Gendering cinema in postcommunist Hungary.

TLDR: In the drive toward capitalism that has overtaken Hungary since the collapse of communism its consequences for the culture of cinema are often overlooked in media discourses with their relentless and often exclusive focus on the vicissitudes of the transition to a market economy.

Abstract: In the drive toward capitalism that has overtaken Hungary since the collapse of communism its consequences for the culture of cinema are often overlooked in media discourses with their relentless and often exclusive focus on the vicissitudes of the transition to a market economy. Yet it is in the realm of the visual arts -- and in particular cinema -- that the evolution of subjectivity and political consciousness is perhaps most dramatically inscribed. The annual review of film production held in Budapest and known as "Film Week" offers an unparalleled opportunity for assessing the impact of the post-1989 changes on the nations consciousness. While dissident intellectuals and artists may no longer be required to play their once vital role a new generation of filmmakers is emerging to foreground and contest issues in danger of being silenced not by official censorship but by demands for commercial viability in the "new Europe" of the 1990s. Based on several years of participation in these Film Weeks since 1989 I offer here an exploration of recent trends on the horizon of this postnational and dialectical culture of cinema whose dialectics of contestation have long been its distinctive feature. (excerpt)