Rethinking Global Film Practices: New Perspectives, Resistance and Empirical Research

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel showcases film industry research conducted by scholars who interrogate film studies paradigms through engaging with the concepts of national and transnational cinemas, studying the conditions of film practices in developing economies and countries that are often marginalised in global cinema. The empirical research projects take into account different government policies, business models, the wider media industry environments, regional and global currents.

The concept of transnational cinema has gained currency in recent decades but research into the regional circulation of East Asian films disputes the contention that transnational production, distribution and consumption of cinema is a particularly new phenomenon. East Asian cinemas have existed as regional flow for almost as long as modern film making techniques have been imported into Asia. Lee’s research demonstrates such an established, albeit transformative, network in the Asian region that can be traced back to the immediate post-war rejuvenation of commercial filmmaking. Leung’s paper focuses on the latest development in the Chinese film industry. Since the emergence of the commercialisation of mainland Chinese cinema in the 1990s it has developed in a way that presents a unique case in film industry studies with its combination of state and private interests and national, regional, and international aspirations.
Falicov moves away from large scale, mainstream cinema in her examination of different legislation, production and funding practices in a range of countries in Latin America. She demonstrates that some of these filmmakers have created grassroots business models while film laws are yet to be ratified. Ukraine would also not normally be considered part of mainstream film production and circulation. In his paper McDonald examines the piracy found in the country and the reluctance of the state to regulate it as a form of active resistance. In Falicov and McDonald’s papers then, film practices are posited from a bottom up perspective that enables us to rethink the diverse models of contemporary screen cultures. The development of the Chinese film industry has also been part of the state’s soft power strategy, and underpinned by a resistance imperative.
Govil’s research on the Indian media industries’ business information and the paradoxical difficulty of reliable archive data enriches our shared discussion of the practice of film industry research by highlighting the discursive construction of film histories. By focusing on film practices of the global South and of developing economies, the panellists’ research contributes to film industry studies by questioning existing paradigms from empirical perspectives.

Sub Unit

• Media Industry Studies

Cosponsor

• Global Communication and Social Change

Individual Presentations

• Latin American Film Industries: Industrial and “DIY” Approaches - Tamara Falicov, U of Kentucky

• The Asian Cinema Network: Technology, Development, and Modernity in Cold War East Asian Cinema - Sangjoon Lee, Nanyang Technological U

• National Cinema Revisited: The Case of Recent Developments in Chinese Cinema - Wing Fai Leung, King's College London

• Movie Piracy in Ukraine: National Resistance to International IP Governance - Paul McDonald, King's College London

• Media Industries Between Archive and Prophecy - Nitin Govil, U of California - San Diego