Russian Film Symposium 2007: Melodrama and Kino-Ideology (fwd)

[Listserv Administrator]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:57:59 -0400
From: "Padunov, Vladimir" <padunov at PITT.EDU>
Reply-To: "SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list"
     <SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] Russian Film Symposium 2007: Melodrama and Kino-Ideology

The ninth annual Russian Film Symposium will be held at the University
of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Filmmakers from Monday 30 April through
Saturday 5 May 2007.  Information is available at
http://www.rusfilm.pitt.edu

This year's Symposium, Melodrama and Kino-Ideology, explores an enduring
paradox: on the one hand, throughout the history of the Soviet and
post-Soviet film industry, genre cinema has been dismissed by
Russo-Soviet directors as a distant and alien phenomenon, the product of
the "bourgeois film industry" (in Soviet times) or the "globalized film
industry" (today).  On the other hand, as Russian and Western film
critics agree, since at least 1999 Russia's resurgent film industry has
been driven by genre films (the gangster film, the war film, the buddy
film, the romantic comedy, and-most frequently-the melodrama).

Russian melodrama differs markedly from its Western counterpart, where
the focus on matters of "private life" avoids explicit political issues.
The response, then, by much Western scholarship on melodrama is the
attempt to tease out melodrama's unacknowledged ideological components.
By contrast, Russo-Soviet melodrama has tended to be
self-consciously-one might even say, requisitely-ideological, embedding
the "private" sphere within the "public" one.  Historically insufficient
to the ideological demands of Marxism-Leninism, prone to dismissal as
trite and insubstantial, Soviet melodrama had been perpetually
vulnerable to charges of inadequate vigilance and Party-mindedness; its
film texts struggled to manifest the ideological dimension explicitly so
as to shore up a place in the industry.  How does contemporary Russian
melodrama exhibit symptoms of this past?  Can we still see the
ideological threads running through today's work, or do we, by contrast,
see a kind of new exultation in the opportunity finally to shoot
melodrama on its own terms?

The working thesis of this year's Symposium suggests that Russian
melodrama, functioning in the legacy of the second world, necessarily
positions itself within this historical demand for explicit ideological
categories.  While the film texts' articulation of ideology may differ
widely-from ironic and subversive to self-justifying and redemptive-the
ghost of ideology continues to haunt much of contemporary Russian
cinema, and melodrama in particular.    And unlike mainstream Western
film studies, which would take up the task of discovering the
unacknowledged ideological moment in Western melodrama, this project
seeks to examine the ways in which ideology, having functioned in the
Soviet twentieth century as a mandatory, core assignment (the "social
command") still operates today as a central problematic in even the most
domestic and private treatments of contemporary Russian life.

Melodrama and Kino-Ideology provides two fora: public screenings at the
Melwood Screening Room of Pittsburgh Filmmakers, with brief
introductions and public discussion; and a scholarly component at the
University of Pittsburgh, consisting of research presentations,
screenings, and debate.  This year's films include a survey of recent
Russian melodramas (2005-7): Artem Antonov's Polumgla (2005), Aleksei
Balabanov's It Doesn't Hurt (2006), Ivan Dykhovichnyi's Inhale-Exhale
(2006), Ekaterina Grokhovskaia's Man of No Return (2006), Boris
Khlebnikov's Free Floating (2006), Andrei Kravchuk's The Italian, Iurii
Moroz's The Spot (2006), Kira Muratova's Two in One (2007), Aleksandr
Rogozhkin's Transit (2006), Avdot'ia Smirnova's Relations (2006),
Aleksandr Veledinskii's Alive (2006), and Ivan Vyrypaev's Euphoria
(2006).

_________________________________________
Vladimir Padunov
Associate Director, Film Studies Program
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
427 Cathedral of Learning           voice: 1-412-624-5713
University of Pittsburgh               FAX: 1-412-624-9714
Pittsburgh, PA 15260                        padunov at pitt.edu

Russian Film Symposium   http://www.rusfilm.pitt.edu

KinoKultura                       http://www.kinokultura.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                     http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------