World and National Cinemas

World and national cinemas study film beyond Hollywood, examining the cinematic traditions of particular nations and regions and the transnational flows that increasingly complicate the very idea of a national cinema.

Definition

The comparative and area-based study of film cultures around the world, encompassing national cinema traditions and the transnational processes that cross and complicate national boundaries.

Scope

This area covers the global diversity of film cultures. It examines the concept of national cinema and its limits, major regional traditions, including the cinemas of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe, and the postcolonial and Third Cinema movements that challenged Western dominance. It also addresses transnational and diasporic filmmaking, co-productions, festivals, and the global circulation that reshapes how cinemas are made and understood.

Sub-topics

• Asian Cinemas
• European Art Cinema
• National Cinema and Transnational Film
• Postcolonial and Third Cinema

Core questions

• What does 'national cinema' mean, and how useful is the concept?
• How have major regional and national film traditions developed?
• How did postcolonial and Third Cinema movements contest Western cinema?
• How do transnational flows, festivals, and diasporas reshape film cultures?

Key theories

National cinema as construct

The critical view, surveyed by Hayward and others, that national cinema is not a natural essence but a constructed category defined relationally, often against Hollywood and through questions of language, industry, and identity.

Transnational cinema

The framework developed by Ezra and Rowden that foregrounds the global flows of finance, talent, and audiences, arguing that contemporary film exceeds national containers.

History

Cinema was international from its origins, but academic 'world cinema' study long centered European art film and treated other traditions as marginal. From the 1970s, the rise of postcolonial criticism, Third Cinema manifestos, and later transnational and globalization theory broadened the field. Shohat and Stam's critique of Eurocentrism and the growth of festival and area studies established a more genuinely global, comparative film scholarship.

Debates

National versus transnational frameworks

Scholars debate whether the nation remains a meaningful unit for studying cinema or whether transnational flows of capital, labor, and reception have rendered the national frame inadequate.

Key figures

• Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
• Susan Hayward
• Ella Shohat
• Robert Stam

Seminal works

• nowellsmith1996
• ezrarowden2006
• shohatstam1994

Frequently asked questions

What is 'world cinema'?

World cinema broadly refers to films and film cultures from around the globe, often used to encompass cinemas outside dominant Hollywood production, though the term is debated for implicitly centering Western cinema as the norm.

Why is the concept of national cinema contested?

Because films are increasingly made through international co-production, diasporic talent, and global financing and audiences, scholars question whether a single nation can define a cinema, favoring transnational frameworks alongside national ones.