Call for Papers - Wider Screen 02/2007 - The cinema of Aki and Mika 
Kaurismäki



The films of Finnish directors Aki and Mika Kaurismäki are multifaceted 
texts that balance between a variety of cultural tropes. The films are 
simultaneously national and international; they deal with Finnish national 
myths alongside the globalisation of national culture; the films blur the 
distinctions between high culture and low culture both in terms of thematics 
and aesthetics; they circulate the globe in both commercial and festival 
releases, gaining widely discrepant critical and commercial receptions.



Aki and Mika Kaurismäki are, of course, very different film-makers and it 
would be counterproductive to label them under a singular type of 
'Kaurismäki-cinema'. Regardless, their films share many thematic aspects, 
from a persistent sociological consciousness to a fascination with the 
internationalising nature of national societies. The purpose of this special 
issue of Wider Screen is to illuminate the wide-ranging and multifaceted 
cultural life of Aki and Mika Kaurismäki's films. The papers can approach 
Aki or Mika Kaurismäki's films individually or examine the overlaps in their 
film-making styles, methods of production, distribution and/or reception. 
The papers can deal with (but are not restricted to) the following themes:



National identity - national cinema - internationalism - transnationalism - 
locality- globalisation - gender - generational differences - class - 
music - auteurism - stardom - adaptation - genre - language - distribution - 
marketing - festivals - reception



Please send article proposals to Pietari Kääpä ([log in to unmask]). The 
ideal length of articles is 2.000-3.000 words. First drafts should be ready 
by the end of March 2007.



While Wider Screen is a mostly Finnish language publication, we encourage 
English language contributions for this issue. Wider Screen is an 
internet-based journal for both popular and academic writings on 
audio-visual culture.

www.widerscreen.fi

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