Ewa Mazierska

"In this edited collection, an international ensemble of scholars examine what contemporary cinema tells us about neoliberal capitalism and cinema, exploring whether filmmakers are able to imagine progressive alternatives under capitalist conditions. Individual contributions discuss filmmaking practices, film distribution, textual characteristics and the reception of films made in different parts of the world. They engage with topics such as class struggle, debt, multiculturalism and the effect of neoliberalism on love and sexual behaviour. Written in accessible, jargon-free language, Contemporary Cinema and Neoliberal Ideology is an essential text for those interested in political filmmaking and the political meanings of films."--Provided by publisher.

Mazierska presents a cultural history of popular Viennese electronic music from 1990 to 2015, from the perspectives of production, scene and national and international reception. To illustrate this history in depth, a number of case studies of the most successful and distinguished musicians are explored, such as Kruder and Dorfmeister, Patrick Pulsinger, Tosca, Electric Indigo and Sofa Surfers. The author draws on research about electronic music, the relationship between music and the urban environment, the history of Austria and Vienna, music scenes and fandom, the digital shift, stardom in popular music, as well as theories of postmodernism.

The purpose of this article is to provide a general overview of the work of Wanda Jakubowska, the first Polish, female film director to gain national and international recognition. Her career spanned over 50 years, in which she directed 14 full-length feature films, thus being the longest working film director in the history of Polish cinema. She was also one of the highest profile filmmakers to join the Polish communist party after the Second World War and in subsequent years represented the ‘party line’ among her fellow film-makers, and lobbied the party on behalf of the cinema industry. The article looks at style, ideology and the most important themes of Jakubowska’s work. Its focus is on her films about concentration camps and about contemporary Poland. The article also attempts to establish whether and to what degree Jakubowska was a feminist.

This book reflects the fact that Marxist film activism is a question of the production, textual characteristics and reception of film. Consequently, practically all the essays included in this collection deal with one if not all of these three aspects. It presents a wide spectrum of cases, using examples from different periods of cinema’s history and different locations. The volume aims to fill a gap in research as this form of activism is barely covered in existing publications and to connect the almost hegemonic position of the neoliberal version of capitalism with an increased accessibility of digital technologies and growth of channels of distribution of films. Filmmakers covered are Aleksandr Medvedkin Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Chris Marker and Jean-Luc Godard to films like 5 Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat and Guy David, A Screaming Man by Mahomet-Saleh Haroun and Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino’s seminal Third Cinema film, The Hour of the Furnaces.