Five Kurosawas and a (de)construction of theOrient

2019

In 1959, UNESCO published a catalogue of Eastern films suitable for Western audiences, titled ‘Orient. A Survey of Films Produced in Countries of Arab and Asian Culture’. The aim of the catalogue was to familiarise Western audiences with Eastern cultures through cinema. The catalogue lists seven general characteristics of Eastern cinema to distinguish it from its Western counterpart and to provide ready-made interpretations of the essential characteristics of the Eastern world. Of the 139 feature films listed in the catalogue, five were directed by Kurosawa Akira – the biggest number of films by a single director. This article provides an analysis of the five Kurosawa films within the frame…

The Enduring Vision of a World without War: UNESCO’s Orient Catalogue 1959 and the Construction of an International Society

2018

Propaganda is a term one rarely comes across in the UNESCO context. However, the organisation’s constitutionally embedded strategy to build the defences of peace in the minds of men is based on its suggested power to move actors by influencing attitudes and opinions. This article analyses UNESCO’s early attempts to communicate its principles of peace, understanding and solidarity, and to shape values accordingly. Through the methodological approach of propaganda, understood here as a tool for analysing processes of influence, this article analyses a film catalogue titled Orient. A Survey of Films Produced in Countries of Arab and Asian Culture, published by UNESCO and the British Film Insti…

De-demonising Japan? Transitioning from war to peace through Japan’s cinematic post-war cultural diplomacy in UNESCO’sOrientproject 1957–1959

2017

AbstractIn 1959, UNESCO published a film catalogue titled Orient. A Survey of Films Produced in Countries of Arab and Asian Culture to familiarise Western audiences with Eastern cultures. Out of the 139 feature films included in the catalogue, 37 were Japanese. Through a discussion of the descriptions of the films provided in the catalogue, this article analyses Japan’s post-war cultural diplomacy in the context of the Orient project. The aim is to discuss the question of what purpose the Japanese films chosen for the Orient catalogue served in terms of cultural diplomacy. The analysis suggests the Japanese representatives aimed to position the nation in the international arena outside the …

Cosmopolitan internationalism: UNESCO’s ideological ambiguity and the difference/diversity problematic

2022

This article addresses the ways in which UNESCO’s ideological engagements are negotiated in the difference/diversity discourse as they are transferred from the international standard-setting level to the national and local contexts. It proposes the discursive construction of cosmopolitan internationalism as a framework for analysing the intersections of difference, located in the practicalities of internationalism, and diversity, tied to the ideals of cosmopolitanism, as they are manifested at the level of both the implementation of UNESCO’s Diversity Convention and urban policy making in the city of Sydney. The analysis suggests that ruptures challenging the homogenising diversity discours…

Kun kulttuuridiplomatia epäonnistuu

2018

Yhdysvaltojen ja Israelin ero UNESCOsta palautti kysymykset vallasta ja vallankäytöstä järjestön ympärillä pyörivän argumentaatiosirkuksen ytimeen. nonPeerReviewed

Three Halves of a Whole : Redefining East and West in UNESCO’s East-West Major Project 1957-1966

2017


 
 
 In 1946 Julian Huxley, UNESCO’s rst Director-General, suggested that two opposing philosophies of life were confronting each other from the East and the West, setting the focus on the cultural aspect of this polarisation and de ning the possibility of an East- West conflict as the main threat to world peace. A decade later, in 1957, UNESCO launched The Major Project on the Mutual Appreciation of Eastern and Western Cultural Values to promote its ideas of intercultural understanding as a means to maintaining peace. The core concepts of the Project, East and West, were not strictly defined. Here East and West, as concepts, fit Reinhart Koselleck’s definition of Grundbegri…

UNESCO’s Humanity of Hope : The Orient Catalogue and the Story of the East

2018

This article analyses UNESCO’s (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) early attempts to propagate the ideal of hope in the pursuit of the organisation’s agenda of “the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind”. An early example of such an endeavour is a film catalogue project carried out by UNESCO and the British Film Institute in the midst of the Cold War and at the peak of the decolonisation process. Titled “Orient. A Survey of Films Produced in Countries of Arab and Asian Culture”, the catalogue was published in 1959 with the aim of familiarising Western audiences with Eastern cultures to forge solidarity of humankind through the promotion of intercult…

UNESCO’s cinematic multiverse and the best of all possible worlds

2020

De-demonising Japan? : Transitioning from war to peace through Japan’s cinematic post-war cultural diplomacy in UNESCO’s Orient project 1957–1959

2017

In 1959, UNESCO published a film catalogue titled Orient. A Survey of Films Produced in Countries of Arab and Asian Culture to familiarise Western audiences with Eastern cultures. Out of the 139 feature films included in the catalogue, 37 were Japanese. Through a discussion of the descriptions of the films provided in the catalogue, this article analyses Japan’s post-war cultural diplomacy in the context of the Orient project. The aim is to discuss the question of what purpose the Japanese films chosen for the Orient catalogue served in terms of cultural diplomacy. The analysis suggests the Japanese representatives aimed to position the nation in the international arena outside the Cold War…

Five Kurosawas and a (de)construction of the Orient

2020

In 1959, UNESCO published a catalogue of Eastern films suitable for Western audiences, titled ‘Orient. A Survey of Films Produced in Countries of Arab and Asian Culture’. The aim of the catalogue was to familiarise Western audiences with Eastern cultures through cinema. The catalogue lists seven general characteristics of Eastern cinema to distinguish it from its Western counterpart and to provide ready-made interpretations of the essential characteristics of the Eastern world. Of the 139 feature films listed in the catalogue, five were directed by Kurosawa Akira – the biggest number of films by a single director. This article provides an analysis of the five Kurosawa films within the frame…

Toimijat ja toimijaverkon rakentuminen kotimaisten filmielokuvien digitointiprosessissa

2014

Tutkimuksen kohteena on kotimaisten filmielokuvien digitointiprosessi. Kansallinen audiovisuaalinen instituutti KAVI käynnisti vuonna 2012 kotimaisen elokuvakokoelman digitointiprojektin, jonka tavoitteena on tehdä kaikista kotimaisista pitkistä elokuvista digitaaliset esityskopiot pyrkien näin mahdollistamaan myös vanhemman kotimaisen elokuvan esittämisen edelleen valkokankaalla. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää, miten digitointiprosessin toimijaverkko rakentuu, minkälaisista toimijoista verkko koostuu ja mistä sosiaalinen digitointiprosessin kontekstissa koostuu. Tutkimusaineistona käytettiin kahta tekstimuotoista dokumenttia, jotka kuvaavat digitointiprosessin toimintaperiaatteita. A…