Roel Vande Winkel

Diasporic Film Cultures from a Multi-level Perspective: Moroccan and Indian Cinematic Flows In and Towards Antwerp (Belgium)

How and to what extent are diasporic film cultures influenced by power structures and power shifts? This question is addressed in a twofold case study of Moroccan and Indian film structures in the city of Antwerp (Belgium). The analysis presented here is based on 27 semi-structured interviews with experts such as distributors, exhibitors, social workers, and programming managers. The research results, uncovering a complex model of multileveled power structures, demonstrate that developments in diasporic film cultures are not only dependent on homeland production, but are also crucially influenced by local actors, who determine those developments to a large degree. It is further demonstrated that networks of both legal and informal/illegal transnational and transdiasporic circulation play crucial, intertwining roles. The case studies thus show how diasporic media consumption and film in particular can only fully be grasped when attempting to understand the tension between local environment, its position within transnational networks, and homeland industries.

Bollywood and turkish films in Antwerp (Belgium): two case studies on diasporic distribution and exhibition

Abstract This article, a contribution to the thriving scholarship on the engagements between homeland media and diasporic audiences, breaks new ground through a comparative, political economy inspired analysis of two case studies with transnational implications. First we describe the theatrical distribution and exhibition of homeland films towards/by their diasporas, focusing on Indian and Turkish film structures in one location, the Belgian city of Antwerp. Interviews with 45 key players, participant observation and complementary archival research allow us to reconstruct how privately organised film screenings were substituted by commercial initiatives. Further analysis exploring the relations between local exhibitors and transnational distributors evaluates these structures against the background of global media industries’ developments in terms of power and transformations, such as increasing competition.

Film-viewing in Turkish and Moroccan diasporic families: a gender and place perspective

This article explores the relation between gender identities and spatial aspects of audience reception by means of a case study on film-viewing in the Turkish and Moroccan diasporic communities in the Belgian city of Antwerp. Drawing on feminist and gender approaches to audience reception on the one hand, and research into the spatial dynamics underlying audience reception on the other, we look at film-viewing as a socially and spatially meaningful practice that is relevant for the understanding of gender identities in diasporic families. This article is based on the results of a four-year project on diasporic film cultures in Antwerp that investigated how film-viewing practices relate to social and cultural dynamics within the Turkish and Moroccan communities. The data that are discussed include participant observations, in-depth interviews and group interviews with a varied sample of people with Turkish and Moroccan backgrounds. The results show that although film-viewing, especially in the public space of the film theatre, can be mobilized by women as an emancipating social practice, gendered power structures often prevail. Also in the domestic contexts, a more traditional gender division is articulated by the respondent concerning family viewing. We conclude that the space of the film theatre and film-going serve the continuity and stability of gendered family relations, rather than subverting them.

Sharing the Silver Screen: The Social Experience of Cinemagoing in the Indian Diaspora

Despite the growing attention paid to the social practice of cinemagoing and to Indian diasporic film cultures, little research has combined these two topics. This article looks into issues of community as well as discursive practices occurring at the intersection of these two phenomena. First, it examines the physical community formation generated by the theater space as a setting for watching homeland films, in accordance with more general theories about diasporic communities and media consumption (Georgiou, 2006). Second, it looks into the audience discourses that precede and follow the actual cinemagoing act (Gillespie, 2002; Staiger, 2000). Based on a case study in the Belgian city of Antwerp, large-scale as well as in-depth insights are developed through a multi-method approach, combining analyses of in-depth interviews with the results of an exploratory cinema survey. These revealed that Indian diasporic cinemagoing is limited in its community-forming function (by issues of comfort, audience diversity, as well as behavioral conformism to a Western context) and is characterized by transnational discursive practices informing film preferences. A general change in the social experience of cinemagoing occurred in the diasporic context when compared to India and intercommunity differences found expression in cinemagoing culture.

A Captivated Audience. Cinema-going at the zoological garden in occupied Antwerp, 1915–1918

Abstract A Captivated Audience studies the organization, regulation and consumption of culture in occupied Belgium during the First World War. Through a case-study of the founding and day-to-day operations of Cinema Zoologie, the film theatre located at the Antwerp Zoo, it is demonstrated how tensions between organizers, audiences and the occupying force are played out in the leisure sphere. The film theatre is presented as an arena of conflicting interests where politics, business and patriotism clash. Cinema Zoologie was operated by the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp (owner of the Antwerp Zoo), a bourgeois society with an international membership and ties with the German community in Antwerp. As a movie theatre located in this thoroughly bourgeois environment, Cinema Zoologie is also an ideal microcosm to study wartime reactions to filmed entertainment and information as well as bourgeois cinema-going experiences. The research presented here is largely based on primary sources from the extensive archives of the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp kept at the Antwerp City Archive (Felixarchief).

Raf van Hulse: een Vlaamse Kriegsberichter aan het Oostfront

Recensie van : Pieter Jan Verstraete, Raf van Hulse: een Vlaamse Kriegsberichter aan het Oostfront. Kortrijk (Pieter Jan Verstraete) 2011, 203 p. isbn 978 90 7949 703 4