Page 598 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

World C nema |

in which whole topic areas are cordoned off. Yet the stories Iranian directors tell
are vivid portraits of a people and their culture, from the extremes of crowded
cities to dry, desert landscapes.
Kiarostami’s film, Through the Olive Trees (1994), has suffered a type of distri-
bution censorship. Although Miramax contracted to distribute the film, it had
an exceptionally short run in some major U.S. cities. Since then, though Mira-
max still has the rights to the film, it has been completely unavailable and has
never released on video or DVD.
Self censorship and market censorship—adhering to the often rigid aesthetic
and economic necessities needed to get films made—are equally dangerous
forms of constraining speech and stifling freedom of expression. The personal
and cultural interactions so important to world cinema have also been blocked
by visa denials. In 2002, the United States denied Abbas Kiarostami’s visa after
he was invited to the New York Film Festival to show his film Ten, a portrait of
six Iranian women. In protest, Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki refused to at-
tend the festival even though his film The Man Without a Past was also being
shown. Kaurismaki said, “As a private citizen of Finland, I accuse the U.S. gov-
ernment of violating the Geneva Convention. If international cultural exchange
is prevented, what is left?” The head of the festival, Richard Pena, also stated to
the press that the denial of Kiarostami’s visa was “unjust, extraordinarily short-
sighted and a snub to a major Muslim artist.”
Although Cuban filmmakers work under the eyes of government censors,
their films contain ample criticism of the socialist revolution they often lov-
ingly depict. As some writers have observed, many Cuban artists and directors
have supported censorship because they feel constructive criticism is accepted.
Making their socialist society better by criticizing the bad and presenting other
options is one thing, but proposing an end to the revolution, in their eyes is
another. Cuban cinema has been called nationalistic, but patriotic tendencies
can be traced through the films of many nations, especially those of the United
States.
And as Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand learned, censorship is not always
about the failure to express a political opinion, but can also be personal, such as
when an individual declines to express an emotion. This was the point the direc-
tor tried to express in his film Barbarian Invasions (2003). In the film, he tried
to repair his own past through a dialogue between a son and his father. As the
director, he could make the son say that he loved his father.

ConCLusion
By 2007, global cinema had demonstrated its enduring value and essential
qualities. Three of the five films nominated for an Academy Award for best-
director were foreign filmmakers (“Oscars Go Global” 2007), and many films
that won Oscars included international participation. With seven nominations,
including best picture, Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s film
Babel links families on three continents to a tragic event in the African desert.
Brad Pitt and Australia’s Cate Blanchett were the featured stars, but Mexico’s