Monday 20 July 2009

Are you now or have you ever been a non-anglophone film blogger?


HarryTuttle -- he of one of Film Studies For Free's favourite film blogs Screenville, based in Paris (France!) -- is seeking greater contact with non-English language speaking (or not only English-language speaking) film bloggers - in the first instance with ones from 'Iran, China/Hong Kong, [...] Africa, Taiwan, South Korea, The Philippines, Thailand, Argentina, Japan, Mexico, Turkey, India, Russia'.

Tuttle's aim is both simple and highly laudable: the greater internationalization of critical film discourse by expanding the voices contributing to it, as well as by connecting those voices up much more effectively.
I dream of a blogosphere we could navigate to meet film lovers from any [...] country, and be able to read their thoughts on cinema, in their own language, or translated (one way or the other). I talked about this project for a long time now (here for example), without being able to discover new blogs out there on my own, so I hope to find some help in a collective effort for everyone interested in this endeavour. All help is welcome if you share this concern to meet foreign film bloggers.
The project is connected (as per the link in the quote) to some comments made by Adrian Martin in a FilmKrant article last November:
Almost every film magazine on the Net sticks to an old, pre-WWW format: reviews of current film releases, the latest Film Festivals and events and books, some general reflections on cinema and its cultural context. But the idea of the 'local' reigns supreme: when a new film reaches your city, that's when you devote serious attention to it - for the sake of your local audience. But why should it matter, any longer, whether You, the Living premieres in Cannes in 2007 or Melbourne in 2008 or Iceland in 2010? Cyber-magazines still refuse to face the implications of their global address; they are afraid to throw open their topics and co-ordinates.

[...]

[T]he film magazine of the future will be both a generator and an organiser of those critiques.

[Also see the related blog post Nomad Cinephilia (Adrian Martin)]
Great stuff! For its part, to begin with, Film Studies For Free has contributed what it hopes will be a useful link for Screenville's project: one to the website Global Voices Online which has a film feed HERE.

But, if you can help or simply want to find out more about this project, please visit Harry at Screenville tout de suite!

1 comment:

HarryTuttle said...

Thank you very much for the help Catherine.