ABSTRACT

A post-communist condition has arisen from the fall of the Berlin Wall and later the Soviet Empire: this book looks at how this condition has manifested itself globally in the production of post-communist film. It argues post-communism is a shared experience on a geopolitical level, unlimited by national state borders, and examines post-communist cross culturalism and global totalitarianism within film.

The book examines different national cinemas and dissimilar cinematic modes - from Russian blockbuster cinema to Chinese independent cinema; from Serbian city films to revolutionary films of Mozambique - all formulated as within the postcommunist condition. It considers the postcommunist film in terms of transnational and World cinema. It covers a wide range of films from small and independent filmmaking to mainstream, popular cinema, and explains post-communist signifiers as manifested in visual culture both inside and outside former, and current, communist countries.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

part |94 pages

Cultural Strategies, Industry and Reception

chapter 1|11 pages

National Identity in Post-9/11 Transnational Cinema

The Case of the Russian Blockbuster 9th Company

chapter 2|11 pages

Baltic Cinema

Between National and Transnational Strategies

chapter 3|18 pages

Belgrade as New York

The Voluntary Americanization of Serbian Cinema 1

chapter 4|22 pages

‘Haven't you Heard of Internationalism?'

The Socialist Friendships of Mozambican Cinema

chapter 5|14 pages

The Remains of Socialist Realism

Cyclo and Beijing Bicycle from a Postcommunist Perspective

chapter 6|16 pages

Spotting the Eagle on Anglophone Turf

Postcommunist Reception and Albanian Cinema

part |78 pages

People, Place and Nation

chapter 7|14 pages

Demolish, Preserve or Beautify

Representations of the Remnants of Socialism in Polish Postcommunist Cinema

chapter 8|13 pages

Treading New Paths

Czech and German Postcommunist Road Movies

chapter 9|9 pages

The Crime that Changed Serbia

Representations of New Belgrade

chapter 10|11 pages

Projected Nation and Projected Self

Interplay between the Virtual and the Actual in Calendar

chapter 11|17 pages

Truancy, or thought from the Provinces

On Jia Zhangke's Platform