[Commlist] CFP "For a Multipolar History of the Film Industries: Centre-Periphery Relations in the Cold War Years"

Call for Essays for the thematic section of Cinéma & Cie no. 45 "For a
Multipolar History of the Film Industries: Centre-Periphery Relations
in the Cold War Years", edited by Giorgio Avezzù, Francesco Di Chiara
and Paolo Noto.
(https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/announcement/view/895)
Deadline for abstract proposals: September 30, 2024.

In a groundbreaking study of European cinema, Thomas Elsaesser
reflected on how European cinema has often been defined by comparison
with Hollywood (Elsaesser 2005). Taking the Hollywood studio system as
the only term of comparison has affected not only the symbolic and
aesthetic forms, but also the ways in which historiography has
conceived the study of film industries. This comparison has been
especially true since the publication of Janet Staiger’s pioneering
work on classical Hollywood’s modes of production, which provided a
blueprint for understanding national film industries in terms of
evolution toward a standard model of vertical integration revolving
around the role of producers to systems built upon specific unit
packages of production.

Recent comparative studies of film industries and networks, influenced
by new cinema history, have revealed that many peripheral cinemas,
from India to Turkey, from Italy to Sweden, from Poland to Mexico,
share many more elements with each other than they do with the
standard supposedly identified with the Hollywood studio system. These
commonalities include whether that be in terms of protectionist
measures, state intervention, fragmented industrial landscape, or
reliance on independent regional distribution (e.g., Sedgwick 2022;
Mehta & Mukherjee 2020). Even the supposed dominance of Hollywood,
which is most evident in runaway productions, sometimes resulted in a
system of exchange in which national industries were both exploited
and benefited by American capital (Steinhart 2019). Recent research on
the subject has thus prompted further questions. How do peripheral
industries relate to each other? Do they connect autonomously, and/or
via the “center” of the system? What formal and informal arrangements
are made between them? How does an image of a multipolar world
circulate through professionals, technologies, and represented places?
What are the barriers to and possibilities of artistic and
professional exchanges among peripheral industries with respects to
Hollywood?

This journal issue aims to address these and other questions within
the period of time that goes from the end of the Second World War and
to the end of the Cold War. This was a period of relative economic and
political stability, over the course of which throughout which the
cinema industry, still the dominant form of screen entertainment, saw
the emergence of a multipolar environment where the hegemony of
Hollywood in Europe was counterbalanced by the Soviet bloc and its
influence on Central and Eastern European cinemas; it was also a
critical period for the consolidation of other highly influential film
industries. Finally, it was during this extended period that the
foundations were laid for a system of managing relations between
nation-states and the film industry in the form of co-productions and
cooperations, which became increasingly harmonised from the 1990s
onwards.

This call for essays for Cinéma&Cie special issue “For a Multipolar
History of the Film Industries: Centre-Periphery Relations in the Cold
War Years” is conceived within the scope of the PRIN 2022 project
TRAFFIC – Tracing American and Foreign Funds in Italian Cinema
(1945-1962). Topics of interest include:

The impact of Hollywood on the creation and development of national
film industries
The reaction of peripheral film industries to Hollywood’s hegemony:
Policies, protectionism and international relations
Transnational circulation of professionals, capital and currency, 
technologies
Transnational investment in foreign studio assets and spillover effects
The impact of international relations on the censorship process
Neo-colonial relations between national film industries
Relationships between the film sector and other industries in the
international circulation of non-film-related goodsand services
Questions of geographical and cultural representation: How
international relations help to select and negotiate creative and
textual aspects of films (e.g., recurring cast, themes and narratives,
the location market)

References

Elsaesser, Th. (2005) European Cinema: Face to Face to Hollywood.
Amsterdam: AUP.
Bordwell, D., Staiger, J. & Thompson, K. (1985) The Classical
Hollywood Cinema. Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. London &
New York: Routledge.
Mehta, M. & Mukherjee, M. (2020) Industrial Networks and Cinemas of
India. Shooting Stars, Shifting Geographies and Multiplying Media.
Abingdon: Routledge.
Sedgwick, J. (ed.) (2022) Towards a Comparative Economic History of
Cinema, 1930–1970. Cham: Springer.
Steinhart, D. (2019) Runaway Hollywood: Internationalizing Postwar
Production and Location Shooting. Berkeley: University of California
Press.

Submission details

Please send a 400-word abstract in English or in French, comprising up
to 5 bibliographical references, 5 keywords, and a 150-word
biographical note to (giorgio.avezzu /at/ unibg.it),
(francesco.dichiara /at/ uniecampus.it) and (paolo.noto2 /at/ unibo.it) by 30
September 2024. Notifications of acceptance will be emailed no later
than 15 October 2024. If the proposal is accepted, a 6,000/7,000-word
essay must be submitted for double-blind peer review by the end of
March 2025.

Cinéma & CIE is an open access, peer-reviewed journal indexed by
Scopus. No payment from the authors will be required. Further details
can be found on the journal's website
(https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/index).

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