Survivor Strategies : Czech Film Industry Facing Global Ambitions (from 1930s to 1950s)
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The proposed paper builds up on the recent endeavors in production studies to adopt different research position and to ask other questions: how a cinema industry of a small nation reacted to radical changes and new demands in the sphere of cultural policy and film industry? What strategies of adaptation and/or resistance individuals, as well as various professional associations used, when they faced such radical economical, technological, cultural, and political changes as those represented by coming of sound, Nazi occupation, post-war renewal, and “Sovietization”? Czech film industry became rather productive and self-sufficient in the 1930s. Nevertheless, it was just this level of technological development and professional skillfulness what made it an attractive target for both Nazi and Soviet film industries and their ambitions. The changes imposed on the Czech film industry during three decades caused significant shifts in attitude of Czech filmmakers, producers, and cultural functionaries towards strategies of internationalization and cosmopolite production, ambitions of export, or practices of international co-productions. But behind the highly visible changes, we can clearly recognize continuities and persistence. It gives us a chance to analyze the small, but rather stable and developed film industry as a case study for better understanding of strategies of adaptation to external demands brought by the breaking changes enumerated above. We will specifically focus on international co-operations and co-productions to explain how these practices changed their status during the decades and how far their successful implementation was dependent on personal and institutional continuities kept through the changes. |
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