Rewind, recycle, revive!

The latest issue of NECSUS European Journal of Media Studies focuses on the theme ‘Cycles: On circularity and recursivity in media culture‘. Edited by Toni Pape (University of Amsterdam), the special issue brings together contributions that analyse how media culture engages with notions of cyclicality, circularity, and recursivity. Together with Atalya De Cock, Eduard Cuelenaere and Stijn Joye, I also contributed to the issue with the article ‘Rewind, recycle, revive! An investigation into nostalgia-driven sequel and requel practices in small European film industries: The case of Flanders‘.

Our article departs from the observation that in the last decade, nostalgia-driven imitative filmmaking – characterised by requels and ‘belated’ sequels – has become ubiquitous in commercial cinema globally. While the transgenerational appeal of nostalgia in Hollywood has been researched extensively, smaller European film industries like Flanders remain underexplored in this regard. This article investigates how Flemish nostalgia-driven sequels and requels employ transgenerational nostalgia both within the films and in their marketing endeavours.

We focus on three case studies: 1) De Collega’s 2.0 (2018), a requel of late 1970s, early 1980s BRT comedy series De Collega’s (1978-1981); 2) 8eraf! (2021), a belated direct sequel to early 2000s young adult series W817 (1999-2003); 3) Zeppos het Mercatorspoor (2022), a legacyquel to the 1960s BRT children’s series Kapitein Zeppos (1964-1969). Throughout our analysis, we argue that compared to Hollywood’s consistent 1980s nostalgia strategy, Flemish cinema employs nostalgia as a short-term commemorative tactic, celebrating Flemish pop culture artefacts of the recent past instead of the past itself.

European Film Remakes in paperback

Out now: the paperback edition of European Film Remakes! This book, which I edited together with Eduard Cuelenaere and Stijn Joye, is the first to discuss the textual, socio-cultural, political, and industrial mechanisms and singularities of the film remake in a European context. Offering a variety of historical, contemporary, theoretical and empirical approaches to remakes, the book is illustrated by a wide range of case studies from across Europe, including films like A Bigger Splash, Open Your Eyes and Perfect Strangers. Although commonly understood as a typical Hollywood practice, the book demonstrates how film remakes are, and always have been, a significant part of the European film culture and industry. You can read the introduction to the book here. I’m very happy the book is now available for a normal price instead of the absurd high price of the hardcover edition, and here’s a 30% reduction code: PAPER30.

PhD vacancy in film studies

We have just opened a vacancy for a doctoral researcher in film studies at Ghent University! The PhD candidate will conduct research within the framework of the project Recycle or perish? A multi-method investigation into the cultural value and industrial sustainability recycle film cultures in small Western European film industries, financed by Ghent University’s Special Research Fund (BOF). Supervisors of the project are Stijn Joye, Eduard Cuelenaere and myself.

The project originates from our previous collaboration on Dutch-Flemish film remakes and departs from the observation that since the 2000s, many European film industries are increasingly focusing on what one could call ‘recycle film cultures’. Inspired by Hollywood-like production and distribution techniques, European film industries have been investing more in film remakes, sequels, TV spin-offs, franchises, etc. Our project aims to investigate the economic and cultural implications of these recently emerged film cultures in small Western European film industries.

The job vacancy is published in English and in Dutch. Interested candidates can apply until 31 May 2022.

Companion to European Cinema

The new year starts off with the publication of a new important book for the field of European film studies: The Routledge Companion to European Cinema, edited by Gábor Gergely and Susan Hayward. The 43 chapters take on both film textual and industrial approaches to the history and contemporary situation of European cinema.

I’m honoured to be part of this collection of scholarship, with a chapter co-authored by Eduard Cuelenaere and Stijn Joye: Why small European film industries remake each other’s successes: The case of the Low Countries. This chapter forms a kind of synthesis of our four-year research project on monolingual remakes in Flanders and the Netherlands. It investigates the economic and cultural incentives behind the practice of remaking films in small European film industries.

Chapter downloadDownload

New book: European Film Remakes

I’m thrilled to announce the publication of European Film Remakes! This book is the first to discuss the textual, socio-cultural, political, and industrial mechanisms and singularities of the film remake in a European context. Offering a variety of historical, contemporary, theoretical and empirical approaches to remakes, the book is illustrated by a wide range of case studies from across Europe, including films like A Bigger Splash, Open Your Eyes and Perfect Strangers. Although commonly understood as a typical Hollywood practice, this book demonstrates how film remakes are, and always have been, a significant part of the European film culture and industry. You can read the introduction to the book here.

The book cover, featuring a still from A Bigger Splash (2015, Luca Guadagnino)

This book is the final result of the symposium ‘Remaking European Cinema’ that I’ve organized together with Eduard Cuelenaere and Stijn Joye, back in 2018. Earlier versions of most of the chapters were presented at this symposium, while we also invited other authors to contribute to the book. A big thank you to the staff at Edinburgh University Press for making this possible and to all authors for their great work! Thomas Leitch, Marie Martin, Peter Verstraten, Mario Slugan, Iain Robert Smith, Jennifer Forrest, Stefanie Mathilde Frank, Kamalika Sanyal, Kris van Heuckelom, Boris Noordenbos, Irina Souch, Balázs varga, Constantine Verevis, Robert Munro, Michael Stewart, Núria Araüna Baró, Chris Meir, and, of course, my co-editors Eduard Cuelanere and Stijn Joye: it was nothing but a pleasure to work with you on this project!

The contents of the book

On differences that make the difference

Last Monday, Eduard Cuelenaere successfully defended his PhD dissertation, titled On Differences that Make the Difference. A Multi-Methodological Research Project on Monolingual Film Remakes in Small Film Industries: The Case of Flanders and the Netherlands.

Eduard managed to make an impressive thesis of which the relevance easily transcends the locality of the study object he departs from: the peculiar phenomenon of Dutch-Flemish film remakes. The theoretical, methodological and empirical contribution of Eduard’s PhD thesis to the international field of remake studies is beyond dispute.

This dissertation also forms the most important scientific output of the FWO research project ‘Lost in Translation’ that Stijn Joye and I started four years ago. It has been a true pleasure to work intensively together with the three of us, such as on the Remaking European Cinema symposium in 2018 and on a special issue of the journal Communications. I’m looking forward to continue this collaboration in future projects!

The doctoral jury of Eduard’s joint PhD between Ghent University and the University of Antwerp was chaired by Peter Stevens (Ghent University) and included Daniël Biltereyst (Ghent University), Susanne Janssen (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Sofie Van Bauwel (Ghent University), Jono Van Belle (Örebro University/Ghent University), Roel Vande Winkel (KU Leuven/LUCA) and Stijn and myself as supervisors.

Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap

At the Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap in Amsterdam, an annual gathering of communication scholars working in the Netherlands and Flanders, I presented an upcoming edited volume on media and nation-building in Flanders.

Over enkele maanden verschijnt het boek De verbeelding van de leeuw. Een geschiedenis van media en natievorming in Vlaanderen, waar ik de afgelopen drie jaar samen met Bruno De Wever aan werkte. We brachten auteurs uit de media- en communicatiewetenschappen, geschiedenis, politicologie, rechten en taal- en letterkunde samen om zo een interdisciplinair verhaal te vertellen over media en natievorming in Vlaanderen, vanaf de 19^e tot de 21^e eeuw.

Boekpresentatie met sneak preview van de cover

De officiële boekvoorstelling vindt plaats in mei, maar op het Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap in Amsterdam (6-7 februari) gaven we alvast een sneak preview. Na een woordje uitleg over het boek als geheel presenteerde ik het hoofdstuk over film (met Daniël Biltereyst en Roel Vande Winkel als medeauteurs). Vervolgens presenteerde Alexander Dhoest het hoofdstuk over televisie (medeauteur Hilde Van den Bulck) en Peter Van Aelst het hoofdstuk over de relatie tussen de media en het Vlaams Blok/Belang (medeauteurs Benjamin De Cleen en Knut De Swert).

Stien De Rudder over sequels

Daarnaast was ik betrokken bij een onderzoek naar vervolgfilms in Vlaanderen, gepresenteerd door Stien De Rudder en in samenwerking met Stijn Joye, Emmelie Mouton en Eduard Cuelenaere. De titel van deze presentatie geldt tevens voor het achterliggende onderzoek en het boek: Wordt vervolgd…

Special issue: Current trends in remaking European screen cultures

I’m happy to announce that Communications – The European Journal of Communication Research just published a special issue titled ‘Current trends in remaking European screen cultures’! Eduard Cuelenaere, Stijn Joye and I were the guest editors for this issue, which is one of the outcomes of the symposium ‘Remaking European Cinema‘ we organized last year. As the title of the special issue suggests, the articles we collected here focus on the most recent developments in the European film en television remake industry.

This is the table of contents of the special issue:

EDITORIAL

Current trends in remaking European screen cultures Cuelenaere, Eduard / Joye, Stijn / Willems, Gertjan

ARTICLES

Local flavors and regional markers: The Low Countries and their commercially driven and proximity-focused film remake practice Cuelenaere, Eduard / Joye, Stijn / Willems, Gertjan

Manufacturing proximity through film remakes: Remake rights representatives and the case of local-language comedy remakes Labayen, Miguel Fernández / Morán, Ana Martín

Babylon Berlin: Pastiching Weimar cinema Hall, Sara F.

Remaking Winnetou, reconfiguring German fantasies of Indianer and the Wild West in the Post-Reunification Era Loock, Kathleen

Instead of the real thing: Six ways to talk about what Hollywood does to European films Leitch, Thomas

BOOK REVIEWS

Meir, C. (2019). Mass producing European cinema: Studiocanal and its works. New York, London: Bloomsbury Academic. 272 pp. Cuelenaere, Eduard

Evens, T., & Donders, K. (2018). Platform power and policy in transforming television markets. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 304 pp. Scarlata, Alexa

Remaking national, disability and gender identities

The European Journal of Cultural Studies published an article by Eduard Cuelenaere, Stijn Joye and myself. By drawing on the case of the Belgian film Hasta La Vista (2011) and its Dutch remake Adios Amigos (2016), we look at how the remake process transforms representations of national, disability and gender identities. You can read the article here.

Both films are popular road trip movies dealing with the adventure of three friends with disabilities who overcome boundaries in multiple ways. Not only by figuratively (and almost literally) escaping their parents and their disabilities but also through traveling, exploring sexuality, and eventually by dying. Although the films deal with almost exactly the same themes, their interpretation and contextualization differ considerably. As a consequence of the localizing processes embedded in film remakes, subtexts which were ingrained in the source text were ignored or even withheld in the newer version. As the involved filmmakers built on particular stereotypical visions and myths about these specific cultures and national identities, often with the purpose of recreating a socio-cultural context, such narrowed perceptions were occasionally subverted but also reconsolidated. Furthermore, through the remake process, some ableist and patronizing representations of, respectively, disability and gender identities were subverted, while others were kept or even reinforced. Our results show that such transformations point toward specific socio-culturally defined disability and gender identities but also toward a shared disability and gender culture.

Loft remakes

The latest issue of the Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap published an article by Eduard Cuelenaere, Stijn Joye and myself on the Belgian film Loft (2008) and its Dutch (2010) and American (2014) remake. You can read the article here (in Dutch).

Het Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap publiceerde zonet een artikel van Eduard Cuelenaere, Stijn Joye en mezelf, over de Belgische film Loft (2008) en zijn Nederlandse (2010) en Amerikaanse (2014) remake. Je kan het artikel hier lezen. Het artikel focust op de (re)producties van culturele identiteiten. Via een vergelijkende analyse van representaties van vrouwelijke personages, seksualiteit en etniciteit onderzoeken we hoe verschillende versies van eenzelfde filmverhaal gerelateerd zijn aan hun specifieke socio-culturele contexten, en aan het concept van ‘karaoke-Amerikanisme’.