Cinema of Flames: Balkan Film, Culture, and the Media

First study of cinema, media and the Balkan wars; Wide-ranging view of politics and culture of the region; The break-up of Yugoslavia triggered a truly international film-making project. Underground, Ulysses' Gaze, Before the Rain, Pretty Village, Pretty Flame and Welcome to Sarajevo were amongst a host of films created as the conflicts in the region unravelled. These conflicts restored the Balkans as a centrepiece of Western imagery and the media (especially cinema) assumed a leading but ambiguous role in defining it for global consumption through a narrow range of selectively defined images. Simultaneously, a lot of the high-quality cinematic and television work made in the region (much of it discussed in this book) remains relatively unknown. Cinema of Flames attempts to go deeper than the imagery and address some of the general concerns of the cross-cultural representation and self-representation of the Balkans: narrative strategies within the context of Balkan exclusion from the European cultural sphere, the cosmopolitan image of Sarejevo, diaspora, and the representations of villains, victims, women, and ethnic minorities, all considered in the general context of Balkan cinema. 'encyclopaedic in scope and brilliance, making excellent use of the scholarly literature whilst interweaving analysis of films and other mass media. The book will be a superb addition to the literatures on Bosnia and Yugoslavia. It will also serve as a standard reference on Balkans film.' Robert Hayden (University of Pittsburgh)

Humor & Entertainment

Iordanova, Dina

Movies

British Film Institute

This text attempts to go deeper than the imagery and address some of the general concerns of the cross-cultural representation and self-representation of the Balkans in the media.

Emir Kusturica

Emir Kusturica has won the best debut film at the Venice Film Festival and two Golden Palms at the Cannes Film Festival. In this text, Dina Iordanova provides a comprehensive study of this director.

With no less than two Golden Palms from Cannes and scores of other top awards, Bosnian-born Emir Kusturica is one of the most decorated and celebrated film directors in the world. Films such as Time of the Gypsies (1989) and Underground (1995) have captivated audiences with their extraordinary imagination, exuberant energy and challenging and often contentious subjectmatter. But Kusturica is also one of the most controversial directors working in cinema today. While many critics have praised his free-flying fantasy, others have found his films excessively exoticised and overdrawn. Some have publicly criticised his politics. He has an extensive international fan following who worship his work and think of him as a film-making genius, but there are also people who think of him as an opportunist. Dina Iordanova's study in the BFI World Directors series is a balanced examination of Kusturica's personality, films, artistry, and ideology. It acknowledges the contradictions but tries to understand and make them comprehensible to others. The text presents an overview of Kusturica's career from early films with their debt to Russian cinema and the Czech New Wave (Do you Remember Dolly Bell? 1981; When Father was Away on Business, 1985) to the most recent Black Cat White Cat (1998) and the 'rockumentary' Super 8 Story (2001). It pays tribute to his attractive and impressive aesthetics and investigates the particularities of his ideology. The author details Kusturica's artistic and personal roots dating back to socialist Sarejevo in the former Yugoslavia, examining the sources of his unique artistry, and the complex ideological and political issues that arise from their production and reception histories. Dina Iordanova's account presents a uniquely rounded view of this fascinating director showing how Kusturica's intensely held (though changing) Balkan affiliations lie at the root of a practice which has proved to be one of the latest and glorious flowerings of the European auteurist tradition.

Highlighting rising women directors alongside ground-breaking pioneers, this is a one-stop guide to the leading women film directors in the 21st century, and those who inspired them. This collection of essays, by an impressive array of international writers, examines the progress of women film directors around the world, and arrives at some surprising conclusions. From the blockbusters of the Hollywood studios to emerging voices from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Laos, we learn of women making films in traditionally male-dominated areas such as action, fantasy and horror. With wide-ranging contributions from countries with mature and nascent film industries, Celluloid Ceiling demonstrates that economic and technological changes are creating new opportunities for women film directors everywhere. With contributions from Africa, Latin America, Europe, USA, Asia and India, chapters on new voices in Japanese and Middle Eastern cinema, the book also covers women directors working in TV, and reminds us of the first woman director, Frenchwoman, Alice Guy Blaché. Exploring the rise of the independent film sector including the horror aficionados the Soska Sisters, Celluloid Ceiling asks whether economic and technological change will work to the advantage of women in film. Celluloid Ceiling follows in the footsteps of Supernova’s Women Make Noise, which lifted the lid on the widespread and destructive misogyny that still plagues the rock music world.

Celluloid Ceiling: Women Film Directors Breaking Through

Biographies & Memoirs

Ellerson, Beti

Hawkins, Maria Williams

Oughton, Karen

Bahiana, Ana Maria

Miller, Jacqui

Shaw, Nathan

Risio, Patricia Di

Chaiworaporn, Anchalee

Aquilia, Pieter

Kripalani, Coonoor

Bingham, Adam

Bilal, Iram Parveen

Field, Tania

Honeycutt, Heidi

Lewis, Karlanna

Bridges, Melody

Doyle, Ronan

Shakerifar, Elhum

Kronish, Amy

Arts & Literature

Aurora Metro Press

Cinema of the Other Europe

Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of East Central European Film is the first major study of the cinematic traditions of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia from 1945 to the present day. It explores the major schools of film-making and the main stages of development across the region during the period of state socialism up until the end of the Cold War as well as more recent transformations post-1989. The book examines how European cinema is still mostly synonymous with West European film and how the cinema of Eastern Europe is still largely excluded and under-explored. Including material on directors such as István Szabó ( Mephisto), Krzysztof Kieslowski ( Dekalog, Three Colors Trilogy) and Jan Sverák ( Kolya), this study of the 'other' European cinema thus constitutes a timely appraisal of film history and film studies debates.

Wallflower Press

Another in the 24 Frames series, each of these twenty-four essays discusses an individual film from the Balkan region (Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Albania, and the former Yugoslavia-Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia). These films represent the rich and diverse culture of the Balkans and reveal the stylistic and thematic affinities of a region often perceived as a disconnected cultural space. Films include: Stella (Greece, 1955), Goat's Horn (Bulgaria, 1972), When I Am Dead and Pale (Yugoslavia, 1969), The Red Horse (Yugoslavia, 1984), Stone Wedding (Romania, 1971), and Walter Defends Sarajevo (Yugoslavia, 1972).

The Cinema of the Balkans (24 Frames)

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