Structured film-viewing preferences and practices : a quantitative analysis of hierarchies in screen and content selection amongst young people in Flanders

Aleit Veenstra, Philippe Meers and Daniel Biltereyst address a specific segment of a typical small-market audience—Flemish youth film viewers. Their study “Structured Film Viewing Preferences and Practices: A Quantitative Analysis of Hierarchies in Screen and Content Selection among Young People in Flanders” deals with one of the symptomatic problems of the era of convergent audiences, the multiplication of screens used for domestic consumption of audiovisual content. Building an intriguing empirical design, Veenstra and her colleagues aim to identify patterns of screen selection and their relation to the perceived value of Hollywood, European and domestic Flemish films. Their conclusion is that there are well-articulated hierarchies applied by the audience members in the selection of both film titles and reception screens and that, to put it simply, in the case of screens, size matters

The internationalisation of the German film industry in the 1950s and 1960s

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN027623 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Giants, sultans, and other strangers: Fritz Kortner in British cinema, 1934-37

This article charts the brief British film career (1934–7) of renowned German-Jewish actor and director Fritz Kortner (1892–1970). Although this period has often been neglected and regarded as insignificant in previous accounts of Kortner's life, this article argues that there is much to discover in his cinematic activity during this time, in terms of variety of performance approaches and techniques, of sometimes openly racially inflected and sometimes more coded characterisations, as well of explicit attempts by Kortner to make a political intervention. The article also compares the reception of Kortner by different audiences and constituencies, including the British press, Kortner's fellow émigrés across Europe, particularly in his original homeland of Austria, and as far afield as Palestine

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

'Being European': UK production companies and Europe

This article discusses the relationship between UK film producers and Europe, offering a historical overview and an extended case study of an existing company, Number 9 Films. It argues that although UK film production and the attitude of policy makers have been shaped by American economic interests, Europe represents an important conceptual and cultural space that encourages producers to make films that are distinctively different from the dominant Hollywood model. Drawing on a range of commentators and original interviews, the article argues that in an era of regional porosity and transnationalism, the traditional polarity between European art cinema and commercial Hollywood is being reimagined and the boundaries re-drawn. This has created a shifting ‘middle ground’ that can be occupied by producers who are prepared to seek collaborations and funding from a varied range of sources. The case study of Number 9 Films analyses how these processes work in detail, examining the company’s multiple and cosmopolitan identities and its business model. It concludes by discussing the company’s move into ‘high end’ television drama production arguing that this shift is typical of independent UK film producers, demonstrating the increasing convergence between the two forms and also a further stage in the evolution of European audiovisual production