Still from Atlantique by dir. Mati Diop (2019)
New Filmic Geographies
A Post45 Contemporaries cluster edited by Suzanne Enzerink
When South Korean director Bong Joon-ho collected the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film for Parasite in January 2020, he only needed a single line to expose the cultural myopia of the US film industry. Speaking in Korean, with his translator by his side, Bong noted that “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” Whereas US awards season renders itself the pinnacle of acclaim, Bong’s remark slyly underscored its provinciality amid a global cinematic landscape. Yet, ironically, Parasite’s awards triumph was generally hailed in western media not as revealing Hollywood’s provinciality but as proof that transnational cinema had finally entered the mainstream.
Transnational cinema is, today, a privileged term. But it is marred by vagueness and has attracted criticism from various angles. It has been called a politically ineffectual version of the postcolonial. Its definition in Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader, divides cinema as either of or against Hollywood, thus inadvertently centering Hollywood. Furthermore, if transnational cinema is the aesthetic expression of an increasingly globalized world, where national film cultures have been eroded or recoded by circuits and flows (of capital, of shooting locations, actors, distribution), then this term cannot account for how the effects of globalization have been vastly uneven, especially between Global North and South.
What is our alternative? The logistical restrictions posed by the pandemic have accelerated a turn to new, creative forms and modes of production and distribution, from online festivals to revamped drive-in screenings, that are untethered from discrete geographic locales or established directional flows (between North and South, East and West). The politics of recognition, too, no longer turn exclusively on western audiences—instead, regional markets, Asian markets, and (post-pandemic) streaming markets are now paramount in the cinematic marketplace. Regionally-situated film festivals are gaining importance and influence. This cluster investigates these new filmic geographies. It asks whether the transnational retains analytic value or whether cinema is best understood through a yet-unnamed emergent formation. What are the sites of cinema today? How has the pandemic rendered Hollywood yet more provincial? What does cinema look like from the perspective of global film festivals—and what is the prestige economy in this extensive field? How have filmmakers found new markets, worked with and against dominant geopolitical forces?
I invite essays that engage these questions in the public-facing, conversational style of Post45 Contemporaries. See a recent example here. Essays are generally in the 2000-2500 words range. Please submit a brief pitch and bio to se111@aub.edu.lb by November 5, 2020. First drafts due late January 2021 with publication tentatively scheduled for early April.