Panelist needed for Panel: Political Vision in/of Contemporary Russian CInema

[Dawn Seckler]

Dear All,

We're looking for one more paper for a Working Group on Cinema and
TV-sponosored panel for the 2013 ASEEES conference that questions the
politics and/or political vision or voice of contemporary Russian cinema.
 A full description follows.

Please respond to me at dawn.seckler at gmail.com if you have a paper that
fits these themes.

Best,
Dawn Seckler

*Russian contemporary cinema, or Revolution that still might be there*

2012 was another turning point in the recent history of Russia. It was the
year of impulsive protests and failed revolutions as well as the year of
big expectations and terrible disillusionments which were provoked by this
social activity. We will remember it primarily for the video of punk-prayer
of Pussy Riot and the broadcasting of the trial on them. For the
photographs of various protest marches of the opposition and extremely
vibrant press-conference of Putin.

All these and many other images of “raw and rough” reality have pushed out
the current Russian films beyond the boundaries of experience and even
perception. But this is not the problem, it always happens this way: “real
life” is immanently stronger than “art”. The problem is that Russian cinema
“capitulated” without any resistance. It has not been interested in current
(social, political and simply everyday) reality for a long time already,
and its political lag is not accidental and has an immense background.

Russian filmmakers (except just a few of them) pay almost no attention to
what is happening in present-day Russia. As a result the present-day life,
both political and daily one, is not transformed into mythology and stays
uninterpreted, unexplained. In general it is neither fictionalized nor
documented. Disregarding the reality finally makes it impossible to foresee
it and come to terms with its problems which, being unresolved, start to
get worse.

In a way Russia has always lived in times of revolution. Take any of its
periods and you will see that it is a time of turbulence and changes. But
revolutionary periods don't necessarily bring to life revolutionary art.
The one that accumulates and transforms the energy of time either by
supporting or opposing it. None of these processes is happening now in
Russian cinema. There are many different reasons for that (just to mention
few of them: domination of the past over the present, concept of escape
over concept of engagement, personal domain over political one etc). But
there are also some important exceptions (no surprise that almost all of
them originated in documentary filmmaking that is initially much closer to
reality than fiction).

What is the idea of revolution for the contemporary Russian filmmakers? A
missed chance? Still an opportunity to move into a different direction and
politicize the cinema? Or something that still lies deeply in subconcious
and waits for the moment to be (re)discovered?...

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