Abstract

In a recent essay, Thomas Elsaesser gives a harsh verdict on the state of European cinema today. From a geopolitical position in which “the new ‘marginality’ of Europe” is assumed, a number of “negative qualifications associable with European cinema” are put forward. Among those are that the continent’s cinema is:

artificially kept alive with government subsidies, Council of Europe directives […] and cheap television co-production deals; bolstered by being co-opted for cultural tourism and city branding; speaking on behalf of no constituency, and for the most part, speaking to no public other than festival audiences, loyal cinephiles and university students.