Sangam: A Confluence of Knowledge Streams

The ‘Transnational Regional’ in Francophone Belgian Cinema

Show simple item record

dc.contributor Higbee, William
dc.creator Steele, Jamie Nicholas
dc.date 2014-09-04T08:25:56Z
dc.date 2014-01-09
dc.date.accessioned 2023-02-23T09:47:55Z
dc.date.available 2023-02-23T09:47:55Z
dc.identifier http://hdl.handle.net/10871/15434
dc.identifier.uri http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/255893
dc.description This thesis explores the films produced in the francophone Belgian region of Wallonia as a case study for the configuration of what will be termed a ‘transnational regional’ cinema. The first section of this dynamic is considered in relation to film and cultural policy, which problematizes the possible formation of a clearly delineated regional or ‘national’ cinema. This presupposes a reconfiguring of the transnational along the lines of the regional and the linguistic communities of Belgium, which, in essence, pertains to how production, distribution and exhibition mechanisms function within the devolved region of Wallonia. This section therefore focuses on film policy as well as a macro- and micro- economic analysis of the industry in order to consider the perceived imbalance between Belgian and French cinema. In the second half, the thesis develops a textual analysis of a series of case study films to consider how cultural film policy and francophone Belgian identity is imagined and then imaged on screen. The interplay between the transnational and the regional is then nuanced by the approaches to the ‘transnational regional’ aesthetic. This aesthetic includes the visualization of the rural and urban Walloon landscape in Eldorado (Bouli Lanners, 2008) and Ultranova (Lanners, 2006) and the ‘marked’ regional landscape in Cages (Olivier Masset-Depasse, 2006). The shift in location across the conterminous border with France due to the logic of film funding engenders the approach to the ‘marked’ regional space in Masset-Depasse’s film. The final chapter tracks this aesthetic through to the works of the Dardenne brothers and in particular Le gamin au vélo (Dardenne brothers, 2011) in order to approach the construction of a peripheral spatial formation through corporeal movements. This therefore necessitates a consideration of how the Dardenne brothers’ film chimes with waves of European filmmaking, thereby revealing a regional space that is conceptualized as de-centred.
dc.description University of Exeter Studentship
dc.language en
dc.publisher University of Exeter
dc.publisher Department of English
dc.rights 2017-01-09
dc.rights To allow publication of the research elsewhere
dc.subject Francophone Belgian cinema
dc.subject Belgian cinema
dc.subject Francophone cinema
dc.subject Transnational Cinema
dc.subject Regional Cinema
dc.subject Transnational Regional
dc.subject Dardenne Brothers
dc.subject Bouli Lanners
dc.subject Olivier Masset-Depasse
dc.subject Benoit Mariage
dc.subject Walloon cinema
dc.subject Wallonia
dc.subject Film Funding
dc.subject Production, distribution, exhibition
dc.subject National Cinema
dc.subject 2000s
dc.title The ‘Transnational Regional’ in Francophone Belgian Cinema
dc.type Thesis or dissertation
dc.type PhD in Film
dc.type Doctoral
dc.type PhD


Files in this item

Files Size Format View
SteeleJN.pdf 26.23Mb application/pdf View/Open

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record

Search DSpace


Advanced Search

Browse