Cinemasaurus

Cinemasaurus examines contemporary Russian cinema as a new visual economy, emerging over three decades after the Soviet collapse. Focusing on debates and films exhibited at Russian and US public festivals where the films have premiered, the volume’s contributors—the new generation of US scholars studying Russian cinema—examine four issues of Russia’s transition: (1) its imperial legacy, (2) the emergence of a film market and its new genres, (3) Russia’s uneven integration into European values and hierarchies, (4) the renegotiation of state power vis-à-vis arthouse and independent cinemas. An introductory essay frames each of the four sections, with 90 films total under discussion, concluding with a historical timeline and five interviews of key film-industry figures formative of the historical context.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Foreword
Stephen M. Norris

Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration and Translations

Cinemasaurus: Introduction
Nancy Condee, Alexander Prokhorov, and Elena Prokhorova

Part One. Borders of Imperial Desire

Framing Essay
Nancy Condee

1. Imperial Fatigue: Somnambulants, Ghosts, and Monsters
Olga Kim

2. Empire Reloaded: Sacred Power in a Postmodern Era
Justin Wilmes

3. Russia’s Quiet Other: Dmitrii Mamuliia’s Another Sky and Aleksandr Kott’s The Test
Ellina Sattarova

Part Two. Hilarity and Horror

Framing Essay
Alexander Prokhorov and Elena Prokhorova

4. Laughing Apocalypse: Horror and/as Comedy
Daria Ezerova

5. Eccentricity, Theatricality, and the Grotesque
Robert Crane

6. Privatized Violence in the New Russian Cinema
Denis Saltykov

Part Three. Evropsk or Russia?

Framing Essay
Seth Graham

7. Fragments of Empire: The Heartland in Post-Soviet Film
Zhanna Budenkova

8. Russia on the Margins?
Tetyana Shlikhar

8. Contending Alterities: Drag Show, Roma Camp . . .
Trevor Wilson

Part Four. The Ideological Occult

Framing Essay
Petre Petrov

9. Past, Present, and Posthumous Fathers: Cinepaternity Reloaded
Theodora Trimble

10. New Auteurism: The Case of Mikhalkov and Bekmambetov
Olga Mukhortova

11. Elki: The Most Profitable Franchise of the Putin Era
Beach Gray

Part Five. Interviews

12. The Mediascape: Alexander Rodnyansky (CEO, AR Films, Non-Stop Production)
13. The Festival: Sitora Alieva (Program Director, Kinotavr)
14. The Exhibition Space: Paul Heth (CEO, Rising Star Media; Karo Film Holding)
15. The Film Journal: Birgit Beumers (KinoKultura, UK)
16. The Film Symposium: Vladimir Padunov (Russian Film Symposium, US)

Kino-Grafik
Notes on the Contributors
Works Cited
Index