Balász Varga's (Institute for the Theory of Art and Media Studies) research project, within which this publication was produced, examines the post-socialist transformation of East-Central European screen cultures, with particular attention to how Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Hungarian screen cultures have integrated into global film and media systems.
Its primary aim is to identify the shared patterns and local specificities of post-socialist film and media cultures – that is, to trace the economic, institutional, generic, and cultural processes through which the formerly state-controlled, politically motivated film industries evolved into professionalized ecosystems aligned with market and transnational logics.
The project employs a dual methodological perspective, combining industry and production studies with textual and genre analysis. This approach allows transformation within the given screen cultures to be understood not only as an institutional or economic shift but also as an aesthetic, narrative, and cultural phenomenon. Historically, the research outlines the dissolution of socialist studio systems and state subsidy structures, followed by the reorganization of national film institutes, the rise of coproduction models, and the growing importance of the festival-based film culture, leading up to the current media environment defined by digital platforms and streaming services.
One of the project’s central objectives is to map the specific identity of post-socialist film cultures – to explore how these national cinemas reflect upon questions of national, regional, and transnational belonging, and how they have contributed to the cultural and political repositioning of East-Central Europe over the past decade. In doing so, the research critically revisits and reinterprets earlier theoretical paradigms – such as the concepts of “small cinema,” “glocalization,” and “transnational cinema” – with the aim of constructing a flexible conceptual framework that better fits the region’s unique historical and economic context.
Accordingly, the study encompasses both traditional aspects of screen industry analysis – production structures, financing models, coproduction networks, and festival circulation – and newer platform studies approaches that investigate the cultural and economic effects of streaming services such as Netflix, HBO, and Disney+. Particular attention is paid to international service productions and to the Central and Eastern European projects produced by HBO and Netflix, which have become emblematic of the region’s new, professionalized media culture. The research also addresses questions of international distribution, canonization, and festival participation, as well as the circulation of regional films on global SVoD platforms.
In its thematic scope, the project focuses not only on auteur cinema but also on the transformation of popular screen culture. Key genres and thematic fields of investigation include spy thrillers, crime narratives, and films dealing with the memory of socialism and the regime change, all of which reflect the region’s identity dilemmas and historical ambivalences. These genres provide fertile ground for exploring the intersections between collective memory and contemporary sociopolitical allegory.
Overall, the research seeks to interpret post-socialist East-Central European film cultures not as isolated national phenomena, but as interconnected regional and global formations. By examining how these cinemas participate in and reshape the global networks of film and media culture, the study aims to contribute to a renewed understanding of Europe’s cultural diversity and its evolving position within the global audiovisual landscape of the 21st century.