The Emergence of Film Culture

Between the two world wars, a distinct and vibrant film culture emerged in Europe. Film festivals and schools were established; film theory and history was written that took cinema seriously as an art form; and critical writing that created the film canon flourished. This scene was decidedly transnational and creative, overcoming traditional boundaries between theory and practice, and between national and linguistic borders. This new European film culture established film as a valid form of social expression, as an art form, and as a political force to be reckoned with. By examining the extraordinarily rich and creative uses of cinema in the interwar period, we can examine the roots of film culture as we know it today.

Between the two world wars, a distinct and vibrant film culture emerged in Europe. Film festivals and schools were established; film theory and history was written that took cinema seriously as an art form; and critical writing that created the film canon flourished. This scene was decidedly transnational and creative, overcoming traditional boundaries between theory and practice, and between national and linguistic borders. This new European film culture established film as a valid form of social expression, as an art form, and as a political force to be reckoned with. By examining the extraordinarily rich and creative uses of cinema in the interwar period, we can examine the roots of film culture as we know it today.

List of Figures
Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Emergence of Film Culture
Malte Hagener

PART I: FORMATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE

Chapter 1. Policing Race. Postcolonial Critique, Censorship and Regulatory Responses to the Cinema in Weimar Film Culture
Tobias Nagl

Chapter 2. The Visible Woman in and against Béla Balázs
Erica Carter

Chapter 3. Encounters in Darkened Rooms: Alternative Programming of the Dutch Filmliga, 1927-1931
Tom Gunning

Chapter 4. When Was Soviet Cinema Born? The Institututionalization of Soviet Film Studies and the Problems of Periodization
Natalya Ryabchikova

PART II: NETWORKS OF EXCHANGE

Chapter 5. Eastern Avatars. Russian Influence on European Avant-gardes
Ian Christie

Chapter 6. Early Yugoslav ciné-amateurism: Cinéphilia and the institutionalization of film culture in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the interwar period
Greg DeCuir, Jr.

Chapter 7. Soviet-Italian Cinematic Exchanges. Transnational Film Education in the 1930s
Masha Salazkina

Chapter 8. The Avant-garde, Education and Marketing: The Making of Non-Theatrical Film Culture in Interwar Switzerland
Yvonne Zimmermann

PART III: EMERGENCE OF INSTITUTIONS 

Chapter 9. Interwar Film Culture in Sweden. Avant-Garde Transactions in the Emergent Welfare State
Lars Gustaf Andersson

Chapter 10. Building the Institution. Luigi Chiarini and Italian Film Culture in the 1930s
Francesco Pitassio and Simone Venturini

Chapter 11. A New Art for a New Society? The Emergence and Development of Film Schools in Europe
Duncan Petrie

Chapter 12. Institutions of Film Culture. Festivals and Archives as Network Nodes
Malte Hagener

Chapter 13. The German Reichsfilmarchiv in an International Context
Rolf Aurich

Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index