Arctic Cinemas

Arctic cinemas represent a noteworthy new subfield of film studies, and in the current era of unprecedented global warming, interest in the Arctic region and its cinematic portrayals has never been greater. Individually and collectively, films pertaining to Arctic inhabitants and experiences have substantially influenced viewer perceptions of the region throughout the world, often serving as blank slates for the fantasies and projections of individuals elsewhere with regard to its challenging landscape and perceived “otherworldliness.” Written by a blend of academic scholars, artists, and filmmakers, this collection of essays provides a transnational overview of the variety of works—ranging from art films and documentaries to horror and road movies—that fall under the conceptual rubric of “Arctic cinemas,” and examines their contributions to past and present perceptions of the Arctic. Theoretical and analytical approaches represented here include critical theory, cultural studies, ecocriticism, ethnography, gender studies, genre theory, historiography, and indigenous studies.

Kylo-Patrick R. Hart is chair of the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media at Texas Christian University, where he teaches courses in film and television history, theory, and criticism and queer media studies. He is the founding co-editor of the academic journal Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture and the author of several books about media.

Edited by Kylo-Patrick R. Hart

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 191
Bibliographic Info: bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2021
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8135-1
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4287-1
Imprint: McFarland

Introduction: Conceptualizing and Analyzing Arctic Cinemas
­Kylo-Patrick R. Hart 1
Opening Insights: Presenting, Producing and Living Arctic Cinemas
Eva la Cour 9

Arctic Cinemas and the Documentary Tradition
A Gramophone’s Adventures in the Soviet Far North: Northern Indigenous Peoples’ Modernization, Foreign Models and the Soviet Civilizing Mission
Caroline Damiens 24
“Katerina of the North”: The Representation of Childhood in Ethnographic Film
Ivan Golovnev and Elena Golovneva 38
Where Life Begins: Documenting the Arctic as Home
Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann 52
Liselotte Wajstedt’s Kiruna: Space Road: Experimental Ecocinema as Materialist Feminist Elegy in “Extractivist” Sápmi
Cheryl J. Fish 69

Arctic Representations in Other Cinematic Genres
From Palo to Sumé: The Development of the Modern Greenlandic Film Industry and ­Nation-Building
Ruth ­Montgomery-Andersen 84
Arctic Gothic: Changing Times, Female Entrapment and Finnish Horror in Noidan Kirot and The White Reindeer
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, Canela Ailen Rodriguez Fontao and Emiliano Aguilar 95
Multilingual Speech Representation, Translation and Hybridity in the Sámi ­Feature-Film Comedy Minister of State
Monica Mecsei 109
Cinema in Arctic Canada: From Igloolik to the Côte d’Azur
Doris Baltruschat 122
Lapland Odyssey from the Local to the Global: “Perkele,” Contemporary Northern Masculinity and the Arctic Cultural Imaginary
­Kylo-Patrick R. Hart 134
Alienation, Freedom/Belonging and the Representation of (Queer) Icelandic Spaces and Places in Heartstone
­Kylo-Patrick R. Hart 147

Closing Considerations: Some Notes on permafrost (barentsburg), an Artist’s Video
Fernando José Pereira 162
About the Contributors 173
Index 177