Table of Con­tents
News­re­els on India in the Pro­gress Archi­ve  | The Pro­gress Film Archi­ve  |  Cold War Rese­arch and Cine­ma Stu­dies  |   End­no­tes

In autumn 2018, while pre­pa­ring a doc­to­ral pro­ject pro­po­sal on rela­ti­ons bet­ween Ger­ma­ny and pre-inde­pen­dence India in the field of film pro­duc­tion, a sys­te­ma­tic online-rese­arch on poten­ti­al archi­ves and coll­ec­tions led me to the Pro­gress Archi­ve in Ber­lin. This is one of Germany’s most exhaus­ti­ve film archi­ves, which also incor­po­ra­tes DEFA (Deut­sche Film-Akti­en­ge­sell­schaft) pro­du­ced films from the Ger­man Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic in its coll­ec­tions. I was curious to find out if the­re were any ent­ries rela­ted to India in the archive’s online data­ba­se. To my fasci­na­ti­on, ente­ring simp­le-search terms such like “Indi­en” or “indisch” lead, bes­i­des other infor­ma­ti­on, to an unex­pec­ted­ly lar­ge num­ber of ent­ries. Note­wor­t­hy among the­se were ent­ries on Der Augen­zeu­ge, news­re­els that were pro­du­ced in the GDR. Bet­ween 1946 and 1980, DEFA pro­du­ced about 2000 news­re­els, 154 of which con­tain reports on India.[i] Scree­ned befo­re the main fea­ture films in cine­mas, Der Augen­zeu­ge news­re­els were part of the cine­ma pro­gram­me and were meant to inform audi­en­ces about cur­rent affairs around the glo­be. This uni­que and hither­to lar­ge­ly unex­plo­red mate­ri­al has even­tual­ly beco­me the cen­tral focus of my ongo­ing PhD project. 

This artic­le zooms into the main fea­tures of the DEFA news­re­el pro­duc­tions rela­ted to India. The first sec­tion intro­du­ces the dif­fe­rent kinds of images of India in GDR’s news­re­el films. It is based on cer­tain recur­ring the­mes that may be ins­truc­ti­ve in cate­go­ri­zing and ana­ly­zing GDR news­re­el films on India. The second sec­tion deals with the natu­re of the coll­ec­tions and the loca­ti­on of news­re­els within the orga­ni­zing struc­tu­re of the Pro­gress Film Archi­ve as the offi­ci­al archi­ve of DEFA pro­duc­tions. The last sec­tion dis­cus­ses the signi­fi­can­ce of the­se sources for scho­lar­ship on the Cul­tu­ral Cold War. In a digi­tal world satu­ra­ted with his­to­ri­cal and con­tem­po­ra­ry mate­ri­al on past events, this under­stu­di­ed archi­ve may pro­vi­de insights into pas­ts, which are very much part of our present.

Newsreels on India in the Progress Archive

India fea­tures in the news­re­els sin­ce the begin­ning of their pro­duc­tion (1946), but it beco­mes a pro­mi­nent topic with the offi­ci­al for­ma­ti­on of the GDR (1949).[ii]  During the time-peri­od under con­side­ra­ti­on, which marks the incep­ti­on of news­re­els in 1946 up to 1980, when the pro­duc­tion of news­re­els ended, India occurs in 154 reports in which it is often pre­sen­ted with pro­mi­nence and pal­pa­ble fra­ter­ni­ty. Though the­re can be other ways to cate­go­ri­ze the­se reports, three lar­ge­ly dis­cer­ni­ble rubrics emer­ge:[iii]

1) India’s strugg­le for demo­cra­cy and strength: This cate­go­ry refers to reports that descri­be con­tem­po­ra­ry India from the GDR’s per­spec­ti­ve. Films that pre­sen­ted poli­ti­cal, eco­no­mic, and social issues being faced in India, par­ti­cu­lar­ly as a coun­try that had recent­ly gai­ned inde­pen­dence, and tho­se describ­ing the estab­lish­ment of demo­cra­tic insti­tu­ti­ons in the coun­try belong to this category.

2) India and its net­works of soli­da­ri­ty: This cate­go­ry con­sists of news­re­el reports that situa­te India on the inter­na­tio­nal map, par­ti­cu­lar­ly in the con­text of inter­na­tio­nal soli­da­ri­ty among the still-colo­ni­zed nati­ons, the recent post-colo­nies, with the GDR, and the broa­der socia­list world.

3) India as a land of the past and the future: This rubric brings tog­e­ther films that repre­sent images of ever­y­day life in India for audi­en­ces in the GDR. They rely on older fami­li­ar images of the coun­try that had cate­red to East Ger­man view­ers while simul­ta­neous­ly cap­tu­ring a socie­ty that was seen as rapidly changing.

I fol­low this cate­go­riza­ti­on with the awa­re­ness that pla­cing the vast reper­toire of news­re­els into sche­ma­tic cate­go­ries has its own dan­gers and pro­blems, which could include limi­ting their scope and pro­du­cing pre­con­cei­ved noti­ons about them. Inde­ed, news­re­els are not, and also can­not, be cate­go­ri­zed into any strict­ly defi­ned rubrics also becau­se repre­sen­ta­ti­ons of India in the­se films chan­ged through time. The rubrics are porous and also over­lap­ping, with the same news­re­el often belon­ging to more than one cate­go­ry. They are thus inten­ded as a heu­ristic tool, which can assist in under­ta­king a nuan­ced ana­ly­sis of the films and the the­mes they cover, rather than being exclu­si­ve categories. 

Fol­lo­wing are a few brief examp­les of the reports that would fall under the­se cate­go­ries. The major the­me of GDR news­re­el reports on India from the ear­ly peri­od is India’s strugg­le for demo­cra­cy, which also draws upon the Ger­man expe­ri­ence during the Second World War. For exam­p­le, one of the ear­ly reports on India, released in Octo­ber 1949, talks about unrest and the par­ti­ti­on of Bri­tish India in 1947 and the pro­cess of achie­ving inde­pen­dence from colo­ni­al rule. This newsreel’s release in cine­mas coin­ci­ded with the year when the GDR was also for­mal­ly estab­lished. It con­sists of eight reports on dif­fe­rent topics. Among them the­re are reports main­ly rela­ted to the GDR and com­mu­nist par­ties in Euro­pe.[iv]  Mid­way in the news­re­el, a high-paced repor­ta­ge from India about the after­math of par­ti­ti­on is pre­sen­ted. Titled as „Unru­hen in Indi­en“ (Riots in India), it opens with the view of a street with flags of Paki­stan. The fol­lo­wing shots also dis­play such flags on hou­ses and on the street. Thus, the exis­tence of a new nati­on, Paki­stan, is the­ma­ti­zed, and the pro­cee­ding sce­nes show the poli­ti­cal and admi­nis­tra­ti­ve acti­vi­ties rela­ted to the for­ma­ti­on of the coun­try. We are shown Moham­mad Ali Jin­nah taking char­ge of the new nati­on from the last colo­ni­al Vice­roy Mount­bat­ten. This is fol­lo­wed by a Paki­sta­ni flag being waved in the par­lia­ment while a voice­over reminds the audi­ence about the role of Bri­tain that „pre­ven­ted the uni­fi­ca­ti­on of the Indi­an peo­p­le and crea­ted two sta­tes – Paki­stan and India“.[v]  The fol­lo­wing sce­nes show the by now wide­ly known car­na­ge and des­truc­tion during par­ti­ti­on. The his­to­ri­cal moment par­ti­ti­on, its ensuing vio­lence and des­truc­tion, and a divi­ded socie­ty – the report empha­si­zes the­se as the bit­ter fruits of colo­ni­al rule in India, and draws view­ers’ atten­ti­on to the uncan­ny resem­blan­ce that par­ti­ti­on has with the post-war situa­ti­on in Ger­ma­ny at that moment. It is important to note that reports such as the­se do not draw direct par­al­lels bet­ween the two count­ries, but they do attempt to por­tray clo­se affi­ni­ties in terms of their quest for peace and democracy.

The reports on India’s stan­ding in world poli­tics not only deal with the GDR’s offi­ci­al expec­ta­ti­ons of, and efforts towards, gai­ning poli­ti­cal reco­gni­ti­on in the world, but also show the influence of socia­list ideo­lo­gy on form­er­ly colo­ni­zed nati­ons. Indo-GDR rela­ti­ons were of signi­fi­can­ce in the poli­ti­cal-cul­tu­ral con­text of the Cold War, when for­mer colo­nies beca­me important for both the ‘blocs’.[vi] News­re­els often com­bi­ned for­mal aspects of inter­sta­te affairs with shots from the side-lines of the­se acti­vi­ties and loca­ti­ons, and employ­ed back­ground music which empha­si­zed the urgen­cy and warmth of India-GDR rela­ti­ons. Cul­tu­ral events and land­scapes play­ed a cru­cial role in the­se repre­sen­ta­ti­ons, and it is inte­res­t­ing to note how ste­reo­ty­pes pro­du­ced by such images pre­sent an impli­cit ten­si­on bet­ween an anti-impe­ria­list, socia­list ideo­lo­gy and a con­ven­tio­nal ori­en­ta­list under­stan­ding of India. To make them appear authen­tic and clo­se to rea­li­ty, news on ever­y­day life and cul­tu­re was a pro­mi­nent part of the­se reports. A mix­tu­re of ste­reo­ty­pes, dyna­mic, and spec­ta­cu­lar images of India was repe­ti­tively uti­li­zed to pro­du­ce a sen­se of ever­y­day life in the coun­try. India was depic­ted as a land of spec­ta­cles and para­do­xes. Thus, for exam­p­le, on the one hand, a report pre­sen­ted that the­re was a record tem­pe­ra­tu­re of 50 degrees in Cal­cut­ta (1958), and on the other, in a dif­fe­rent report, cou­ples were shown dancing waltz and ska­ting on a fro­zen lake in the nor­t­hern part of the coun­try (1954). On one rare occa­si­on, a news­re­el ope­ned with sports news, in which sce­nes from a hockey match bet­ween the natio­nal teams of India and GDR were shown (1968). Here, India was con­s­truc­ted as a coun­try that was advan­cing, not only in poli­tics and eco­no­my, but also in sports.

The Progress Film Archive

Loca­ted today in cen­tral Berlin’s Fried­rich­stra­ße, Pro­gress was ori­gi­nal­ly a Ger­man film dis­tri­bu­tor that was foun­ded on August 1, 1950, as a Ger­man-Soviet film dis­tri­bu­ti­on com­pa­ny. Accor­ding to the web­page of the archi­ve, Pro­gress was

the only film dis­tri­bu­tor in the Ger­man Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic [GDR] and brought around 12000 films to the country’s 830 cine­mas. Almost half of them were fea­ture films and docu­men­ta­ries by DEFA, the only film stu­dio in the GDR. With rough­ly 100 employees, pro­gress released around four films a week. The DEFA docu­men­ta­ries and news­re­els show the 20th cen­tu­ry world from an Eas­tern per­spec­ti­ve.[vii]

After the fall of the Ber­lin Wall, Pro­gress inhe­ri­ted the films pro­du­ced by DEFA, the sta­te-owned GDR film pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny, and beca­me a uni­que archi­ve that holds the com­ple­te cine­ma­tic pro­duc­tions of a „now enti­re­ly non-exis­tent coun­try“.[viii]

A dome­stic film dis­tri­bu­tor in the GDR, Pro­gress Film­ver­leih went into obli­vi­on for many years after Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­ti­on until it was revi­ved in the late 1990s. Pre­sent­ly, it is a film dis­tri­bu­ti­on com­pa­ny owned by Ice­s­torm Enter­tain­ment. The archi­ve works in tan­dem with the Ger­man Fede­ral Film Archi­ve (Bun­des­ar­chiv-Film­ar­chiv), which func­tions as a film nega­ti­ve sto­rage faci­li­ty, and the DEFA-Stif­tung, which has legal rights over all DEFA pro­duc­tions, and the respon­si­bi­li­ty to make them available to a wider public.[ix]  Progress’s office in Ber­lin has DEFA pro­du­ced films stored on DVD and other for­mats, which one can access upon request. Howe­ver, not all DEFA films can be acces­sed in the archi­ve due to tech­ni­cal limi­ta­ti­ons, such as limi­t­ed film pro­jec­tion equip­ment, and one may need to visit the Bun­des­ar­chiv-Film­ar­chiv for some film pre­views. The best way to access DEFA films is through Progress’s online por­tal (https://progress.film), that offers almost the enti­re film mate­ri­al via online-strea­ming. The portal’s search opti­on enables users to find films through their titles or key words and the results can be fil­te­red based on the source (e.g. His­to­ria­thek, Cine­zen­trum, DEFA etc.), the year and the over­ar­ching cate­go­ry (e.g. news­re­els, DDR Maga­zi­ne, fea­ture films etc.) of the pro­duc­tion. The plat­form thus pro­vi­des basic infor­ma­ti­on about the pro­duc­tions such as the year of pro­duc­tion and release, the direc­tors, peo­p­le and places men­tio­ned, a descrip­ti­on of the visu­als, and a tran­script of dia­lo­gues and voice­overs in Ger­man, which one hopes will impro­ve in their accu­ra­cy and qua­li­ty in the future with deve­lo­ping tech­ni­ques, given that for ins­tance some of the non-Ger­man names and places are not appro­pria­te­ly tran­scri­bed by the pro­gram­me. The por­tal is con­ti­nuous­ly evol­ving and has recent­ly also incor­po­ra­ted film mate­ri­als from non-DEFA sources, like Cin­tec, Widoks, and West Ger­man news­re­els etc. The Pro­gress Archi­ve pro­vi­des inte­res­ted users only limi­t­ed access to the films and the abo­ve­men­tio­ned basic infor­ma­ti­on about them. Howe­ver, users need to con­sult the Bun­des­ar­chiv-Film­ar­chiv or the DEFA-Stif­tung for pro­duc­tion docu­men­ta­ti­on and any other details.

Bes­i­des the news­re­el films pro­du­ced by DEFA, the Pro­gress Archi­ve’s coll­ec­tions also include pro­duc­tions by Film­ak­tiv,[x] DEFA’s pre­de­ces­sor, that was foun­ded in Octo­ber 1945 by com­mu­nist film­ma­kers in exi­le with the aim of revi­ving Ger­man cine­ma. The­se films were scree­ned befo­re main fea­ture films in cine­ma halls. The sta­te-owned film pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny DEFA was estab­lished in May 1946 with the man­da­te of „de-Nazi­fi­ca­ti­on and poli­ti­cal re-edu­ca­ti­on in Ger­ma­ny“.[xi]  It took over the pro­duc­tion of the news­re­el series Der Augen­zeu­ge from Film­ak­tiv, which was initi­al­ly released weekly, and later twice a week, with the pur­po­se of edu­ca­ting audi­en­ces about „socia­list working, lear­ning, and living“, with the USSR as its natu­ral model.[xii]

Cold War Research and Cinema Studies

News­re­el reports in the Pro­gress Film Archi­ve pre­sent an unex­plo­red oppor­tu­ni­ty to see India from a uni­que his­to­ri­cal per­spec­ti­ve which was not only clo­se and sym­pa­the­tic to the nati­on and its peo­p­le, but also depic­ted a view that now belongs to a non-exis­tent coun­try. In the­se pro­duc­tions, we wit­ness the GDR as the “other” Ger­ma­ny, a socia­list Ger­ma­ny, which was try­ing to make sen­se of, and repre­sent, an emer­ging post­co­lo­ni­al India for its own citi­zens. News­re­els can ser­ve as a rich source-base in ref­raming and resi­tua­ting frame­works uti­li­zed in his­to­ri­cal as well as cine­ma­tic stu­dies on the Cold War. Thus, in the Pro­gress Film Archi­ve, we find rich film mate­ri­al that might con­tri­bu­te to diver­si­fy­ing under­stan­dings of the Cold War and cinema’s role in it. More so, becau­se it is loca­ted in one of the count­ries that play­ed a key role in the peri­od, but does not exist anymore.

The Cold War did not end with the Cold War. Wri­ting Cold War his­to­ries and the­r­ein sha­ping per­spec­ti­ves to situa­te and under­stand tho­se pas­ts con­ti­nues to be an ongo­ing effort after the fall of the Ber­lin Wall and the dis­so­lu­ti­on of the Soviet Uni­on. Howe­ver, one can obser­ve that his­to­ri­cal scho­lar­ship on the Cold War, to some ext­ent, repro­du­ces Cold War dicho­to­mies. Whe­re­as New Cold War Histo­ry has attempt­ed to diver­si­fy per­spec­ti­ves by incor­po­ra­ting tho­se from around the world, par­ti­cu­lar­ly tho­se from for­mer socia­list count­ries,[xiii] such per­spec­ti­ves are still miss­ing in the field of film and cine­ma stu­dies.  His­to­ries that rely on films made during or on the Cold War as their source-base, still lar­ge­ly mir­ror Cold War his­to­ri­cal posi­tio­na­li­ties wher­eby Ame­ri­can and Wes­tern nar­ra­ti­ves are still pre­do­mi­nant, not least becau­se of the over­whel­ming aut­ho­ri­ta­ti­ve pre­sence of the Hol­ly­wood film indus­try and US media dis­cour­se.[xiv]  

In cine­ma­tic repre­sen­ta­ti­ons of the Cold War, this near mono­po­ly of an Ame­ri­can view can easi­ly be dis­cer­ned from the con­tent of fea­ture films, docu­men­ta­ries, as well as other gen­res of non-fic­tion films that also include news­re­els films.[xv] This not only leads to mis­re­pre­sen­ta­ti­on or non-repre­sen­ta­ti­on in cul­tu­ral pro­duc­tion, but also con­tri­bu­tes to the pro­duc­tion of ske­wed know­ledge and histo­ry around Cold War the­mes, as has been aptly dis­cus­sed by Nora Alter in her rese­arch on Ger­man non-fic­tion cine­ma.[xvi]  As Marc Fer­ro argues, as a medi­um, films are „an agent, pro­duct and source of histo­ry“, which not only influence the making of histo­ry but also his­to­rio­gra­phy.[xvii] 

In recent scho­lar­ship the­re has been a grea­ter empha­sis on iden­ti­fy­ing alter­na­ti­ve source mate­ri­als to con­test undif­fe­ren­tia­ted and hege­mo­nic dis­cour­ses about the Cold War. This is espe­ci­al­ly nee­ded in order to bet­ter under­stand and value the role of count­ries from Asia, Afri­ca, and Latin Ame­ri­ca in the Cold War. This not only incor­po­ra­tes ana­ly­zing how they were pro­jec­ted by Cold War ‘blocs’ (or within ‘bloc’ poli­tics) but also, and even more so, how actors from ‘third world’ count­ries per­cei­ved their repre­sen­ta­ti­on within Cold War dis­cour­ses. DEFA news­re­els pro­vi­de an inte­res­t­ing set of mate­ri­als in which one can map both natio­nal anxie­ties and inter­na­tio­nal ima­gi­na­ti­ons in how a socia­list sta­te (GDR) pro­jec­ted its­elf through the por­tra­y­al of count­ries like India by a sta­te-owned film body. They also beco­me a resour­ce for decen­tra­li­zing the explo­ra­ti­on of the cine­ma­tic medi­um and ima­gi­na­ti­ve poli­tics. The por­tra­y­al of ‘deve­lo­ping nati­ons’ in the­se films (and the shifts the­r­ein over time) beco­me a rich repo­si­to­ry for explo­ring the role and stra­te­gic signi­fi­can­ce of the­se nati­ons for socia­list sta­tes like the GDR. They also hint at tran­si­ti­ons in the dis­cour­ses and real­po­li­tik of the Cold War. Por­tra­yals of the ‘third world’ often still bor­row from what was pro­du­ced during the Cold War. Working with sources from a digi­ti­zed archi­ve like the Pro­gress Archi­ve can pro­vi­de scho­lars the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explo­re con­ti­nui­ties in the medi­um and how it crea­tes its own recur­si­ve repertoires.

Endnotes

[i] The­se ten to twel­ve minu­tes’ long news­re­els con­tai­ned bet­ween 8 to 15 reports. They most­ly began with a report on topics of natio­nal or local signi­fi­can­ce and ended with tho­se on cul­tu­re and sports. Reports that were pla­ced in bet­ween most­ly cover­ed the­mes in inter­na­tio­nal affairs; aspects of social, poli­ti­cal, and cul­tu­ral life in the GDR and the USSR, but also covera­ge on count­ries from around the world, whe­re the GDR had stra­te­gic inte­rests. In this paper, an enti­re news­re­el film is refer­red to as ‘film’, and a com­ple­te seg­ment of the news­re­el, which deals with a par­ti­cu­lar topic is refer­red to as a ‘report’.

[ii] See Haque, Reya­zul. 2020. “Non-Fic­tion films pro­du­ced by DEFA in the Ger­man Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic, 1946–1989. Coll­ec­tions of the Pro­gress Film Archi­ve, Ber­lin”, MIDA The­ma­ti­sche Res­sour­ce. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25360/01–2022-00042. Available online at https://www.projekt-mida.de/en/thematicressources/list-of-non-fiction-films-produced-by-defa-in-the-german-democratic-republic-1946–1989-collections-of-the-progress-film-archive-berlin/

It is note­wor­t­hy that other South Asi­an count­ries like Paki­stan, Ban­gla­desh, and Sri Lan­ka also appear in the news­re­els and explo­ring them can also open inte­res­t­ing rese­arch avenues.

[iii] I have dealt with the­se rubrics and their con­tents in depth in the fol­lo­wing publi­ca­ti­on: Haque, Reya­zul. 2021. “A Wit­ness to Histo­ry – Pro­duc­tion of Images of India in GDR News­re­els”. In: Anan­di­ta Baj­pai (ed.) Cor­di­al Cold War – Cul­tu­ral Actors in India and the Ger­man Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic. Los Ange­les, Lon­don, New Delhi: Sage, pp. 153–177. Available online at https://spectrum.sagepub.in/_api/v1/products/6/variants/18/pdf_file

[iv] Der Augen­zeu­ge 1949/39, 1949. Available online at http://www.progress-film.de/der-augenzeuge-1949–39.html. Acces­sed on 29 Febru­ary 2020.

[v] A tran­scrip­ti­on of the sel­ec­ted voice­over is pro­vi­ded in Ger­man on the web­site along with the video. The trans­la­ti­on has been done by the author.

[vi] See Bena­tar, Alex­an­der. 2020. Kal­ter Krieg auf dem indi­schen Sub­kon­ti­nent: Die deutsch-deut­sche Diplo­ma­tie im Ban­gla­desch­krieg 1971. Ber­lin, Bos­ton: De Gruy­ter. DOIhttps://doi.org/‌10.1515/9783110682038. Also Benatar’s (2019) essay “Die Bezie­hun­gen zwi­schen Paki­stan und der DDR bis 1973”, MIDA Archi­val Refle­xi­con, DOI: https://doi.org/10.25360/01–2022-00011. Available online at https://www.projekt-mida.de/reflexicon/die-beziehungen-zwischen-pakistan-und-der-ddr-bis-1973/.

[vii] ‘About Us’, Pro­gress, https://progress.film/about_us. Acces­sed online on 29th August 2020.

[viii] ‘About Us’, Pro­gress, https://progress.film/about_us. Acces­sed online on 29th August 2020.

[ix] Hei­dusch­ke, Sebas­ti­an. 2013. East Ger­man Cine­ma: DEFA and Film Histo­ry. New York: Pal­gra­ve Macmil­lan, p.33. DEFA Stif­tung can be rea­ched through its web­site: https://www.defa-stiftung.de/defa/geschichte/

[x] Hei­dusch­ke, Sebas­ti­an. 2013. East Ger­man Cine­ma: DEFA and Film Histo­ry. New York: Pal­gra­ve Macmil­lan, p.10. It is inte­res­t­ing to note that idea of Film­ak­tiv was to make cine­ma to “pro­mo­te a sen­se of respect for other peo­p­le and other nati­ons” (ibid).

[xi] Allan, Seán. 2015. “DEFA’s anti­fa­scist myths and the con­s­truc­tion in East Ger­man cine­ma”. In: K. Lee­der (ed.), Rere­a­ding East Ger­ma­ny: The Lite­ra­tu­re and Film of the GDR. Cam­bridge: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press, p. 52.

[xii] Leh­nert, Sig­run. 2018. “Ger­man News­re­els as Agent of Histo­ry”. Media Histo­ry, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2018.1544886 .

[xiii] For an over­view of dif­fe­rent per­spec­ti­ves on his­to­rio­gra­phy on Cold War, see for exam­p­le, Rome­ro, Feder­i­co. 2014. “Cold War His­to­rio­gra­phy at the Cross­roads”, Cold War Histo­ry 14, 4, pp. 685–703, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2014.950249.

[xiv] See for exam­p­le Shaw, Tony. 2007. Hollywood’s Cold War. Edin­burgh: Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ty Press. Also see Shain, Rus­sell E. 1974. “Hollywood’s Cold War”, Jour­nal of Popu­lar Film 3, 4, pp. 334–350, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00472719.1974.10661746.

[xv] For exam­p­le, see Alter, Nora M. 2002. Pro­jec­ting Histo­ry: Ger­man Non­fic­tion Cine­ma, 1967–2000. Ann Arbor: The Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan Press. “The Ame­ri­can avo­id­ance of non‑U.S. mate­ri­al mani­fests its­elf not only on the level of cul­tu­ral pro­duc­tion but also on the level of intellec­tu­al ana­ly­sis. Most Eng­lish-lan­guage artic­les on docu­men­ta­ries about the Viet­nam War focus exclu­si­ve­ly on Ame­ri­can docu­men­ta­ries.” (p.20)

[xvi] Alter, Nora M. 2002. Pro­jec­ting Histo­ry: Ger­man Non­fic­tion Cine­ma, 1967–2000. Ann Arbor: The Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan Press. p. 20.

[xvii] Fer­ro, Marc. 1983. “Film as an Agent, Pro­duct and Source of Histo­ry”. Jour­nal of Con­tem­po­ra­ry Histo­ry 18, p. 357.

Reya­zul Haque, Leib­niz-Zen­trum Moder­ner Ori­ent, Berlin

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