Travelling to the Margins of Europe

The problem for Europe is to learn how to marginalise itself. (Ien Ang)  CRITICS AND FILMMAKERS alike in recent years drew attention to the crisis experienced by national cinemas in European countries. The UK-based scholar Dimitris Eleftheriotis writes: This crisis is evident on many levels, from the critical-theoretical to the economic. Indeed the very term 'national cinema' is riddled with conceptual contradictions, and its theoretical, pedagogic and practical usefulness has been repeatedly challenged in recent years. But perhaps more relevant is the realization that shrinking domestic markets have become in most cases inadequate for the financial survival of national films. As a result more and more filmmakers have to rely on state or European funding (and in many cases both) for their productions. This in turn brings into play the contradictions in national and European policy ... and raises dilemmas of criteria and priorities: for example, is funding..