Cinemas in Crisis Post-2022

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Affiliate Organization: Working Group on Cinema and Television

Brief Description

It has now been three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In this period, cinema has gained new importance. No longer limited to art or entertainment, it has become, thanks to its collaborative production and communal reception, an important site of civic engagement. Documentary cinema in particular has taken on the burden of witness with regard to both the horrific war crimes and human rights infractions and, more broadly, the massive demographic and cultural shifts taking place. The stream of refugees from Ukraine and anti-war migrants from Russia has resulted in large diasporic audiences, so that it is no longer appropriate to think of these cinemas in purely national terms. Finally, the necessity of co-production and online distribution have resulted in much more complex, transnational flows, as well as a growing number of works produced anonymously or collectively. Our roundtable considers how Ukrainian and Russian cinema have reinvented themselves in this moment of crisis, with particular attention to how these shifts in fundraising, production, and distribution strategies are affecting film form. Among other things the participants will discuss: new approaches to/renewed importance of documentary filmmaking (anonymous documentaries - e.g. Manifesto (2022, Vinchito); directing remotely, such as Andrei Loshak’s Pentagon, Vitaly Mansky’s Eastern Front; “guerilla” documentary (Mr Nobody Against Putin, 2025)); shifting modes of visibility/circulation/distribution; cinema in immigration (Pavel Kostomarov, Kiril Serebrennikov, Un/Filmed school); the shift to new media (the boom of Russian YouTube etc).

Sub Unit

• Cinema, Television, Electronic Media

Chair

• Justin Allen Wilmes, East Carolina U

Roundtable Speakers

• Jeremy Hicks, Queen Mary, U of London (UK)

• Anastasia Kostina, Columbia U

• Masha Shpolberg, Bard College

• Justin Allen Wilmes, East Carolina U