Why define a cinema by nation at all?

National framing supports cultural policy and funding, helps describe shared industrial and linguistic conditions, and articulates collective identity, even though critics note that no single criterion cleanly delimits a national cinema.

What is 'accented cinema'?

Coined by Hamid Naficy, it describes the films of exilic and diasporic filmmakers whose displaced perspective marks their work, an example of transnational cinema that exceeds national categories.

National Cinema and Transnational Film

This topic examines the contested concept of national cinema, the ways films are linked to nations through industry, language, and identity, and the transnational frameworks that increasingly supersede the national frame.

Find Topic with PaperMindSoonFind papers & topics

Tools & resources

Download slides

Learn & explore

VideoSoon

Definition

The study of how cinema relates to nationhood and identity, together with the transnational processes of finance, mobility, and circulation that cross national boundaries.

Scope

This topic covers the theoretical debate over what constitutes a national cinema, the criteria of production, finance, language, theme, and reception, and the limits of defining a cinema by nation. It then turns to transnational cinema: co-productions, diasporic and exilic filmmaking, festival circuits, and global flows of talent and capital, examining how these complicate or replace national categories.

Core questions

By what criteria can a cinema be called 'national'?
How does national cinema function as cultural policy and identity discourse?
What forms of filmmaking exceed the national frame?
How do festivals, co-productions, and diasporas reshape film cultures?

Key theories

The concept of national cinema: Higson's influential argument that national cinema is defined relationally and through consumption as well as production, often constructed in opposition to Hollywood and tied to questions of identity.
Transnational cinema: Ezra and Rowden's framework emphasizing the global circulation of films, finance, and personnel, and the diasporic and exilic filmmaking that unsettles the nation as the unit of analysis.

History

National cinema emerged as both a policy concern, protecting domestic industries against Hollywood, and a critical category in the 1980s, with Higson's 1989 essay a key intervention. Globalization, co-production treaties, and diasporic filmmaking prompted a transnational turn in the 1990s and 2000s, exemplified by Naficy's 'accented cinema' and Ezra and Rowden's reader, reframing film study around mobility and exchange.

Debates

Usefulness of the national frame: Some scholars retain national cinema as a meaningful analytic and policy category, while others argue that transnational production and reception have made the nation an inadequate or even misleading container.

Key figures

Andrew Higson
Elizabeth Ezra
Terry Rowden
Hamid Naficy

Seminal works

higson1989
ezrarowden2006
hayward2000

Frequently asked questions

Why define a cinema by nation at all?: National framing supports cultural policy and funding, helps describe shared industrial and linguistic conditions, and articulates collective identity, even though critics note that no single criterion cleanly delimits a national cinema.
What is 'accented cinema'?: Coined by Hamid Naficy, it describes the films of exilic and diasporic filmmakers whose displaced perspective marks their work, an example of transnational cinema that exceeds national categories.