Dino Murtic, PhD Candidate, Social Science (Communication and Information)

Thesis’ (working) title: Towards a new cosmopolitanism: cinema on borders and the Other

Primary data/field for research:Particular feature films produced in the Western Balkans (post-Yugoslav successor states)

Research question:What is within, around, and what is left outside contemporary cinematic narratives about the Other that may contribute to a ‘new’ cosmopolitan project?

Purpose and (possible) value of the research:

• To add to the understanding of a specific set of recent filmic texts made inside ‘Yugoslavian’ space(s)

• Furtherance of previous studies on the Balkan cinema:

Iordanova, D 2001, Cinema of Flames: Balkan film, culture and the media BFI, London.

Levi, P 2007, Disintegration in Frames: Aesthetics and Ideology in the Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema, Stanford University Press, New York.

Yet,

thesis’ ideological/discursive framework has the objective of simultaneously making the pursuit for borders as insignificant as possible, and the acknowledgement of the Other an imperative for the humanisation of humankind.

PS. Ideology should not always have a negative connotation. There are, perhaps, some affirmative ideologies (Schwarzmantel 2008)

‘Body’ of the research

Introduction ‘Yugoslavian’ contemporary society and cinema (Why does it matter over there and right here?)

Part 1Theories and methods

Cosmopolitanism(s) revisited (multidisciplinary perspective) Cosmopolitan enemies isolated (borders and othering of the Other)

Role of the visual for the cosmopolitan project

Part 1 continues..

Theorising visual Visualisation of the theoryFilm (art) in the middle of C-A-C circle A film is always political (Levi 2007)Artist’s/filmmaker’s responsibilities

Methods and MethodologiesA dialog between written and seenFrom the particular to the particular - generalisation in suspensionFrom the universal to the particular - deductionFrom the particular to the universal - induction

(Agamben 2002)Studium and Punctum (Barthes 1981)

Part 2

..is a critical examination of strategically chosen films in which the narratives have the entire focus on or have embed some form of the Other

Films are clustered in regards to the subaltern subject they portray and analysed through socio-political and aesthetic-cinematic languages

Jasmila Zbanic - human rights activist

Much more than filmmakersEmir Kusturica -anti-globalist;the owner of the mountain

Danis Tanovic -the founder and vice-president of the only multi-ethnic party in Bosnia

Grbavica (Zbanic 2006)

Tears for Sale (Stojanovic 2008)

Snow (Begic 2008)

Cluster 1

A woman speaks after the war

The Living and the Dead (Milic 2007)

No Man’s Land (Tanovic2001)

Buick Riviera (Rusinovic 2008)

Cluster 2

A man on margin

We are people,Gypsies,

cursed by the destinySomebody always comes around and

threatening us (Stulic, 1981)

Gipsy Magic (Popov 1997)

Black Cat, White Cat (Kusturica 1998)

Cluster 3 The Other in the Other - Roma people in the Western Balkans

Conclusion (so far)

Far-reaching art(illery) of cinema - a truly cosmopolitan media

yet

In the process of human humanisation, supposedly ethical filmic/artistic commitment has a peripheral status

In the end, film is a tool and not the foundation of creation (Benjamin 1978/1936)

Yet, the research welcomes and asks for further visualisation of theOther. Those on margins are reminders of the imperfections of those who createand govern socio-political affairs.