Cinema of Flames: Balkan Film, Culture and the Media

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Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019 M07 25 - 320 pages
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)
 

Contents

Acknowledgments
War in the Balkans Moving Images
Are the Balkans Admissible? The Discourse on Europe
Narrating the Balkans
Narrative and Putative History
Balkan Film and History The Politics of Historical
Kusturicas Underground Historical Allegory
Taking Sides
Villains and Victims
Representing Womens Concerns
Gypsies Looking at Them Defining Oneself
Visions of Sarajevo The World Comes to the Balkans
Migrating Mind and Expanding Universe The Balkans
Aftermath? Fragmentary Notes
Bibliography
Filmography

Violence Violated Trust Indoctrination Self

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About the author (2019)

Dina Iordanova is a Lecturer at the Centre of Mass Communication at the University of Leicester and an editor of The BFI Companion to Eastern European and Russian Cinema (2000)

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