----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Wed, 8 Mar 1995, Kellner wrote:
 
> Not to mention that, at least before '89, Indian cinema (popular, I mean),
> used to be quite well-known in Eastern Europe (as far as I've heard,
> especially in Yugoslavia, Poland and the CSSR of that time). Unfortunately,
> the Iron Curtain seemed to have blocked the dissemination of this
> knowledge into Western Europe :)
>
> Oh, please DO discuss Third Cinema, but this is going to cut down
> the number of participants enormously - who's ever seen all these films?
> Cut to next demand: show more films, distribute more films.
>
        That is precisely the issue at stake here: who has ever seen
these Third Films?  Thus the discussion of Third Cinema automatically
excludes a large segment of participants.  Chicken&egg problem: we can't
discuss Third Cinema because not enough people are conversant with it.
We can't be conversant with it until more films are shown.  Why aren't
there more films being shown?
        You mentioned India--the country that produces the largest number
of films in the world: 700 to 1,000 feature films a year.  Do we (who's we?)
see them?  No.  Therefore, it is not who makes the most films who gets
distributed, it is who has the economic and ideological power to impose
their cultural values throughout the world(s).
        I am teaching Close Analysis of Film this semester--a course
which is almost entirely predicated upon analyses of US films written by
European men (Bellour, Heath, Aumont, etc.).  I know, we also have the
wonderful work of Bergstrom on *The Birds* and Thompson's book *Breaking the
Glass Armor.*   I decided to diversify the curriculum by including  a
film such as Sembene's *La Noire de...* which I was able to find with
enormous difficulty.  I wanted to break that Euro-American tradition.
 
        Gloria Monti