Screening The Balkans: Dina Iordanova’s “Cinema of Flames”

Spaces of Identity no.1, 2001

NECSUS_European Journal of Media Studies. #Futures, 2021

Filmicon: Journal of Greek Film Studies, 2020

The cinema of the Balkans has a rich history of creativity, having contributed to world cinema with a fair number of masterpieces, as well as with significant national film movements and trends. Directors such as Dušan Makavejev, Yilmaz Güney, Lucian Pintilie, Emir Kusturica, Theo Angelopoulos, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Cristian Mungiu, and Yorgos Lanthimos are auteurs of international stature, known much beyond the cinephile cycles. At the same time, the Yugoslav Black Wave, the Zagreb School of Animation, the Romanian New Wave and the Greek Weird Wave have created an artistic and cultural legacy that constitutes an indisputable point of reference for its achievements. This cinematic tradition remains vibrant today by a new generation of filmmakers who, responding to the global developments of the film industry, are making films in a framework of regional and international cooperation. Following the existing scholarship in cultural, historical and film studies, editors Lydia Papadimitriou and Ana Grgić, present, through a collection of thirteen essays, an examination of the latest developments in Balkan cinema, putting special emphasis on transnational collaborations. Taking as a starting point 2008, the year of the global economic crisis, the assigned texts cover all national cinemas of the region in individual chapters. Balkan cinema is approached with a unified geographic scope, strengthening thus its existence as 'an entity of clearly discernible thematic and stylistic affinities' (Iordanova, 2006: 3). Most importantly, the collective volume enriches Balkan cinema's study by focusing on film industry activities and highlighting sociοpolitical contexts. It is worth noting that some of the cinemas examined in the book (i.e. those from Montenegro, North Macedonia or Kosovo) are discussed for the first time in English literature.

Thomas Elsaesser pointed out in his seminal book European Cinema / Face to face with Hollywood (2005) that in the post-national period “Films’ attention to recognizable geographical places and stereotypical historical periods” begun to “echo Hollywood’s ability to produce ‘open’ texts that speak to a diversity of public, while broadly adhering to the format of classical narrative.” (p. 82) No matter how much this tendency had appeared in the past in the cinemas of the Balkans, not so rarely also in the period of “national” cinemas under communism, we have to deal today with small cinemas, which in most part confirm just mentioned hypotheses. This holds true in the case of many feature films, which deconstruct the past, but it could be proven in an increasing number of feature films, which make use of genre codes or simply try to work on globalized topics. However, at the same time, the location of the Balkans, its immeasurable cultural diversity, reach and in many respects baffling violent history remains to be a ground for some singular visualisations and dramatization in films by younger generations of film makers. On the other hand the “language” of visual media interferes into the formation of local cultures. Furthermore, digital technologies, which work not only in favour of democratisation and accessibility of contemporary visual media, are modifying perceptions and modes of appropriating cultural traditions. In such a framework aesthetics become interlaced with the social context and political statements in the cinema. Therefore aesthetics cannot be so transparently formulated as they could have been in times, when they made use of metaphors and “hidden” messages. Small cinemas of the Balkans nevertheless enter the world cinema as rather “readable” to global audiences and especially to those, who attend many film festivals. Keywords: film, socialism, post-communism, world cinema, nationalism

Revista “HipoTesis”, Hipo 4, Excepciones de excepción/ Exceptional Exceptions, 2016

It is not easy to objectively present exceptional and 'wounded' cultural space of post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) that has been interwoven with divided histories, opposing views and conflicting identities. In still present war discourse it is difficult to find a single common ground which would allow people to start over again and build peaceful future of the space. This paper is trying to identify the possibility to recognize the cultural space in the art of the film, which could be helpful in this complex task. It is assumed that recognition of cultural layer of the space is the basis for comprehension of the processes which have defined complex space of BiH. The analysis uses an insight into a cross-section of cinematic art from the period of breakup of Yugoslavia, attempting to describe shared cultural context of events that happened in the last 25 years. The paper establishes an exceptional connection between a film space and perception of cultural space, in searching for hybrid identity as a basis for common future.

Film Quarterly

Since 1993, Thessaloniki International Film Festival has been home to the Balkan Survey program, showcasing new films from the region as well as presenting retrospectives of the work of significant Balkan film directors. Now in its 24th edition, the Balkan Survey offered a survey of new and exciting films from the region, and also included a special tribute on film adaptations. This special tribute, “From Words to Images: Balkan Literature and Cinema,” presented, both new and old, important and ground-breaking works from the archival collections and film heritages of each nation. This selection of landmark works from Balkan cinema comes at a mature moment when the Balkan Survey has almost completed a generation of screenings, now celebrating the best of Balkan cinema through the tribute to film adaptations. However, access to archival films in the Balkans still remains a challenge. The lack of formal cooperation and infrastructure in the region has a detrimental effect on the preser...

Colloquia Humanistica, 2014

How to Escape? The Trap of the Transition in the Recent Cinema of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2000-2012)The paper concerns the latest cinema of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2000-2012). Focusing on the cinema of social criticism (represented by movies which try to rethink the new socio-political order gradually emerging in BiH after the war of 1992-95), the authors recognize the Bosnian society as a community captured in the trap of an unfinished system transition. The story of the Bosnian society, simultaneously stuck in a dysfunctional and oppressive state and completely devoid of any prospects for the improvement of this situation, seems to be dominated by several escape strategies into an alternative reality: the nostalgic past, the imagined present or the utopian future. In that sense, the Bosnian cinema of social criticism turns out to be a cinema of social escapism. Jak uciec? Pułapka transformacji w najnowszym kinie Bośni i Hercegowiny (2000-2012)Tekst dotyczy najnowszej kinematografi...

The paper concerns the latest cinema of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2000-2012). Focusing on the cinema of social criticism (represented by movies which try to rethink the new socio-political order gradually emerging in BiH after the war of 1992-95), the authors recognize the Bosnian society as a community captured in the trap of an unfinished system transition.

European Journal of English Studies