Dr Alex Marlow-Mann, Lecturer in Italian in the Department of Modern Languages, is to deliver a lecture on the subject of ‘Regional Cinema: Micro-mapping and the Glocalisation of Film Studies’ at the University of Pittsburgh (USA) on Monday 13 February 2017.

In recent years, film studies has undergone a transnational turn, largely in response to the accelerating effects of globalisation. While this has served as a useful corrective to the simplistic and uncritical ways in which the national cinema paradigm has sometimes been employed, it also risks downplaying cultural specificities and homogenising disparate film cultures. Thus a new regional turn to complement and counterbalance this development is required.

Drawing on the idea of glocalisation, Dr Marlow-Mann’s presentation will argue that globalisation does not involve the erasure of the local but rather a complex interplay between the global and the local. Thus, in recent decades, regional cinemas operating at sub-national level have achieved renewed significance. Film studies has so far paid little attention to such cinemas, which actually date back to the earliest days of cinema. A shift in perspective is therefore necessary, leading to the adoption of a methodology based around the micro-mapping of production contexts, the circulation of films and variations in styles and genres at the sub-national level, which would complement macro- and transnational approaches.

Further details of the lecture can be found at:
www.english.pitt.edu/event/film-studies-presents-alexander-marlow-mann