Professor of Contemporary Cinema, Ewa Mazierska, will discuss several films representing emigrants from Eastern Europe, who after many years of living in the West decided to return home. They include: Moje pieczone kurczaki (My Roasted Chicken, Poland, 2002), directed by Iwona Siekierzyńska, Kráska v nesnázích (Beauty in Trouble, 2006, Czech Republic), directed by Jan Hrebejk, Stara škola kapitalizma (Old School Capitalism, Serbia, 2009) by Želimir Žilnik and Eu cand vreau sa fluier, fluier (If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle, Romania, 2010), directed by Florin Serban.
Ewa Mazierska teaches Contemporary Cinema at School of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Central Lancashire, UK.
“I am interested in the reasons why expats decide to return to their countries of origin and how their arrival impacts on the situation of those whom they are reunited: their family and friends. I will argue that we identify two basic functions attributed to them: that of a saviour, rescuing the natives from their difficult predicament and a ‘stirrer’, disturbing the fragile balance enjoyed by those living in the East. In the discussed films these roles can be mapped into gender roles – men return as saviours, women as troublemakers. I will argue that such representation reflects the way the capitalist West and the socialist East tended to be represented in the earlier discourses; with the former being typically feminized.”
Wednesday, September 19
Hollander 241 | 4:15pm
Co-sponsored by the Departments of German-Russian, History, the Programs in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Comparative Literature, the Oakley Center and the CFFLC
