Colonial Mentality in a Country without Colonies: The Contexts of Discourse Decolonization as Exemplified by Selected Austrian Films
Beata Kosińska-Krippner
beata.krippner@ispan.plInstitute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8096-9708
Abstract
Contrary to the myth cultivated in Austria after 1945, which presents a past devoid of colonial elements, the Habsburg Monarchy experienced the phenomenon of ‘colonialism without colonies,’ as Austrians took part in the colonization initiatives of other European powers and benefited from them. For a long time, Austrian cinema did not address colonialism directly but reacted critically to the colonial mentality and manifestations of ‘bourgeois coldness.’ The text presents some initiatives aimed at decolonizing discourses in Austria and examines the role of film in implementing two strategies of this process: dismantling/elimination and inclusion/restoration. The author cites selected films by Peter Kubelka, Ulrich Seidl, and Walter Wippersberg as instruments for diagnozing and criticizing contemporary manifestations of colonialism, and selected works by Xaver Schwarzenberger, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, Markus Schleinzer, Lisl Ponger, and Ella Raidel, which exemplify efforts towards inclusion and representation of the perspectives of the forgotten, socially invisible, or powerless. Inspired by the views of Kubelka, Ponger, and Dina Yanni, the author proposes a metastrategy that consists in the critical self-control of filmmakers in the course of these processes and the control of their effects (also by viewers).
Keywords:
Austrian films, discourse decolonization, strategies of dismantling, inclusion, and control, Austrian colonialism without colonies, colonial mentalityReferences
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Authors
Beata Kosińska-Krippnerbeata.krippner@ispan.pl
Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8096-9708
PhD in Humanities, film studies and media studies scholar. Assistant Professor at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw). In 2011-2020, head of the Department of Cultural Anthropology, Film and Audiovisual Arts at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Member of the editorial team of Kwartalnik Filmowy, in which in 1993-2003 she published, i.a., an annual chronicle of film events. Her scientific papers on the history and theory of film and television were published, among others, in Kwartalnik Filmowy and edited volumes. She collaborated with the quarterly Polish Culture (1997-2015). She was a member of the jury of the International Short Film Festival in Lublin (2013-2014) and a member of the expert committee at the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (2012-2014). Member of the Polish Society for Film and Media Studies. Her research interests include the documentary film in the context of hybrid border genres (including mock-documentary and docusoap), the history and theory of film and television genres, as well as Austrian cinema.
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