Iluminace 2017, 29(3):9-26 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1528
Restructuring a Cinema That Didn't Exist. The Romanian Film Industry of the 1990s
- Universitătii Babes-Bolyai
This article documents and describes the ways in which the Romanian film industry was restructured in the 1990s. It also explores the structural, legislative, financial and ideological continuities of this period with the manner in which this field of cultural production was organized in the 1970s and the 1980s. Using a contextual analysis of several documents from the National Archives of Romania (RoFilm Fund, 1986-1989), interviews with the most influential film directors of that period as primary research data, and scholarly sources (both in Romanian and English), I argue that the collapse of the state-socialist mode of film production, financing, and distribution produced adverse structural effects in the 1990s, undermining the desired relaunch of the Romanian film industry as a national cinema and postponing the integration of Romanian cinema within a transnational network.
Keywords: Romanian film industry, Romanian National Archive, cultural production, film production
Published: September 1, 2017 Show citation
References
- Alex. Leo Șerban, 'Despre un cinematograf care nu există', in 4 decenii, 3 ani si 2 luni cu filmul românesc (Iași: Polirom, 2009).
- Andrei Gorzo, Lucruri care nu pot fi spuse altfel. Un mod de a gândi cinemaul de la André Bazin la Cristi Puiu (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2012).
- Dominique Nasta, Contemporary Romanian Cinema: The History of an Unexpected Miracle (London: Wallflower, 2013).
- Doru Pop, Romanian New Wave Cinema: An Introduction (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014).
- Florian Potra, 'Cinematografia română în căutarea propriului său chip', Lupta de clasa, no. 9 (1970), p. 33.
- Roland Barthes, 'The Death of the Author', Aspen, no. 5-6 (1967).
- Mihai Dinu Gheorghiu, 'Romanul realității - Autenticitate și valoare', Amfiteatru, no. 2 (1980), p. 5.
- Radu Toderici 'Deceniul autorilor: ce s-a întâmplat cu filmul românesc în anii '90?', in Andrei Gorzo & Gabriela Filippi (eds.), Filmul tranziției. Contribuții la interpretarea cinemaului nouăzecist (Cluj-Napoca: Tact, 2017), p. 193.
- Petr Szczepanik, 'The State-Socialist Mode of Production and the Political History of Production Culture', in P. Szczepanik and P. Vonderau (eds.), Behind the Screen: Inside European Production Cultures (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 122-124.
Go to original source...
- Nicolae Ceaușescu, 'Cuvântarea tovarășului Nicolae Ceaușescu la întâlnirea cu creatorii din domeniul cinematografiei', in Scânteia, no. 8718 (March 1971), p. 3.
- Marcin Adamczak, 'Polish Cinema after 1989. A Quest for Visibility and a Voice in the Market', Iluminace, vol. 24, no. 4 (2012), p. 47.
- Valentin Cojanu, 'Avantajele competitive în producția globală de film. Cazul României', CCREI Working Papers Series, no. 5 (October 2014), p. 21.
- Ioana Uricaru, 'Follow the Money. Financing Contemporary Cinema in Romania', in Anikó Imre (ed.), A Companion to Eastern European Cinemas (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), pp. 427-452.
Go to original source...
- Andrea Virginás, 'Hungarian and Romanian film production in transnational frameworks: small domestic taste', in Jana Dudková and Katarína Mišíková (eds.), Transformation Processes in Post-Socialist Screen Media (Bratislava: Academy of Performing Arts, Institute of Theatre and Film Research-The Slovak Academy of Sciences, 2016), pp. 77-96.
- Bogdan Jitea, 'Avatarurile cinematografiei de tranziție. Studiu de caz R.A. CINEROM', in Andrei Gorzo & Gabriela Filippi (eds.), Filmul tranziției. Contribuții la interpretarea cinemaului nouăzecist (Cluj-Napoca: Tact, 2017), pp. 241-264.
- Andrew Baruch Wachtel, Remaining Relevant after Communism: The Role of the Writer in Eastern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
- Constantin Parvulescu, 'Opening Titles and Authorship in Romanian Socialist Film', Iluminace, vol. 26, no. 3 (2014).
- Mircea Martin, G. Călinescu și complexele literaturii române (Pitești: Paralela 45, 2002).
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.