Cross-over Cinema: Breaking Boundaries through the lens of trans-nationalism

Slumdog Millionaire advertisement poster. source

Diasporic cinema is a derivative of the concept ‘diaspora’, which refers to the temporary or permanent dispersal, migration or series of multiple journeys of an ethnic group or individual from their native homeland. Hence, Diasporic Cinema encompasses a broad and diverse spectrum of film making communities, a genre of cinema which breaks down cultural boundaries and in doing so radically alters the way in which we discuss and interpret films of a hybrid nature.

In his study, An Accented Cinema, Hamid Naficy discusses the way in which Diasporic Cinema ‘reflects a collective experience,’ (Hamid 2001) due to a unique collaboration of collective cultures during the stages of ‘conceptualization and production’ (Khorana 2010) while diversifying the nature of the films. Dissimilar to the distinctive features of Bollywood or global Hollywood productions, Dasporic Cinema or “Crossover” films hold no commonplace in the eyes of the audience due to unique combinations of various cinematic styles.

A prevailing example of the global capabilities of cross-over cinema is Danny Boyle’s acclaimed Slumdog Millionaire, featuring a transnational story format to engage its audience, a tale of rags to riches. Boyle’s film features numerous flashbacks, a characteristic of old-style Bollywood films, a result of employment of an Indian co-director, further highlighting the competitive value of cross-over cinema. The success of Slumdog Millionaire can be attributed to the enmeshment of ‘commercial Bollywood and Hollywood’ but the ‘international distribution and publicity that made the film materially available as well as seemingly accessible to cosmopolitan audiences’ (Khorana 2010).

Diasporic or Cross-over Cinema has emerged as a result of empowerment of migrant and diasporic populations. Such films have flourished as a result of their multiplicity and mass audience appeal. However, Cross-over films and filmmakers go largely unnoticed and they are required to ‘work for access to the means of production and control over representation,’ (Hamid 2001), yet irrespective of this fact if diasporic filmmakers lacked total voice cinema too would lack cultural and contextual enrichment.

 

Cat, D.

 

References

Barraclough, R 2014, pp. 86-87, Crossover Cinema: cross-cultural film from production to reception, available from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20403526.2014.895224?journalCode=rtrc20 [August 30 2016]

Berghahn, D & Sternberg, C 2009, ‘Locating migrant and diasporic film in contemporary Europe‘, in: Berghahn, D & Sternberg, C (eds.), European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in Contemporary Europe, London: Wallflower Press, available from: http://www.migrantcinema.net/glossary/term/diasporic cinema, [August 29 2016]

Curry, R 2016, Transnational and Diasporic Cinema, available from: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791286/obo-9780199791286-0243.xml , [August 29 2016]

Naficy, H 2001, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Available from: http://www.migrantcinema.net/glossary/term/diasporic cinema, [August 29 2016]

Khorana, S 2010, Crossover audiences in the aftermath of Slumdog Millionaire, available from: http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=lhapapers [August 30 206]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nollywood: The New Age Film Industry of the Shanty

Nollywood film set. Source.

Hollywood has long been regarded as the most affluent and successful film-industry in the world, nevertheless by 2009 a newly thriving film industry ascended from the slums of Nigeria to surpass Hollywood as the world’s second largest movie industry by volume, right behind India’s Bollywood (Bright 2015). Nigeria’s Nollywood may be regarded as groundbreaking, the relatively new industry producing approximately two thousand films per year, a $3.3 billion sector, with 1844 movies produced in 2013 alone. (Bright 2015)

Nollywood originated in the heart of Nigeria when in 1992, electronics salesman Kenneth Nnebue shot a straight-to-video movie in one month, on a budget of just $12,000. Living in Bondage sold more than one million copies, predominantly by street vendors (The New York Times 2016). Nollywood grew rapidly from it’s initial launch despite the fact that the films never make it to the cinema, the industry prospered as it expelled up to thirty films onto the streets daily. Nigerian film producer and financer Yewande Sadiku notes that “Nollywood’s popularity across Africa and the diaspora certainly demonstrates the capacity of the films to travel.” Consequently pirating is a dire problem as it takes pirates a mere two weeks to copy a film and distribute it across Africa. (The New York Times 2016)

Pictured above; A scene being filmed on a Nollywood film set.Source.

Critics have also noted that Nollywood is severely lacking in production value and African actors have yet to branch out globally (Bright 2015). Nigerian Producer Kunle Afolayan stated that “key players in the global movie industry still have little idea what Nollywood is about,” (Bright 2015) both in a cinematic and cultural sense. Nigeria is teetering in a state of political and economic disorder, thus corruption, the economy and bureaucracy feature heavily in Nollywood films during height of the countries tumultuous state. Furthermore, the Nollywood genre is anti-globalisation in terms of position, lacking the luxurious cinematic experience of Hollywood, for many lower and middle class citizens providing an escape from the torments of reality. 

Nollywood can undoubtedly be viewed as revolutionary in terms of production style, value and cultural poignancy. However, it is Nollywood’s “acute notation of locality that gives it an unprecedented acceptability as the local cinematic expression in Nigeria and indeed in Africa.” (Okome 2007), that makes it truly unique. 

 

Cat, D. 

 

 

References 

 

Abuja Accra & Lagos 2010, ‘Movies are uniting a disparate continent, and dividing it too,’ The Economist, available from: http://www.economist.com/node/17723124.%5BAugust 20 2016]. 

Bright J 2015, edt, Meet ‘Nollywood’: The Second Largest Film Industry in the World. available from: http://fortune.com/2015/06/24/nollywood-movie-industry/. [August 9 2016].

McClintock P 2015, The Hollywood Reporter, available from: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-star-wars-crosses-851359

Okome O 2007, ‘Nollywood: spectatorship, audience and the sites of consumption,’ Postcolonial text, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 1-21. 

Onishi, N 2010,’How the Times named Nollywood’, Times Insider, available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/insider/how-the-times-named-nollywood.html?_r=0. [August 9 2016]. 

 

 

 

 

Globalisation: Cultural Collaboration or a Global Divide?

Gobalisation and OSH: The way we work is changing. n.d., image. Source.

Globalisation as a concept emerged in the 1960s, a series of anti-globalist movements bringing the worldwide phenomena to the forefront of public debate. As Simon Jeffrey of The Guardian clarifies ‘Globalisation came to be seen as more than simply a way of doing business, or running financial markets – it became a process (Jeffrey, 2002). Globalisation in its entity suggests the transformative powers of ever-expanding technological, industrial, educational and economic forces resulting in an irreversible sense of global belonging.

Universal interconnectedness has fostered the concept of the “global village,” though this notion reflects an “imagined community,” in which all individuals are seemingly incorporated on an even-playing-field. This imagined community may be critiqued as an unrealistic utopian outcome of globalisation as ‘regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship’ (Anderson, 6-7) as a result of electronic and industrial colonization such an extensive degree.

The following innovating Stephen Hawking documentary produced, researched and directed  by Ryan Faulkner provides an insight into the development of globalisation in Australia. Hawking pin points the irreversible effects of globalisation as he reveals the extent to which Western countries penetrate and dominate the ‘Global Village.’

‘Ryan Faulkner, Australia: Living in a Global Village‘ Source.

One of the most contentious issues that has arisen as a result of globalisation is the apparent emergence of cultural imperialism. The spreading of Westernised values however, may also be considered a beneficial outcome as countries such as the US and Australia, are civilizations founded in democracy and the strive for national equality, consequently these virtuous values are internationalised. The rate at which we are exposed to both low and high culture is drastically increased when we make reference to Arjun Apadura’s five dimensions of global cultural flows, elucidating the advancing ‘Distribution of electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information’ (Appadurai, 1996). Thus, the rate at which we are exposed to both low and high culture of such Western cultures is drastically increased.

Globalisation has unarguably resulted in universal collaboration and expansion of cultural ideologies. What we must consider however, are the disruptive, detrimental forces and advantageous qualities and their conjunctive influences.    

Cat, D. 

 

 

 

 

References

Appadurai, A 1996, Modernity at large : cultural dimensions of globalization, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minn.

Simon, J 2002, ‘What is globalisation?: Simon Jeffrey explains the origins and meanings of the now ubiquitous term’, available from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/31/globalisation.simonjeffery [August 23 2016]

Vrasidas, C & Zembylas, M 2007, Globalisation, information and communication technologies, and the prospect of a ‘global village’: promises of inclusion or electronic colonization, available from: http://.tandfoline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220027032000190687