New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 

About: New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film is an academic journal published by Intellect. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Movie theater & Queer. It has an ISSN identifier of 1474-2756. Over the lifetime, 179 publications have been published receiving 834 citations.

No place like home? Or impossible homecomings in the films of Fatih Akin 1

Abstract: Akin, one of the most prominent directors of contemporary German- Turkish cinema, describes himself as a German filmmaker and - at least until the international success of Gegen die Wand/Head-On (2004) - downplayed the relevance of his ethnic background for his creative career. And yet, his feature films exhibit most of the characteristics associated with 'accented cinema', a type of cinema which has been identified by Hamid Naficy as an aesthetic response to displacement through exile, migration or diaspora. The underlying theme of Akin's films is the migrant's experience of rootlessness and the redemptive promise inherent in the return to ones Heimat. This paper examines chronotopes of homeland in Kurz und schmerzlos/Short Sharp Shock (1998), Solino (2002) and Head-On and asks to what extent the preoccupation with Heimat, alongside the eclectic mix of generic templates which have informed Akin's films,

Crisis and Creativity: The New Cinemas of Portugal, Greece and Spain

Abstract: This article examines the new cinemas, film cultures and discourses emerging from three of the film-producing nations most adversely affected by the Eurozone crisis. Through case studies arising from Portugal, Greece and Spain, the article explores the enhanced visibility of independent film-making at a time in which the role and the very survival of the state-subsidized film industries in recession Europe has been crucially thrown into question. This comparative analysis suggests, conversely, the cyclical nature of the discourse of crisis and explores the creative responses mobilized by European cinema.

Asia Extreme: Japanese cinema and British hype

Abstract: Can ‘hype’, used by Thomas Austin, Mark Jancovich and Barbara Klinger to describe Hollywood marketing strategies, also help us understand the promotional activities of independent British film distributors who have been promoting mainly Japanese and South Korean genre films under a variety of ‘Extreme Asia’ brands since 2001? This article will examine how these distributors and the print/broadcast media are involved in the process of discursively segmenting a variety of audience taste formations, and then recruiting these niche demographics to build an aggregate audience by generating multiple promises and invitationsto-view, or ‘hype’, around a film text. I will examine the various discourses used to constitute these niches, including those of ‘cult’ subcultural identity, auteurism and other notions of authorship, textual alienation effects and Orientalist cultural essentialism. I will focus on those exceptional texts in which this multiplying process has been particularly successful, in particular Miike Takashi’s Audition (1999). When is a film Japanese? ‘Hype’ is usually associated with the horizontally and vertically integrated transnational media conglomerates of which the Hollywood studios are part, and is defined as their ability to multiply satellite texts, merchandising and numerous other ‘invitations-to-view’ around their core cinematic product (Austin 2001). It is through this process that films can be constructed as ‘dispersible texts’: Products that can be sold to multiple audience niches. This is now a basic business imperative for Hollywood producers, retailers and exhibitors, as it is the primary means to manage the risk of launching a new title (Austin 2001; Hantke 2005: 55; Jancovich 2002: 315, 318; Ang 1995: 11). By contrast, the ability of small independent distributors to develop such textual polysemy has been presumed to be limited by the smaller number of media outlets that give space to products considered marginal, such as foreign-language cinema. However, in this essay I will argue that the proliferation of media space that the DVD format, digital television and the Internet have opened up in the UK since the end of the 1990s has allowed such companies to ape the majors in distributing films as dispersible texts (Austin 2001: 29; Klinger 1989: 10). Independent distributors have succeeded in doing this in part by building a brand or ‘habit’ of watching films to incorporate those titles with less potential for stand-alone, cross-over appeal, creating ‘a community of people who are 53 NCJCF 5 (1) 53–73 © Intellect Ltd 2007 Keywords