Cinema, Transnationality, and Solidarity

Opening:

 Film “Here & Elsewhere” (Jean Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville, 1976).
o contrasting footage of the Palestinian fedayeen and a French family connected by a
potent medium in globalization: television.
o Who is here? Who is elsewehere?
 RK21 AKA Restoring Solidarity (Mohanad Yaqubi, 2022).
o He shows how two very different peoples can feel connected through images, and
also raises questions. Where is the line between support and propaganda? And to
what extent can a local struggle be translated internationally?
 These films reflected transnationality as product of globalization. Cinema has been a part of
this movement and solidarity makes the actors, the activities come closer.

Synopsis:

Cinema is a potent medium in connecting cultures, identities, and societies around the
world, and transnationality in cinema has significantly changed its landscape. In this session,
speakers will explore how the concept of transnationality affects the production,
distribution and consumption of films, while considering the role of cinema in inspiring
cross-cultural solidarity. It will also discuss practices that weave cross-national kinship
through film, as well as reveal the various possibilities of this practice. All this in an effort to
understand how cinema can be a powerful tool to promote cross-cultural understanding
and support pressing global issues.

Talking Points:
1. How can cinema play an important role in building cross-cultural solidarity?
• Are there concrete examples where films have inspired or strengthened cross-
cultural understanding and support for global issues?
2. What are some cinema practices that are able to build family relationships across countries, or
break down cultural barriers through their work?
• How do these practices contribute to strengthening relations between different
communities and cultures?
3. How does transnationality affect the way films are distributed in various international markets?
• What are the challenges faced by films trying to reach audiences beyond their
home borders?
Can Sungu

Can Sungu is a curator, researcher and author. He studied film, interdisciplinary arts and visual
communication design in Istanbul and Berlin. He is co-founder and artistic director of bi‘bak and
SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA in Berlin where he curated various programs, events and exhibitions such as
the international symposium Cinema of Commoning (2022), the documentary exhibition projects Sıla
Yolu - The Holiday Transit to Turkey and the Tales of the Highway (2016-17) and Bitter Things -
Narratives and Memories of Transnational Families (2018), He has worked as a juror and consultant
for the Berlinale Forum, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Duisburger Fimwoche,
Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the DAAD Artist-in Berlin Program, among others. He has published
several books, among them Please Rewind - German-Turkish Film- and Video Culture in Berlin
(Archive Books, 2020). Between 2020-23, he has been part of the curatorial team of
Fiktionsbescheinigung at the Berlinale Forum - a film programme that parries German film history
with intersectional perspectives. Since 2023 he is curator for filmic practices at HKW in Berlin.

Abhishek Nilamber

Abhishek Nilamber (Hyderabad, 1987) is a cultural worker engaged in curation, research and
activism, transituated between Berlin and Kochi, primarily with SAVVY Contemporary. He/him is the
instigator of United Screens – a project that enquires into the challenges and opportunities between
South to South cinema and video art circulation.
Transnational cinema is a developing concept within film studies that encompasses a range of theories relating to the effects
of globalization upon the cultural and economic aspects of film.[1] It incorporates the debates and influences
of postnationalism, postcolonialism, consumerism and Third cinema,[2] amongst many other topics.

Criteria[edit]
Transnational cinema debates consider the development and subsequent effect of films, cinemas and directors which span national boundaries.

The concept of transnational flows and connection in cinema is not a new term – judging by film history and the increasing number of book titles
that now bear its name – but the recent theoretical and paradigmatic shift raises new attention and questions.

Transnational cinema urges a certain shift away from films with a national focus. Ezra and Rowden argue that Transnational cinema “comprises
both globalization […] and the counter hegemonic responses of filmmakers from former colonial and third world countries”, and further that the
transnational can link people or institutions across the nations.[3] The transnational works like a partnership which is joined together through
several mediums, such as cinema.[4] In connection to this, Sheldon Lu has identified what she calls ‘an era of transnational postmodern cultural
production’ in which borders between nations have been blurred by new telecommunications technologies as a means of explaining the shift from
national to transnational cinema.[5]

As to this, the telecommunications technologies threatens the concept of a national cinema, as especially the connection powers of the internet
links people and institutions and thereby converts national cinema to a transnational cinema. Ezra and Rowden states: "the vast increase in the
circulation of films enabled by technologies such as video, DVD and new digital media heightens the accessibility of such technology for both film-
makers and spectators".[3]

Transnational cinema’ appears to be used and applied with increasing frequency and as Higbee and Song Hwee argues, as a shorthand for an
international mode of film production whose impact and reach lies beyond the bounds of the national. The term is occasionally used in a simplified
way to indicate international coproduction or partnership between e.g. the cast, crew and location without any real consideration of what the
aesthetic, political or economic implications of such transnational collaboration might mean.[5] Based on this proliferation of the term, Higbee and
Song Hwee mention that it has led some scholars to questions whether the term is profitable to use or not. In fact, a panel on transnational
cinema took place at the 2009 Screen Studies Conference in Glasgow where members questioned the term ‘transnational’ and its critical purpose
in film theory.[5]
Key debates[edit]
A key argument of transnational cinema is the necessity for a redefinition, or even refutation, of the concept of a national cinema. National identity
has been posited as an 'imaginary community' that in reality is formed of many separate and fragmented communities defined more by social
class, economic class, sexuality, gender, generation, religion, ethnicity, political belief and fashion, than nationality.[6]

The increasingly transnational practices in film funding, production, and distribution combined with the 'imagined community' thus provide the
basis for an argued shift towards a greater use of transnational, rather than national, perspectives within film studies.[6] Global communication
through the internet has also resulted in changes within culture and has further resulted in film transcending perceived national boundaries.[7]

Ongoing definition[edit]
The broad scope of topics relating to Transnational cinema has raised some criticisms over its exact definition, as Mette Hjort notes:

(...) to date the discourse of cinematic transnationalism has been characterized less by competing theories and approaches than by a tendency to
use the term ‘transnational’ as a largely self-evident qualifier requiring only minimal conceptual clarification.[8]

Subsequently, Hjort, John Hess, and Patricia R. Zimmermann,[9] amongst others, have attempted to clearly define the utilization and
implementation of Transnational cinema theories.

The concept of ‘transnational cinema’ has been highly debated for decades and scholars have yet to agree on a single definition. In fact, in many
cases, the various definitions of ‘transnational cinema’ presented by different scholars have been very much in contradiction to one another.
Scholars have taken to breaking down the term into distinct categories, in an attempt to allow a generally broad idea to become more clearly
defined.

For example, Deborah Shaw of the University of Portsmouth alongside Armida De La Garza of University College Cork, created a carefully
crafted list of fifteen types of reading film through a transnational lens.[10] The categories included: modes of narration; national films;
transregional/transcommunity films; transnational critical approaches; cinema of globalization; films with multiple locations; modes of production,
distribution, and exhibition; transnational collaborative networks; transnational viewing practices; transregional/transcommunity films; cultural
exchange; transnational influences; transnational stars; transnational directors; the ethics of transnationalism; exilic and diasporic filmmaking; and
transnational collaborative networks.[11] In addition, Mette Hijort of Lingnan University in Hong Kong, coined seven modes of transnational
cinematic production: cosmopolitan; affinitive; epiphanic; globalizing; milieu-building; opportunistic; and experimental.[10] More broadly, Steven
Vertovec of the Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, presented six facets of transnationalism in general which he believed to
be worthy of further research. Specifically, transnationalism as: a type of consciousness; a site of political engagement; an avenue of capital; a
(re)construction of ‘place’ or locality; social morphology; and a mode of cultural reproduction.[12]
Despite these attempts to repeatedly divide transnational cinema into more digestible and comprehensible pieces, the concept still remains
largely ambiguous. The term is often used when referring to foreign films consumed by those of different nationalities with the help of subtitles, as
well as in reference to films that “challenge national identity."[13] To certain scholars it marks the moment in time when globalization began to
impact the art of cinema, while to others it stretches back to the earliest days of filmmaking. Some consider it to be “big-budget blockbuster
cinema associated with the operations of global corporate capital, [and still others define it as] small-budget diasporic and exilic cinema.”[13]

Dr. Zhang Yingjin, a professor of Chinese Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of California, San Diego, goes as far as to argue
that the term is obsolete due to the volume and inconsistency of its uses and definitions. He explains that if the concept merely points to film as a
medium that has the ability to transcend languages, cultures, and nations, then it has been “already subsumed by comparative film studies” and
therefore lacks any value within academia.[13]

Problems within Transnational Cinema[edit]

While the dynamic and often contradictory term itself sparks confusion, there remain many films that effectively represent the nature of
transnational cinema in a multitude of ways, working to unthink Eurocentric film norms. It is important to note that while traditional cinema has the
tendency to perpetuate binary division, World Cinema makes efforts to overcome those binaries to be all-encompassing and inclusive. Despite
these efforts, however, the “films most likely to circulate transnationally are those that are more ‘Western-friendly’” and have adopted “familiar
genres, narratives, or themes.” [14] This is often done to fulfill the “desire for tasty, easily swallowed, apolitical global-cultural morsels,” craved by
audiences accustomed to American Orientalism.[15]

The 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary film The Act of Killing, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer uses reenactment as a process of memory and
critical thinking in the re-telling of the Indonesian genocide of 1965. It focuses on one perpetrator, in particular, revisiting and re-enacting his
experiences as an executioner, forcing himself and audiences to physically and psychologically re-live the historical event. The re-enactment
provides a physical discourse that allows audiences and actors alike to re-live the events that took place, recreating memories on screen. While
the film takes place from the perspective of the perpetrator, focusing on the experiences of those murdered, it was not directed by anyone
involved or affected, but rather by a white, Western filmmaker. With his whiteness and Western perspective comes a sense of trust and authority
felt by Indonesian elites as well as world-wide audiences of which Oppenheimer was aware, using it to his advantage as a storyteller. This
problematic Westernized view often shines through in Oppenheimer’s questions and commentary throughout what he calls a "documentary of the
imagination". Though well-intentioned, his “love letter” of a film becomes a “shock therapy session prescribed and carried out by a concerned
Westerner” rather than an authentic retelling from the Indonesian perspective.[16]

This film is a prime example of the problems that arise within the world of Transnational cinema; Films are often tailored to the Western audience
or at the very least, told by a member of the Western world. Since most authentic transnational films void of Eurocentric influence are distributed
via film festivals rather than blockbuster screenings, they often do not easily reach Western audiences. Should films such as The Act of
Killing cross borders and nations, they require funding that only Western-based films are provided- many of which end up speaking for minority
groups from a majority perspective. As Linda Alcoff frames it, certain anthropological conversations become "conversations of 'us' with 'us' about
'them' of the white man with the white man about the primitive-nature man," constantly othering those who are oppressed or do not fall within
Eurocentric standards.[17] She believes it to be necessary that the "study of and advocacy for the oppressed" must be conducted by the oppressed
themselves, rather than those more privileged.[18] In fact, the act of speaking from a place of privilege on the behalf of those less privileged often
results in reinforced oppression of those minority groups.[18] Transnational films must strive to follow these same guidelines, allowing for stories to
be told by those who have lived them or by those still affected by the events of those stories. Creating a global community through transnational
cinema can be possible, but only when the tools and perspectives involved branch beyond the binary of Western versus "Other."

List of transnationalist films[edit]

 Rashomon (1950)[19][20]
 Yojimbo (1961)[21]

 Ju Dou (1990)[22]

 Ringu (1998)[23]

 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)[24]

 Ararat (2002)[25]

 The Ring (2002)[23]

 Batman Begins (2005)[4]

 Caché (2005)[25]

 Unveiled (2005)[25]
 Babel (2006)[4]

 The Dark Knight (2008)[4]

 Slumdog Millionaire (2008)[25]

 The Act of Killing (2012)[16]

 Parasite (2019)

Transnationalism is predicated on the idea of “flows of people and objects across

borders, between and above nation” (p. xii). Steven Rawle’s book, Transnational
Cinema: An Introduction, simultaneously extends and challenges understandings of
transnationalism and transnational cinema at a critical juncture in the
contemporary world, when far-right cultural nationalism and paranoia for the
cultural Other is gaining strength, endangering the flows of people and cultures
beyond parochial national boundaries. He demonstrates a close connection to the
emerging tension between the outbreak of cultural nationalist predispositions on
both sides of the Atlantic and the so-called permeability of national borders. The
book also comments on the extent to which the medium of cinema is affected
either by these socio-cultural developments or by consciously reproducing them.
Furthermore, through the examination of the nomenclature of transnational
cinema, the author highlights shifts in film studies over the years from
dichotomous classification of cinema in terms of “us-vs.-them” to a potentially
more inclusive approach to studying film cultures from across the world in the
context of globalisation.
The author draws the attention of his readers to the need for a careful handling of
the notion of transnational cinema. Taking the much-debated idea of world
cinema as a point of reference, he argues that an incautious attention to the
transnational cinema might lead to obfuscation of patterns of unevenly
distributed power and ambivalences. In this context, it is therefore vital to
describe, explain, and streamline the definition of transnational cinema, so that
its distinctive elements and critical potential are paid due attention to. He further
adds how the idea of transnational cinema supplements – and not replaces – the
idea of national.

In the eight chapters of the book, Rawle discusses transnationalism in terms of

conditions that arose as a result of neo-liberalism, globalisation, and foraminous
borders, which pose both a challenge and opportunity for cinema’s global
mobility. He then advocates the idea of cinema as a befitting medium to promote
cross-border socio-cultural exchanges, situating it at the core of contemporary
lives in a world under globalisation. Pointing to transnational exchanges and
collaborations that were operative since the very beginning of cinema, he cites
silent films as examples of early transnational cinema that travelled across
national borders and were distributed worldwide. Although, with the invention of
talkies, cinema started becoming restricted to local cultures, with language
serving somewhat as a barrier, globalisation enabled once again a unique
opportunity of expansion not only vis-à-vis collaboration in filmmaking, but also in
terms of content and format of films: utilising cultural elements from multiple
sources for reaching out to a wider international audience. The emerging cultural
hybridity in a number of films necessitates a transnational theory to adequately
examine them. He demonstrates how the term is increasingly being used for
cinema which “cannot be explained or analysed only in relation to a single
national context” (2).

The author sets up the ensuing inquiries by providing a detailed overview of the
characteristics, debates, constraints, and uncertainties in the discourse of the
emerging field of transnational cinema. Most importantly, for me as a non-Western
film researcher, the book problematises the idea of “world cinema” as a way of
cultural otherization, continuing the work of Lucia Nagib, Ella Shohat and Robert
Stam, Dina Iordanova, David Martin-Jones, and Belén Vidal, among several others.
To counter this otherization of the cinemas of the periphery, the author argues for
the transnational method of enquiry to create an egalitarian space for films from
non-Western cultures within the mainstream discourse of film studies. Citing
Iordanova’s research, he adds how the transnational lens also helps in
understanding the hybrid mode of distribution as a model to replace the
“traditional centre of world cinema” (11). By doing so, transnational cinema aims
to subvert the hegemony of a unidirectional flow of world cinema on one hand
and, on the other, utilise agility and multiple centres to deal with the imbalances
in questions of power and inequality that shifts in the global economy dictate.
Analysing films dealing with migration, diaspora, and cross-cultural/cross-border
experiences, he collates the key concepts and theories of transnational cinema,
illustrating how the production of films has traversed national boundaries to
transform cinema as the product of a cross-border economy and of creative
peoples in a globalised world.

Rawle’s anti-essentialist position in the book is refreshing. As opposed to a

dichotomous “us-vs.-them”, he foregrounds localised and hybrid forms at the
centre of his investigation. He devotes considerable space to this aspect in
chapters on transnational articulations of genres, remakes, Third and postcolonial
cinema, as well as exilic and diasporic cinema. By placing due emphasis on
these, he decisively explicates how the Hollywood hegemony propelled the
process of its subversion through these cinemas from the so-called periphery.
Rawle brings in the reference to Third and postcolonial cinema to this discussion
for its commitment to using films as a weapon for decolonisation and anti-
imperialist politics. Additionally, he raises the issues of identity and inequality
and highlights how globalisation plays a crucial role in fast-changing socio-
economic conditions under neoliberalism.
The one inadequacy that I found in this volume is also a common symptom shared
by most books on transnational cinema and/or world cinema. Although he refers
to John Hess and Patricia Zimmermann’s essay “Transnational Documentaries: A
Manifesto”, he does not include documentary films in his own inquiry in the book.
[1] Documentary films have been crucial, particularly with reference to Third
Cinema and postcolonial cinema; a discussion of this practice would have made
the book a more comprehensive reference material in the area of transnational
film studies.
Since the main aim of the book is to illustrate the most relevant concepts and
theories of transnational cinema, Rawle paired these with carefully selected case
studies for his argument. He situates transnational cinema, simultaneously, as a
contemporary historical phenomenon and as a framework for engagement with
the experience of transnationality. Each category of transnational cinema that he
discusses in this very well-researched book provides a list of recommended
viewing and study materials, which will be quite useful for someone trying to
acquaint themselves with transnational cinema for the first time.