"Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing describes the ways in which the Chinese government and its ruling Chinese Communist Party successfully influence Hollywood films, warns how this type of influence has increasingly become normalized in Hollywood, and explains the implications of this influence
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on freedom of expression and on the types of stories that global audiences are exposed to on the big screen. Hollywood is one of the world’s most significant storytelling centers, a cinematic powerhouse whose movies are watched by millions across the globe. And yet the choices it makes, about which stories to tell and how to tell them, are increasingly influenced by an autocratic government with the world’s most comprehensive system of state-imposed censorship. The free expression implications of this fact are significant, and far-reaching. By influencing which stories Hollywood tells, the Chinese government can soften the edges or erase depictions of its human rights abuses; it can dampen movies’ call for change or encouragement of resistance in the face of oppression; and it can discourage or silence filmmakers interested in making movies that question or critique the Chinese government. Hollywood’s choices have global implications. If prominent Hollywood studios or filmmakers fear to push back against such influence, there is less chance that others around the world will dare to do so. It also reduces the opportunities for independent or exiled Chinese filmmakers looking for a new home for their talents, and undercuts any argument from Chinese filmmakers that the country’s censorship system is inconsistent with international norms of artistic freedom. There are countless stories to be told about China, and those that are non-controversial from Beijing’s perspective are no less valid. But there are also stories to be told about the ongoing crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, the ongoing struggle of Tibetans to maintain their language and culture in the face of both societal changes and government policy, the prodemocracy movement in Hong Kong, and honest, everyday stories about how government policies intersect with people’s lives in the world’s most populous nation. Yet the space for filmmakers to tell such stories is shrinking—at least, unless they are willing to forego access to the world’s largest box office." (Executive summary)
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"Depuis leur apparition apres les independances politiques, les films realises par les Africains originaires des anciennes colonies françaises subsahariennes ont ete tres peu diffuses dans les salles de l'ancienne metropole. A de tres rares exceptions pres, ils ont egalement tres peu ete vus par le
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public français. L'image de « film de festival» qui leur a ete accolee a joue un role negatif non negligeable, confirmant leur mise a l'ecart dans un ghetto pour inities. Les quelques titres cites rituellement ont piege leurs locuteurs, qui se trouvaient reduits a ces lieux et a ces histoires qu'ils racontaient, et la realite d'un autre phenomene genant s'en est trouvee occultee: le rejet massif de ces cinematographies par les instances de legitimation du Nord, accompagne d'une condescendance melee a la culpabilite post-coloniale. Si la France a bien ete le lieu de naissance de nombreux films du Sud, elle en a de facto ete egalement le cimetiere, principal lieu de diffusion et d'existence materielle et symbolique, notamment aupres d'une frange de la critique, mais sans susciter l'interet des Français ni permettre a ces films d'acceder a la reconnaissance internationale." (Resume)
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"Since the late 1990s South Korea has emerged as a new center for the production of transnational popular culture – the first instance of a major global circulation of Korean popular culture in history. Why popular (or not)? Why now? What does it mean socially, culturally and politically in a glob
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al context? This edited collection considers the Korean Wave in a global digital age and addresses the social, cultural and political implications in their complexity and paradox within the contexts of global inequalities and uneven power structures. The emerging consequences at multiple levels – both macro structures and micro processes that influence media production, distribution, representation and consumption – deserve to be analyzed and explored fully in an increasingly global media environment. This book argues for the Korean Wave’s double capacity in the creation of new and complex spaces of identity that are both enabling and disabling cultural diversity in a digital cosmopolitan world." (Publisher description)
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"This anthology aims to portray the “soft” power of Bollywood, which makes it a unique and powerful disseminator of Indian culture and values abroad. The essays in the book examine Bollywood's popularity within and outside South Asia, focusing on its role in international relations and diplomacy
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. In addition to contributions that directly engage with the notion of soft power, a number of essays in the volume testify to the attractiveness of Bollywood cinema for ethnically diverse groups across the world, probe the reasons for its appeal, and explore its audiences' identification with cinematic narratives." (Publisher description)
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"The translation of films from languages such as English, Hindi/Urdu or Chinese into Swahili is a phenomenon that has quickly grown into a successful business in Tanzania in the last couple of years. The films are mainly products of the USA, of India and China, but also of countries such as Thailand
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, Malaysia or Nigeria. The pirate copies that reach Tanzania, however, seem to be primarily imported from China (Interview with DJ Mark, 2009). In Tanzania, the films are subject to a series of transformations that help to increase the appeal of these films to their predominantly youthful Tanzanian audience. This essay focuses on these transformation processes and aims to show how films are shaped by the work of the translators (“watafsiri”), but also by the people who work in the video parlours (“vibanda vya video”), the places where these films are usually consumed. It is based on research that was carried out in Masasi (Mtwara region) and Nachingwea (Lindi region) in February 2009 and in Dar es Salaam, Morogoro (Morogoro region) and Bagamoyo (Tanga region) in September 2009." (Pages 138-139)
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"Commerce in Culture is an innovative study of how states have responded to the globalization of the film sector. Concerned with more than film content or substance, the book exposes the ongoing political and economic struggles that shape cultural production and trade in the world. The historical fo
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cus is on Hollywood's engagement with rivals and partners in two leading developing countries, Egypt and Mexico, beginning with the birth of their national film industries in the late 1920s. State and market institutions evolved differently in each context, acting like national prisms to mediate international competition and produce distinctive results. As filmmaking has become a dynamic focal point in the new economy, Commerce in Culture reveals a vital but neglected part of the global terrain." (Publisher description)
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"The present study on the importation of films for cinema and television in Egypt is part of a series of case studies related to the structure, nature and flow of "transnational communication" and its socio-economic and cultural impact. Having its own reputable film industry and television organizat
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ion and being itself a film exporting country, Egypt was selected for this study, which was undertaken in 1979. However, the study shows that Egypt is heavily dependent on a small number of foreign companies, based in a few industrialized countries, which supply most of the films for cinema and television programming. The research emphasizes the need not only to examine the volume of imported communication material (a phenomenon already described in another UNESCO publication as "one way flow of information") but also the effects related to their content." (Foreword)
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