Secrets, Surveillance, and Fragments: Some Contemporary Documentary Challenges to Post-Socialist Europe’s Regional Brand

A shared characteristic of the new generation of contemporary documentary filmmakers from post-socialist Europe is their strategic appropriation of recognizable narrative tropes broadly associated with Eastern Europe. Appropriating these tropes allows filmmakers to brand their works as authentic representations of the region and increases the probability of securing international funding, distribution, and viewership. However, many filmmakers remain cognizant and critical of these stereotypes, and find ways to destabilize them over the course of their films. Directors such as Bojina Panayotova, Mila Turajlić, and Lisbeth Kovacic have mobilized common themes such as surveillance and spying, secrets, and divided spaces and identities within their self-reflexive, first person and polyvocal films in order to propel their narratives forward while also deconstructing rigid conceptualizations of post-socialist European identities. They offer promising examples of how post-socialist European documentary filmmakers can address the specific historical, political, and cultural aspects of the region while refusing immutable articulations of national or regional identities