DEPARTMENT OF GERMAN
Screening
Identities:
Reconfiguring Identity Politics
in Contemporary European Cinema
With the Support of a "Networks" Grant from The British Academy
and in conjunction with the European Cinema Research Forum
and the University of Leeds World Cinema Group
| Introduction |
| This project is funded
by a British Academy "Networks" grant. It is designed to promote
collaborative work between researchers The specific focus of the
project is the relationship between identity Planned are a number of
conferences and workshops, exchanges and The participants also welcome
the input of other researchers active in this area. |
| Participants |
Paul Cooke (University of Leeds) Ivana Dolezalova (Jerome of Prague College) Deniz Göktürk (University of California, Berkeley) Graeme Harper (University of Wales Bangor) Marek Hendrykowski (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan) Danielle Hipkins (University of Leeds) Helen Jones (University of Wales Aberystwyth) Baris Kilicbay (Gazi University, Ankara) Dorota Ostrowska (University of Leeds) Evelyn Preuss (Yale University) Graham Roberts (University of Leeds) |
|
| Scope |
| Pressure from ‘Eastern’
European states for membership of the European Union
following the break up of the Soviet Union, the asylum
‘crisis’ arising from the Balkan conflicts of
the 1990s, the surge of immigration from North Africa, South
America and the Caribbean into Spain and that from
ex-colonies, African, Caribbean and Pacific, into France
have all meant that notions of European identity have
become increasingly contested during the latter third of
the 20th Century. In the cultural sphere, and
specifically in the realm of the mass media, the
competing discourses initiated by these kinds of changes
have raised significant questions about current notions
of any ‘European identity’, even a
multi-faceted one. Calls for a more fluid concept of
‘Europeanness’ have, however, been greeted by
the political elites of many European nation states, as
well as (perhaps most crucially) by the European Union,
with a more normative view of what membership of Europe
means. Such contesting of conditions of identity as
well as those of ‘nationhood’ have not yet been
sufficiently examined, and certainly their prevalence in
primary media modes such as cinema has not been widely
deconstructed. The film industry in Europe is
both an important avenue of cultural exchange between
European States and an industry well aware of its
financial imperatives and needs—brought about by the
dominance of the Hollywood film industry on the world
scene. On the one hand, in order to obtain funding for
film projects from the European Union, applicants are
forced to comply with certain criteria including those of
a ‘multi-language’ production ethos (the EU
Commission media programme funding organisation requiring
at least 3 ‘European’ languages and 3
mainstream member States involved on an application for
film funding for example). On the other, many film-makers
from (or on behalf of) marginal and minority groups in
Europe have challenged the EU’s agenda, which they
see as strictly vetting European identity, even positing
as a virtue their difference from the criteria of
‘Europeanness’ that is upheld by the hegemony
of Brussels. Films by ‘minority’ Europeans,
particularly in Continental Europe, are thus often made
not with the support of funders, but
against their film funding policies.
Such a juxtaposition of a ‘mainstream and
‘margin’, based on notions of Europeanness, has
not been well considered by the EU Commission to date. In the past European film scholarship has been largely dominated by critical tendencies which see its national cinemas in relation to Hollywood. However, the changing nature of Europe since the end of the Cold War clearly calls for a shift in focus to the films of those who challenge the concept of Europeanness from both within and beyond its eastern and southern borders. The need for this shift in focus is further underlined by the fact that the 1990s saw a growing number of films from national cinemas on the borders of the European Union finding international acclaim. Somewhat curiously, many of these films also have much in common with work emanating from minority voices within the EU, such as that of Basque and East German film-makers, as well as the immigrant communities of new arrivals in Europe, communities that have struggled to assert their autonomy through a cultural discourse in order to compensate for a perceived lack of the same in the political arena. The ‘Screening Identities’ Networks Project is predicated upon the need to reconfigure debates regarding the nature of European identity in the face of recent political events and to place this reconfiguration in the context of cinematic trends and film funding policies across Europe. Rather than exploring how European film-makers maintain a sense of European identity in the face of US-backed globalisation, the project will explore the work of those who consider themselves outsiders within the EU, as well as those peoples on its borders that look for inclusion in Europe from without. Exploring the paradox at the heart of the verb ‘to screen’, the project will ask how far EU funding models either exclude or facilitate the representation of minority voices? How far do western norms shape the thematic and aesthetic choices of the marginalized filmmakers of 21st Century Europe? |
Workshop at the University of Leeds on 3-4 June
Click here, for workshop programme
European Cinema Research Forum 2005
| Publication |
| A publication is planned for 2007 |
| Mailbase |
| A mailbase has been set
up to promote discussion amongst those interested in the project
You can join this mailbase by clicking on JOIN MAILBASE |