Cinema in Central Asia is the first comprehensive and up-to-date account of the cinema of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from its origins to the present day. Bringing together specialists from Central Asia, Russia, Europe and the United States, this companion to the cinema of the region combines serious scholarly study with practical accessibility to construct an historical narrative, discuss aspects of film production and consider the impact of film. The b...

This book explores evocations of and allusions to sexual desire in Soviet cinema, 1919–1991.By deploying several lines of investigation – from the cult of the masculine, strong body in Stalinist cinema to the shifting signification of the naked body (male and female) in post-war cinema and to the display of a sexualised body in the late Soviet era – this book establishes the extent to which Soviet cinema actually did reveal sexuality. It also explores how external political and soc...

KinoSputniks closely analyse some key films from the history of Russian and Soviet cinema. Written by international experts in the field, they are intended for film enthusiasts and students, combining scholarship with an accessible style of writing.This KinoSputnik about Fedor Bondarchuk's megahit Stalingrad (2013) examines the production, context and reception of the film, whilst offering a detailed reading of its key themes.Fedor Bondarchuk’s 2013 blockbuster fil...

KinoSputniks closely analyse some key films from the history of Russian and Soviet cinema. Written by international experts in the field, they are intended for film enthusiasts and students, combining scholarship with an accessible style of writing. This KinoSputnik on Andrei Tarkovsky's debut feature Ivan's Childhood examines the production, context and reception of the film, whilst offering a detailed reading of its key themes.Through a close examination of its intricate narrativ...

KinoSputniks closely analyse some key films from the history of Russian and Soviet cinema. Written by international experts in the field, they are intended for film enthusiasts and students, combining scholarship with an accessible style of writing.Ira Österberg's KinoSputnik on Aleksei Balabanov's cult film Brother (1997) examines the production history, context and reception of the film, and offers a detailed reading of its key themes.Balabanov’s Brother...

This is the first book to deal exclusively with Russian cinema of the 1990s. It introduces readers to the currents and common interests of contemporary Russian cinema, offers close studies of the work of filmmakers like Sokurov, Muratova and Astrakhan, reviews the Russian film industry in a period of massive economic transformation, and assesses cinema's function as a definer of Russia's new identity.

New Russian Drama began its rise at the end of the twentieth century, following a decline in dramatic writing in Russia that stemmed back to the 1980s. Authors Beumers and Lipovetsky examine the representation of violence in these new dramatic works penned by young Russian playwrights. Performing Violence is the first English-language study of the consequent boom in drama and why this new breed of authors were writing fierce plays, whilst previous generations had preferred poetry and prose...

Released in 1965, Sergei Paradjanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a landmark of Soviet-era cinema – yet, because its emphasis on folklore and mysticism in traditional Carpathian Hutsul culture broke with Soviet realism, it caused Paradjanov to be blacklisted soon after its release.This book is the first full-length companion to the film. In addition to a synopsis of the plot and a close analysis of the many levels of symbolism in the film, it offers a history of the ...

This book, based on extensive original research, examines how far the collapse of the Soviet Union represented a threshold that initiated change or whether there are continuities which gradually reshaped cinema in the new Russia. The book considers a wide range of films and film-makers and explores their attitudes to genre, character and aesthetic style. The individual chapters demonstrate that, whereas genres shifted and characters developed, stylistic choices remained largely unaffected....

Russia's New Fin de Siècle brings together a range of texts on contemporary Russian culture – literary, cinematic and popular – as artists and writers try to situate themselves within the traditional frameworks of past and present, East and West, but also challenge established markers of identity. Investigating Russian culture at the turn of the 21st century, scholars from Britain, Sweden, Russia and the United States explore aspects of culture with regards to one overarching ques...

Alongside the Arab Spring, the 'Occupy' anti-capitalist movements in the West, and the events on the Maidan in Kiev, Russia has had its own protest movements, notably the political protests of 2011–12. As elsewhere in the world, these protests had unlikely origins, in Russia’s case spearheaded by the 'creative class'. This book examines the protest movements in Russia. It discusses the artistic traditions from which the movements arose; explores the media, including the internet, film, nov...

This book examines the fate of post-Soviet press freedom and media culture in the context of the growing impact of globalisation. To understand the complicated situation that has arisen with respect to these issues in post-Soviet space is impossible without collaboration between political scientists, sociologists, cultural analysts, media studies researchers and media practitioners. The book is one of the first attempts to bridge the gaps between political and cultural studies approaches, ...