*CFP* "PERIPHERAL CINEMA(S)", ISSUE Nº 3, TRANSLOCAL: CULTURAS CONTEMPORÂNEAS LOCAIS E URBANAS

A cultural phenomenon generated in the context of an urban, cosmopolitan and scopophilic modernity, in which the invention of new devices and techniques for registering and projecting images crossed sometimes with aesthetic and creative experimentalism, sometimes with journalistic, scientific and artistic interest in documenting reality, cinema took on an axial role in what Michel de Certeau (1990) called the practice of everyday life. Decisive for the definition of this visual regime simultaneously euphoric and phobic, transgressive and enlightening, as Isabel Capeloa Gil (2007) referred to, cinema has definitively contributed to the reconfiguration of contemporary societies, to the definition of its borders and for the prioritisation of its eco-sociocultural systems, by enhancing the flow, conveyance and re-imagination of values as well as social, cultural, political and economic dynamics that have organised the urban fabric from the end of the 19th century onwards.

This prominence did not invalidate, however, that the cinema also occupied a certain peripherality in the cultural, artistic and scientific systems. This has happened simultaneously because of its impure and sometimes massified character, often oscillating between the marketing of entertainment and information, and ideological propaganda; as well as because of its hybrid speech and radical gesture of the cinematographic vanguard, ascertained both at the level of creative experimentation in the conception of film language as to the level of world images selected and disseminated, daring to give voice to a plurality of narratives hidden in the dominant representations of these and in these societies, or making visible alternative ways of thinking about them, acting on them and reconstructing them in a less hegemonic way.

Both a product and a producer of the contemporary urban world, in this oscillation between cultural phenomena of masses and peripheral or avant-garde cultural phenomenon, cinema has integrated that duality in its own taxonomic classification, which is far more volatile and complex than the dichotomy can suggest.

/Peripheral cinema/is one of the terms used to refer to the production of films on the fringe of Hollywood. Since (and surpassing the initial preponderance of French cinema) American cinema, through a production, distribution and screening model, has become hegemonic almost all over the world, the cinematography of other countries and regions was considered – and thus designated – as peripheral, in relation to this supposed centre, which is not only an imaginary centre but has imposed a system of representation. The most obvious consequence of this hegemony was underlined by Guy Hennebelle in the seminal text Les cinémas nationaux contre Hollywood (National Cinemas Against Hollywood, 1978), quoting Glauber Rocha and Jean-Luc Godard when they expose how, through films, a standardization of the society which is based on a North American model and that twists world reality and diversity was imposed. This observation has generated an area of identitarian resistance, which applies not only to the production of films, but includes reflection on the imaginary they offer.

As an alternative to the use of the term “peripheral cinema” – or its declension in the plural – the cinema produced outside Hollywood has been approached using the "world cinema" category, which Lúcia Nagib has been reflecting on from considerations of cinematographic realism, proposing alternatively the concept of realist cinema, especially in the recently published Realist cinema as world cinema (2020).

In the mindset of a world cinema as opposed to Hollywood cinema, thoughts on national cinemas are included, especially to frame and analyse the intensification of the European, Middle Eastern, Asian and Latin American production at the end of the 20th century; it is also important to highlight the contribution of Jean-Michel Frodon (1998) to reflect on how nations are projected (or not) through their cinematography. However, this paradigm is of limited scope in order to consider both the diversity of Hollywood-bound cinema and films made as co-production from several countries.

Mention should also be made of the concept of accented cinema, proposed by Hamid Nacify to place the cinema made by individuals and groups with non-western cultural experiences and practices, and its fruitfulness to think of alternative filmed representations. The archaeology of the development of this concept of peripheral cinema inevitably refers to the definition of third cinema, proposed by Argentinian directors Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas, and comprises integrated practices that include the aesthetics of hunger (Glauber Rocha, 1965) and other cinema of urgency.

Promoting a reflection on the role of cinema in contemporary eco-sociocultural systems, giving special attention to non-hegemonic cinema, made in various peripheries (geopolitical, but also socio-economic, aesthetic and disciplinary) – peripheries considered here from the central-periphery model thought up by the economist Samir Amin (1974) –, the 3rd annual issue of the journal TRANSLOCAL. Culturas Contemporâneas Locais e Urbanas (TRANSLOCAL. Local and Urban Contemporary Cultures), under the theme “Peripheral Cinema(s)” –, is inviting publication in three of its sections:  Essays; Articles; and Suggestions for Reading/Recensions.

Proposals are welcome with interest for written essays and articles (2500 to 5000 words), visual essays (up to 5 images + complementary text 500 to 1000 words), and critical reviews (1000 to 2000 words), which, dealing with the theme “Peripheral Cinema(s)”, address (not exclusively) topics such as:

• Cinema, knowledge and power: 
• hegemonies and peripheralities; 
• propaganda and resistance; 
• colonialism and post-colonialism. 
• Cinema and cartography of the world: 
• narratives and images of worlds silenced and invisible in art cinema, scientific cinema and journalistic cinema; 
• denotative and non-denotative (Nelson Goodman) cinematographic representation: documentary, fiction, essay and cinematographic poetry; 
• tourist marketing and film exoticisation of the place and the city. 
• Genealogy and theoretical-conceptual reflection: mainstream cinema, peripheral cinema, popular cinema, national cinema, world cinema, third cinema (Angela Prysthon), the aesthetics of hunger, cinema/aesthetics of urgency, realist cinema (Lúcia Nagib)… 
• Film transits and transfers: 
• movement and film industry: the production of 'local', 'global' and translocal’; 
• intersemiotic translation: cinema ←→ other arts. 
• Places, buildings, and cinematic devices: 
• architecture and urbanism; 
• technology and new media.
  
• Peripheries of the cinematographic phenomenon: 
• forgotten cinematographies and filmmakers; 
• cinema beyond film, action, actors, and the director: intersecting arts, transdisciplinary meetings and collective creation process.

 

The proposals for publication will be evaluated according to the international criteria of double-blind peer review, and works in Portuguese and English, with evident quality, that contribute to the reflection proposed under the cover theme of the No. 3 of TRANSLOCAL and that respect the editing standards adopted by the magazine and made available here, will be accepted. The texts written in Portuguese may or may not follow the Orthographic Agreement of 1990 and the author must declare the option followed in note.

As this is a magazine published in Funchal, proposals that consider film production in and about Madeira, and film making by Madeiran authors will be welcomed with interest.

Proposals (full text and possible images) should be sent by February 15th 2021 March 31st 2021, to the coordinators of the magazine (translocal.revista@mail.uma.pt), and should also include the following details:

1. a summary of the submitted proposed text, in Portuguese and English (up to 200 words); 
2. name(s) of the author(s) and a brief CV (up to 100 words).

 

By March 30th April 30th 2021, the coordinators of the journal will inform the authors of the proposals that are accepted and, after completion of the final reviews and pagination process, the magazine will be published during the first half of 2021.