Description
Book SynopsisCinemasaurus examines contemporary Russian cinema as a new visual economy, emerging over three decades after the Soviet collapse. Focusing on debates and films exhibited at Russian and US public festivals where the films have premiered, the volume's contributors—the new generation of US scholars studying Russian cinema—examine four issues of Russia's transition: (1) its imperial legacy, (2) the emergence of a film market and its new genres, (3) Russia's uneven integration into European values and hierarchies, (4) the renegotiation of state power
vis-à-vis arthouse and independent cinemas. An introductory essay frames each of the four sections, with 90 films total under discussion, concluding with a historical timeline and five interviews of key film-industry figures formative of the historical context.
Trade Review"With these crisscrossing themes and trajectories, Cinemasaurus
carefully traces a nuanced picture of multiple, often contradictory, tendencies in Russian film today. It looks equally to the past and future; and it investigates features both little and large, both peripheral and imperial. For these reasons, the editors and contributors are to be congratulated alike. Ideally suited to cinema survey classes, Cinemasaurus
will offer clarity to both students and scholars, and it will prompt substantial future research." - Studies in European Cinema"In its broad intellectual ambition, and in the consistently informed and incisive essays of the young scholars whom [Condee] has nurtured, this handsomely produced volume is also a salute to her own inestimable contribution to our understanding of contemporary Russian cinema and society." - Russian ReviewTable of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword Stephen M. Norris
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Transliteration and Translations
- Cinemasaurus: Introduction Nancy Condee, Alexander Prokhorov, and Elena Prokhorova
- Part One. Borders of Imperial Desire
- Framing Essay Nancy Condee
- 1. Imperial Fatigue: Somnambulants, Ghosts, and Monsters Olga Kim
- 2. Empire Reloaded: Sacred Power in a Postmodern Era Justin Wilmes
- 3. Russia's Quiet Other: Dmitrii Mamuliia's Another Sky and Aleksandr Kott's The Test
- Ellina Sattarova
- Part Two. Hilarity and Horror
- Framing Essay Alexander Prokhorov and Elena Prokhorova
- 4. Laughing Apocalypse: Horror and/as Comedy Daria Ezerova
- 5. Eccentricity, Theatricality, and the Grotesque Robert Crane
- 6. Privatized Violence in the New Russian Cinema Denis Saltykov
- Part Three. Evropsk or Russia?
- Framing Essay Seth Graham
- 7. Fragments of Empire: The Heartland in Post-Soviet Film Zhanna Budenkova
- 8. Russia on the Margins? Tetyana Shlikhar
- 8. Contending Alterities: Drag Show, Roma Camp . . . Trevor Wilson
- Part Four. The Ideological Occult
- Framing Essay Petre Petrov
- 9. Past, Present, and Posthumous Fathers: Cinepaternity Reloaded Theodora Trimble
- 10. New Auteurism: The Case of Mikhalkov and Bekmambetov Olga Mukhortova
- 11. Elki: The Most Profitable Franchise of the Putin Era Beach Gray
- Part Five. Interviews
- 12. The Mediascape: Alexander Rodnyansky (CEO, AR Films, Non-Stop Production)
- 13. The Festival: Sitora Alieva (Program Director, Kinotavr)
- 14. The Exhibition Space: Paul Heth (CEO, Rising Star Media; Karo Film Holding)
- 15. The Film Journal: Birgit Beumers (KinoKultura, UK)
- 16. The Film Symposium: Vladimir Padunov (Russian Film Symposium, US)
- Kino-Grafik
- Notes on the Contributors
- Works Cited
- Index
