Cinema and the Environment in Eastern Europe

Masha Shpolberg is Assistant Professor of Film and Electronic Arts at Bard College. She is currently at work on a book entitled Labor in Late Socialism: The Cinema of Polish Workers’ Unrest. In addition to this volume, she is also co-editor, with Anastasia Kostina, of Contemporary Russian Documentary, forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press.

“This collection provides a comprehensive analysis of Eastern European film culture and ecocinema, integrating them expertly to provide a deep historical and geocultural analysis of variations in ecocinematic representations and the ways these film cultures have been engaging with environmental matters. The contextualization of existing scholarship with the particularities of Eastern European political and cultural history is exciting and innovative.” • Pietari Kaapa, University of Warwick

• List of IllustrationsIntroductionMasha Shpolberg and Lukas BrasiskisPart I: Industrializing the Bloc: Cinema of the Socialist PeriodChapter 1. Sad Landscapes: Panoramic Photography and Documentary Film in the Czech LandsKatie Trumpener and Alice LovejoyChapter 2. From Mastery to Indistinction: Nature in Thaw-Era CinemaLida OukaderovaChapter 3. Spectres of Ecology in Cold War Soviet Science Fiction FilmNatalija MajsovaPart II: Environmental Crisis and the Nuclear ImaginaryChapter 4. Post-Apocalyptic Landscapes: The End of August at the Hotel Ozone and the Czechoslovak New WaveBarbora BartunkovaChapter 5. Fallow Fields: Crises of Masculinity and Ecology in Piotr Andrejew’s ‘Tender Spots’Eliza RoseChapter 6. Catastrophe, Obliquely: The Revival of the Essay Film Form in Soviet Documentaries About ChernobylMasha ShpolbergPart III: Animals Between the Natural and the SocialChapter 7. Animals in Modernity: Shaping the Urban Landscape in Lithuanian DocumentaryNatalija ArlauskaitėChapter 8. Mongrelizing Interpretation: The Animal in Contemporary Hungarian CinemaRaymond DeLucaPart IV: From Communism to Capitalism: Privatization and the CommonsChapter 9. Okraina and ‘Oil Ontology’ in Post-Soviet Russian CinemaJosé AlanizChapter 10. The Commercialization and Destruction of Nature in Contemporary Bulgarian CinemaDina IordanovaPart V: Towards an Eastern European Eco-cinemaChapter 11. Coming to the Senses: Environmental Ethics in Contemporary Slovenian CinemaMeta MazajChapter 12. Cinema of the Forest People: Environmental Consciousness, Authorship and Genre in Post-1989 Polish FilmKris Van HeuckelomChapter 13. Beyond the Utopian Landscape in Post-Soviet Russian CinemaJeremi Szaniawski and Michael CramerChapter 14. Recycling, Citroën Cars, and Roma Refugees in Boris Mitić’s Pretty Dyana (2003)Alice BardanChapter 15. From Water to Wind: Elemental Critique in Recent Eastern European Video ArtLukas Brasiskis