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Wallflower Press – Key Film Reference Books 2004-2008
By Ron Holloway | August 25, 2008
The Wallflower Press film publications are valuable resource and reference books on the national cinematographies. Herewith reviews on theIan Haydn Smith’s edited International Film Guide (2008), John Cunningham’s Hungarian Cinema – From Coffee House to Multiplex (2004), and Dina Iordanova’s edited The Cinema of the Balkans (2006).
The International Film Guide is back! Thanks to Wallflower Press (London & New York), this 424-page guide to worldwide filmlands picks up where it left off in 2006 under previous sponsorship. The 44th edition, edited by Ian Haydn Smith, covers 99 countries, a fourth grouped under Other Countries due to lesers output. China and Hong Kong are split, so too United States and Puerto Rico, while Serbia and Montenegro are together, but Lithuania and Macedonia unfortunately missing. The IFG continues its focus on Directors of the Year – Fatih Akin (Germany), Susanne Bier (Denmark), Guillermo del Toro (Mexico), Paul Greengrass (UK), and Jia Zhangke (China). Shane Danielsen contributes the Country Focus on Germany (Key Players and Milestones in German Cinema), Hannah Patterson surveys Industry Focus on Documentary, and Brad Stevens oversees a Special Focus on DVD Market. IFG also has a World Box Office Survey, Leading Festivals, and Other Festivals and Markets. Fine work, Wallflower!
John Cunningham, Hungarian Cinema – From Coffee House to Multiplex. Wallflower Press, 2004. 258 pages, photos, stills, footnotes, bibliography, index. While researching his history of Hungarian cinema, John Cunningham taught at Hungarian universities and interviewed key filmmakers. In twelve informative chapters he covers every nook and corner of this productive national cinema – including The Hungarian Film Diaspora: From the Beginning to 1989 in a special appendix. The key chapter on The 1960s: New Directors, New Films, New Wave spotlights the cinema of Zoltan Fabri, Karoly Makk, Miklos Jancso, Andras Kovacs, Peter Basco, Istvan Szabo, Istvan Gaal, Judit Elek, Marta Meszaros. Must reading!
Dina Iordanova, Editor, The Cinema of the Balkans, Wallflower Press, 2006. 291 pages, stills, filmography, bibliography, index, notes on 18 contributors. After Dina Iordanova contributed her insightful Cinema of Other Europe (Wallflower Press, 2003), she has now assembled a book of essays on the key films produced in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and ex-Yugoslavia. Serb director Dusan Makavejev pens an insightful introduction. Dan Georgakas writes on Michael Cacoyannis’s Stella (Greece, 1955), Marian Tutui on Liviu Ciulei’s Forest of the Hanged (Romania, 1964), Vlastimir Sudar on Aleksandar Petrovic’s Three (Yugoslavia, 1965), Pavle Levi on Zika Pavlovic’s When I Am Dead and Gone (Yugoslavia, 1968), and Alexander Grozev on Rangel Vulchanov’s The Unknown Soldier’s Patent Leather Shoes (Bulgaria, 1979). Classics of Balkan cinema!
– Ron Holloway
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