Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context

The opening up of Poland economically and politically to global influences after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, coupled with the rise of transnational approaches to the study of film, presents ideal conditions for examiningPolish cinema from a transnational vantage point. Yet not only have studies of Polish cinema remained largely within a national framework but Polish cinema, as well as many other Eastern European cinemas, has been virtually excluded from new research in transnational cinema.
Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context addresses this lacuna in film studies, offering extended analysis of this national cinema's global influence. Contributors assess the reception of Polish films in Europe and North America, Polish international coproductions, the presence of Polish performers in foreign films, and the works of subversive émigré auteurs like Andrzej Zulawski and Walerian Borowczyk. The collection presents familiar films and filmmakers in a new and revealing light, while also focusing on lesser-known filmmakers and aspects of Polish cinema. The resulting volume moves the discussion beyond the border of Polish national belonging.

Contributors: Peter Hames, Darragh O'Donoghue, Helena Goscilo, Dorota Ostrowska, Charlotte Govaert, Eva Näripea, Izabela Kalinowska, Ewa Mazierska, Alison Smith, Lars Kristensen, Jonathan Owen,Michael Goddard, Robert Murphy, Kamila Kuc, Elzbieta Ostrowska

Ewa Mazierska is professor of film studies at the University of Central Lancashire. Michael Goddard is senior lecturer in media at the University of Salford.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Polish Cinema beyond Polish Borders
West of the East: Polish and Eastern European Film in the United Kingdom
The Shifting British Reception of Wajda's Work from Man of Marble to Katyn
Affluent Viewers as Global Provincials: The American Reception of Polish Cinema
Polish Films at the Venice and Cannes Film Festivals: The 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s
How Polish Is Polish? Silver City and the National Identity of Documentary Film
Postcolonial Heterotopias: A Paracinematic Reading of Marek Piestrak's Estonian Coproductions
Poland-Russia: Coproductions, Collaborations, Exchanges
Train to Hollywood: Polish Actresses in Foreign Films
Polish Performance in French Space: Jerzy Radziwilowicz a Transnational Actor
Polish Actor-Directors Playing Russians:Skolimowski and Stuhr
An Island Near the Left Bank: Walerian Borowczyk as a French Left Bank Filmmaker
Beyond Polish Moral Realism: The Subversive Cinema ofAndrzej Zulawskii
Polanski and Skolimowski in Swinging London
The Elusive Trap of Freedom? Krzysztof Zanussi's International Coproductions
Agnieszka Holland's Transnational Nomadism
Selected Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index