This review assesses Hilary Radner and Rebecca Stringer’s interdisciplinary collection on Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023), which sets film historians, feminist critics, music and star scholars, and political economists in open disagreement over whether the film critiques or merely absorbs corporate feminism. Reading the volume alongside recent feminist scholarship, we argue that its opposing positions are its principal strength, but that they are insufficiently tested against audiences, intersectional critique, and labor.
This article examines how The Bride (Gelin, 1973), the first film of Ömer Lütfi Akad’s Migration Trilogy, represents the coexistence of feudal sociocultural structures and capitalist economic relations within the context of internal migration in Turkey. The film portrays a migrant family from rural Anatolia attempting to establish economic security in Istanbul while preserving hierarchical social relations, patriarchal authority, and cultural practices carried from the countryside. The study combines qualitative content analysis, sociological criticism, and elements of discourse analysis to examine the sociocultural, economic, and religious references embedded in the narrative. Particular attention is also paid to the visual organization of domestic space and family relations to understand how these tensions are conveyed through cinematic form. The analysis shows that the family increasingly adapts to the economic logic of commercial capitalism while continuing to reproduce feudal cultural norms within its internal social structure. Patriarchal authority and women’s unpaid labor play a crucial role in sustaining the household economy, while religious symbolism frequently serves as a moral framework legitimizing economic ambition. By highlighting how these different social orders coexist within the migrant family, the article demonstrates how The Bride offers a powerful cinematic reflection on the contradictions accompanying Turkey’s transition toward an urban capitalist society.
This article examines how distribution constraints may affect film production in Benin City, Nigeria. Drawing on a survey of 146 industry practitioners and close readings of Invasion 1897 and Ikoka, it considers the relationship between creative expertise, financial investment, and regional distribution. The study proposes an “aesthetics of scarcity” as a framework for interpreting restrained production scale, framing, and sound design. Survey respondents reported concerns about market access, investment, and opportunities for technical workers. These findings describe professional perceptions rather than directly establishing the causes of particular aesthetic decisions. The article argues that more transparent regional distribution arrangements, technical support, and systematic industry data could strengthen the sustainability of Benin-language filmmaking within Nollywood.
Ritwik Ghatak’s Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (1974) is often read as autobiography because Ghatak plays Nilkantha Bagchi, a disillusioned intellectual resembling aspects of the filmmaker’s life. This article argues instead that the film constructs a self-critical performance, not a transparent confession. Through encounters with refugees, artists, intellectuals, and revolutionaries, Nilkantha’s authority is repeatedly questioned. Drawing on Geeta Kapur’s analysis of cinematic self-representation and a limited psychoanalytic account of melancholia, the essay examines how loss becomes self-reproach without diagnosing the character or filmmaker. Close readings of theatrical interruption, allegorical naming, competing voices, and circular imagery show how personal collapse becomes a public debate about Partition, historical memory, and intellectual responsibility. Ghatak’s self-portrait remains an unfinished political argument.
This article examines the Tunisian television series Harga through a socio-aesthetic approach focused on the audiovisual construction of migration trauma. Moving beyond a solely reception-based perspective, the study analyzes how the series mobilizes realist aesthetics, testimonial performances, underwater cinematography, and immersive sound design to produce emotional identification and ethical spectatorship. Through close analysis of selected sequences, the article explores the hybridization of fiction and lived testimony, particularly through the inclusion of real victims of irregular migration alongside professional actors. The study argues that Harga constructs migration not only as a social issue but also as a sensory and affective experience shaped through cinematic form. Audience reception data are mobilized to support the analysis of the series’ emotional and cultural resonance.
