Questions of Teaching Postsocialist Central-Eastern-European Cinema

Abstract

The paper takes a critical look at the ways Central-Eastern European cinema represented the era of socialism. My talk concentrates on how films made in the post-communist era picture the past from country to country. Geographically speaking my talk overviews the region known as Central- Eastern Europe. Apart from the so called Vishegrad group (Poland the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) I also included the cinema of Slovenia. This variety enables me to overview how cinematic memory is constructed from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic coast, a memory which despite its similarities cannot be described as singular. My primary aim is to determine those qualities and trends which characterise the so called ‘past-cinema’ of the region. My paper aims to analyze the roles of the historic film in teaching media and film studies subjects. I concentrate on methodological issues related to film materials.