Glossary > Diasporic Cinema
Diasporic Cinema

At the beginning of her seminal investigation into ‘intercultural cinema,’ Laura Marks states that the diasporic experience is marked by “violent disjunctions in space and time” (2000,1). These extreme conditions are, as she continues, “the physi­cal effects of exile, immigration, and displacement” (1). Living in the diaspora means living under two spatial and temporal regimes at the same time. Far from being just external circumstances, these ambivalences and splits also have the consequence of a divided (or multiplied) sensorium. The diasporic state affects the smell, touch, and feeling, and hence the way these senses are transformed into artistic expressions. Diasporic existence subverts and transcends the category of the nation. In Marks’ words: “Nationalist discourse prevents the understanding of diasporan ex­perience” ( 9) As a consequence, the condition of the diaspora – increasingly determining the lives of more and more people in a world of conflicts, drastic climate change, and forced migration – bears strong affinities to ‘paranational’ aspects of cinema. A working hypothesis: Wherever a cinematic practice is motivated by diasporic experiences, it tends to become an expression of ‘paranational cinema,’ a specimen or fragment of a cinematic landscape which cannot be transformed into a Cartesian map, but questions the idea and practice of mapping itself.

Marks, Laura U. 2000. The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Duke University Press.

Volker Pantenburg is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Zurich, where he directs the SNSF project Paranational Cinema – Legacies and Practices. In 2015, he co-founded the Harun Farocki Institut in Berlin.

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