-political contexts and confront similar artistic and political challenges. This is why, following Jean-François Bayart's call to 'de-dramatize' African case studies in order to bring to light their global relevance, this essay will compare Kèlání's work with that of the Southern Italian filmmaker Vittorio de Seta, whose life and work present some unexpected and thought-provoking parallels with those of Kèlání. This analysis ultimately shows that both filmmakers are intimately concerned with the creation of a convivial society, in which past and present can cohabit thanks to the affirmation of a philosophy of radical humanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on Walter Benjamin's "Critique of Violence," this paper illuminates the complexity of law and violence in global biopolitical cinema. Benjamin's key notions ("lawmaking" and "law-preserving," "mythical" and "divine" violence) are revisited through diverse films such as The Dark Knight series, Dogville, The Act of Killing, and Waltz with Bashir. The paper explores how the sovereign agents of killing here embody 'pseudo-divine violence,' posing ethical dilemmas about justice and life's value. This analysis leads to the quest for 'true divine violence' without sovereign power and the sanctity of humanity believed only as potential to retain and relay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, since the introduction of individually controlled multichannel entertainment systems on-board, it has become customary to see a growing range of international cinematic selections being made available to airline passengers. The film selection is no longer dominated by Hollywood fare; average long-haul flights now feature films sourced out of Bollywood, East Asia, and Europe, as well as from other cinematic traditions—and the selection grows in size and in variety, especially on flights that bridge together far-flung parts of the world. It is an unprecedented situation—to see global cinema “live”, as it were, on board of global airlines—that turns the airlines into territories of conviviality, as no similar levels of diversity are found in the actual geographical territories of the countries where the airlines are based. Some research questions that arise in this context include: is it possible to speculate that the programme that airlines make available to audiences on long-haul flights is reflective of a specific understanding of diversity and cosmopolitanism that underwrite their choices? What message does the multifaceted and multinational entertainment menu of global airlines convey in a political context that is defined by backlash against globalisation and cosmopolitanism? Can one claim that global airlines are now one of the few platforms where global cinema is recognised and represented in its largest assortment?

The article discusses the topics of nationhood, Westernization, Sinicization, modern national identity and nationalism in Chinese films. Other topics include how the Opium War in the 1840s started Chinese modern history, how Western influences launched the concept of nationhood, and the features of Chinese art and entertainment in early Chinese cinema.

The author calls for continuity and continuation of the study of women's cinema. Attention is drawn to the blurring of memory and even erasing women from the history of national film industries. They are not recognised as authors, while the history of cinema has been subject to the concept of the auteur film-maker. The filmmakers are made through the commitment and work of film critics and then cinema historians. The expert does not hide the fact that those relationships are strengthened by bonds of friendship, without the fear of being accused of having a lack of objectivity, and are often associated with the support of the author on the international festival circuit. The author calls for 'watching across borders', i.e. a supranational approach to the study of women's cinema. Crossing the borders of national cinemas, in which the authors have not been recognised, allows a broader perspective to see the critical mass of the authors of world cinema. Politically, for the feminist cause, it is better to talk about European women's cinema. Iordanova selects from the history of Central and Eastern European cinema, the names of authors who did not receive due attention. Moreover, she proposes specific inclusive and corrective feminist practices: the inclusion of filmmakers in the didactics, repertoires of film collections and festival selections; a commitment to self-study by watching at least one woman's film a week. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article identifies problems and consequences of international coproduction of films in Western European countries. Issues discussed are influence of Western funders over the distortion of ethnic representation, authenticity and minority narratives of the films they fund such as the case of "Luna Papa," impact of Western European funding on artistic freedom, and self-exoticization as an effect of international coproduction demonstrated by the film "Mustang."

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Copyright of Romanian Journal for Baltic & Nordic Studies/Revista Romana de Studii Baltice si Nordice is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Globalization is a centuries-old phenomenon. In pinpointing its contemporary meaning, however, globalization can be thought of as inseparable from the intricate and varied prisms of a neoliberal plurality—the ‘neoliberalisms’ of the world. For, even in a world dominated by economic volatility, both neoliberalism and globalization have been shown to transcend ethnic borders, lines of communication, and languages by bringing commerce and culture closer together. Global cinema, argued in this essay, is a way to comprehend this transcendence of the national. It is perceived as a positive concept that diminishes the neoliberal ‘scale’ of marketing campaigns, namely world literature and world cinema, implicating all things in its cultural web of non-Western production. While previous linguistic-political rephrasing of ‘the world’ to ‘the global’ has been tied to the pathbreaking research conducted by literary scholar Shu-mei Shih, sociologist Saskia Sassen, and film scholar Dudley Andrew, my usage of the global is also novel in two ways. First, it tames national cinema's depictions of its own home-grown social mores by showing itsoutwardnessglobally, yet simultaneously implies a regional scaling of pressing national issues such as poverty, labor woes, armed conflict, and health concerns; and second, global cinema acknowledges not a world of difference beyond the West, but a reflexivity to the world that is globally integrated by market forces and interethnic convergences that exists between the Global South and Global North axial divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Editor's Introduction to Part One of this two-part theme issue described the articles and offered thoughts on ways of looking at film in American-East Asian relations. This essay, the Introduction to Part Two, weighs the rewards and problems of using fiction film to represent history and other cultures. The dilemma inherent in fiction is that if we portray the past and foreign cultures as being "just like us," we gain immediacy and connection, but at the cost of ignoring cultural difference and historical change. On the other hand, if we respect the "strangeness of the past," we gain authenticity, analytic truth, and responsibility but invite sterility, academic solipsism, and isolation from the public. The essay concludes with a list of questions on how to learn about art, politics, and business when we compare film cultures and national projects across the Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory essay addresses the reception of The Cathedral (2006) by filmmaker Harrikrisna Anenden. It focuses on the way in which the visualized Creole culture translates and transmits a specific Mauritian way of life that appeals to a global spectatorship. The essay is followed by an interview with the director who speaks about the process of cinematic adaptation of the short story 'La Cathédrale' (1977) by Ananda Devi. He explains the challenges he faced during the production of his first feature film in Mauritius. Cette introduction à l'interview analyse la réception du film The Cathedral (2006) du cinéaste Harrikrisna Anenden, L'essai souligne la façon dont la culture créole que le film met en image arrive à traduire et à transmettre le mode de vie mauricien et aussi à interpeller un public mondial. L'introduction est suivie d'un entretien avec le réalisateur qui parle du processus d'adaptation cinématographique de la nouvelle d'Ananda Devi, 'La cathédrale' (1977), ainsi que des défis auxquels il a dû faire face durant le tournage de son premier long métrage à l'île Maurice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the resurgence of a new mainstream cinema, a new Hollywood cinema (or Bollywood cinema for that matter), which I'm calling multiplex cinema. In the current moment of post-diasporic and post-Internet globalization, which is driven by two seemingly contradictory movements in the world intersecting with each other, I apply the context of multiplex from the site of film exhibition to film texts. Of these two movements in the world, one (the post-diasporic) involves increasing physical displacement and dispersion of people across the globe, the other (the post-digital) is the increasing consolidation and digitization of media. The presence of large, displaced and globalized populations of both spectators and the producers of these works is important to the emergence of this global cinema, as well as these works' historical debt to accented cinema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hakuchi, Kurosawa Akira's 1951 film adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, finds its proper historical context in post-World War II cultural criticism. In this period an interest in Dostoevsky was shared by many artists and intellectuals who sought the larger cultural causes of the catastrophe that had involved all industrial nations. Kurosawa's turn to Dostoevsky contributes a Japanese variant to the series of ethical revisions of modernism attempted in Europe by such artists and thinkers as Thomas Mann, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Mikhail Bakhtin. For them Dostoevsky represented an alternative model for an ethically differentiated collective consciousness, in opposition to the now discredited father of modernism, Friedrich Nietzsche. Through a reading of the film's crucial scenes and motifs, Kurosawa's cinematic mediation between the West and the East is shown to have started from the shared premises of the ethically revised modernism that emerged from the wartime trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]