Difference between revisions of "Ekran, Magazine for Film and Television"

Revision as of 03:54, 30 January 2010

Ekran, Magazine for Film and Television was established in 1962 and is indubitably the most important Slovene film magazine of all time and also the one with the longest tradition. Through its history it was a home for many generations of Slovene film critics but it was also always open for foreign writers. Ekran is not an academic magazine but neither a commercially oriented populist magazine. In certain periods it's orientation slightly changed - from more academic to more populist - but for the most of the time Ekran retained it's focus on general overview of the contemporary world film production, mostly on "auteur" and independent cinema but also on mainstream cinema, and of the recent developments in film industry. Furthermore it always watchfully followed current tendencies in film criticism, analysis and debates and in it's most successful period - when Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar, Zdenko Vrdlovec and others introduced lacanian concepts in film theory - it also promoted new ones.

Historical overview

Despite the fact that Ekran was not the first Slovene film magazine after the second world war (before it the Film gazette and Film magazine were published) at the time it was established writing about cinema was at its beginning. That's why the young team of cinefiles (V. Musek, T. Tršar, B. Šomen) that in 1962 took over the new film magazine had to lean on translated text mostly to introduce Slovene readers to the then current situation in world cinema. On the other hand they were among the first to promote new tendencies in the Yugoslav cinema of that time, influenced by the European new waves, mostly the so called black film (B. Hladnik, J. Pogačnik and Ž. Pavlović in Slovenia, A. Patrović, D. Makavejev and Ž. Žilnik in other parts of former Yugoslavia) - on the home front and internationaly.

The next important period in the history of Ekran were the 1980s when under the strong influence of the modern French film theory Ekran's writers (S. Žižek, M. Dolar, Z. Vrdlovec, S. Furlan, S. Pelko, A. Zupančič, etc.) started to merge high theory and popular culture - Lacan and Hollywood films. Their original approach to film studies triggered the golden period of the magazine Ekran as it's reputation considerably grew as at home as internationally. At that time Ekran, with S. Furlan as editor in chief, made a big step forward also in regard to its organizational structure. It was published regularly on a bimonthly basis, it introduced a book collection - Imago, dedicated to film theory (later it was integrated in the publishing activity of Slovenian Cinematheque) - and an international colloquium of film theory called Autumn Film School.

In the mid 1990s Ekran's situation radically changed as it sunk in an editorial crisis and it stopped being published for a year. Towards the end of the decade when Ekran got a new publisher (Slovenian Cinematheque, in 1997) and Simon Popek took over the position of the editor in chief the situation slowly improved. It started to emphasize it's cinefile orientation following film festivals and world cinema and calling into attention the overlooked chapters of film history. In 2005 followed another turn of orientation as N. Bohinc, the new editor in chief, decided for a more populist approach to cinema but she also gave to the Ekran a distinctive international character. The last change in it's editorial policy came in 2009 when G. Trušnovec took the editorial position. Now Ekran is again a monthly magazine (with a double summer issue) that is trying to bring a general overview on contemporary film production (mainstream and independent) while giving also a greater attention to the home front. As good as may seem the actual situation there are still some things to regret - first of all the lost of the Autumn Film School as it always brought interesting international guest and opened a space for a vivid discussion on different film topics but also the lost of the Ekran 'Nursery' School of the Gaze as it gave a chance to the youngest cinefiles to meet and learn new things.

External links

Yugoslav new wave cinema - black film

Ekran Untranslated - Ekran's blog and international website (not upadated since 2008)

Programme of the last Autumn Film School (2008)

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{Article
-| status       = WRITING INFOBOX TOPROOFREAD NIFERTIK!
+| status       = TOPROOFREAD NIFERTIK!
 | maintainer   = Denis Valič
 }}

Difference between revisions of "Ekran, Magazine for Film and Television"

Revision as of 03:54, 30 January 2010

Historical overview

See also

External links

Operated by

Financed by