Sunday 11 April 2010

Kinocultura: on Russian, Russo-Soviet, Eastern European, & Central Asian cinemas & television

Excerpt from the beginning of Nastroishchik/The Tuner (Kira Muratova, Russia/Ukraine, 2004)
Muratova’s tight and intricate narrative is punctuated by familiar cinematic devices, red herrings, and pranks immediately identifiable—even beyond cinema production—with Muratova’s sui generic style. [F]irst, her inclusion of a “cultural intermezzo” by an amateur artist-enthusiast.  [...]  In The Tuner, this device takes the form of a girl singer-songwriter performing on public transport and a number of other charmingly inept musicians (a clarinetist, two tuba players, random, elderly singers, and Andrei’s spontaneous “Uzbek” improvisation).  This is the utopian dimension of Muratova’s creative act: irredeemably unprofessional, yet utterly complete, self-sufficient in itself, the flawless conjuration of an inner hallucination. Nancy Condee, 'Kira Muratova, The Tuner [Nastroishchik] (2004)', Kinocultura, Issue 7  January 2005
Film Studies For Free was alerted yesterday by David Hudson at The Auteurs Daily that the April 2010 issue of Kinocultura, the Open Access journal of New Russian Cinema, had just been published online.  

This journal has been appearing since July 2003, and that simple fact makes for a true wealth of freely accessible scholarly resources. With its editorial board of leading scholars in this field, Kinocultura is quite simply one of the best film studies e-journals, with its incredibly wide-ranging scholarly articles alongside wonderful film and book reviews and dossiers/reports/roundtable discussions/videos.  

Below, FSFF has copied and pasted in the index of all full-length articles and interviews published by the journal to date. Here also is a list of Kinocultura's special issues on particular countries:#1 Central Asia (2004); #2 Poland (2005); #3 Slovakia (2005); #4 Czech Rep. (2006); #5 Bulgaria (2006); #6 Romania (2007); #7 Hungary (2008); #8 Serbia (2009); #9 Ukraine (2009); #10 Estonia (2010). Note that there are forthcoming issues on Kazakhstan and Croatia.
 
Those of you interested in Russian and Soviet film studies should also know about the following great, online bibliography, too: University of Pittsburgh Russian and Soviet Cinema.

Kinocultura - Issue 28: April 2010
Festival Report
Issue 27: January 2010
Festival Reports
AAASS 2009 Roundtable on Young Kazakh Cinema
Issue 26: October 2009
Festival Reports
Issue 25: July 2009
Issue 24: April 2009
Festival Report:
Issue 23: January 2009
Festival Reports:

Issue 22: October 2008
Issue 21: July 2008
Pittsburgh Russian Film Symposium 2008 — The Ideological Occult: Russian Cinema under Putin:
Issue 20: April 2008

Issue 19: January 2008

Issue 18: October 2007
  • Tom Birchenough: "Vladivostok 2007": The lnternational Pacific Meridian Festival
Issue 17: July 2007
Melodrama and Kino-Ideology: Pittsburgh Russian Film Symposium Roundtable:
Issue 16: April 2007

Issue 15: January 2007

Issue 14: October 2006

Issue 13: July 2006

Issue 12: April 2006

Russian TV-Serials: AAASS Roundtable 2005: "Russian TV: Past Issues of Present Concern"
Issue 11: January 2006
Issue 10: October 2005
Issue 9: July 2005
Issue 8: April 2005
Issue 7: January 2005
Issue 6: October 2004
"National Cinema": Pittsburgh Film Colloquium roundtable featuring:  
Moscow International Film Festival 2004 : Susan Larsen: At the Intersection of Art, Commerce, and National Pride  

Issue 5:  July 2004
Issue 4:  April 2004

Issue 3:  January 2004

Issue 1:  July 2003

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