Post-1995 French cinema: return of the social, return of the political?

A key trend in post-1995 French cinema has been the return of the social. Analysing this trend, this article seeks to evaluate its politic impact. Using Hervé Le Roux’s Reprise (1997) and Agnès Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000) as key meta-texts, it suggests that the current wave of politically engaged cinema needs to be approached in new ways that recognise how films trace the impact of a politically unmediated, ‘raw’ real on groups or individuals. It further suggests that the withdrawal of political mediation gives the films an essential ambiguity and a melodramatic quality that, rather than mere cliché, may be a privileged way to engage with the violence of the real. Film is now not so much in the van but dans le bain of a diverse socio-political stirring

National, transnational, or supranational cinema? Rethinking European film studies

This article discusses critical parameters and historical perceptions that have dominated the academic study of European cinema since the 1990s. The main argument is that what has been frequently ignored is the supranational dimension of the term ‘European’. Thus, while the field of European film studies has witnessed a number of significant shifts in emphasis (most pertinently the refocusing from art cinema towards popular film genres), the core debate still primarily centres on national cinemas. The article then suggests engaging in areas that exemplify interconnectedness between national cinemas. These include patterns of inter-European migration and issues of multiculturalism; industrial practices such as co-productions; as well as localized strategies of receiving foreign films through mechanisms of translation and adaptation