Abstract
This chapter explores the role played by the Council of Europe’s film fund Eurimages in supporting European science fiction films. Although Eurimages has traditionally not been a major backer of sf, in recent years this has begun to change. As such, the chapter examines how European cinema operates on an industrial level through the seemingly unlikely prism of sf, taking in the work of two of European cinema’s foremost auteurs in Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier, as well as the partly crowd-funded sf comedy Iron Sky (Timo Vuorensola 2012). Balancing an attention to Eurimages’ macro-politics with the aesthetic choices of their funded sf filmmakers, the chapter will show how even the most dystopian visions of Europe ultimately play into the Council of Europe’s institutional strategies.
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Notes
- 1.
As Liz writes: ‘since its establishment, Eurimages has supported 1266 European co-productions for a total amount of approximately €375 million—a sum which represents half of the budget for MEDIA’s last phase’ (Euro-Visions 37).
- 2.
Membership fees are supplemented by additional sources. In its most recent financial regulations document which was agreed in 2016, Eurimages includes amongst these sources: ‘voluntary contributions, sums derived from reimbursements or cancellations of support, the interest earned on the Fund’s financial assets, miscellaneous receipts and all other payments, donations or legacies’ (‘Financial Regulations’).
- 3.
Such as Rosalind Galt notes, she writes that Haneke’s ‘choice [to make his major films in French] speaks to the dominance of France not only in film funding but as the privileged language of international European cinema’ (‘The Functionary of Mankind’ 234–235).
- 4.
Stated artistic criteria used to decipher the quality of a project include ‘story and theme (originality of content, subject); characters and dialogue; narrative structure’; and ‘style (director’s intention, cinematic vision, genre, tone)’. The feasibility of completion, in turn, is measured against the experience and track records of the director and writer, producers, and cast and crew. Stated production criteria, meanwhile, take into account ‘artistic and technical co-operation; circulation potential (festivals, distribution, audience)’ and ‘consistency and level of confirmed financing’ (‘Eurimages Support’ 9).
- 5.
Eurimages President Catherine Trautmann hailed Canada’s membership of the fund, declaring that ‘it will bring new opportunities for producers on both sides of the Atlantic in a sector that increasingly works on a global scale’ (‘Canada Strengthens Its Cultural and Economic Ties with Europe’).
- 6.
The outward figure of €500,000 is a new limit set by Eurimages, as prior to 2013 the figure was potentially higher (as was the case with Melancholia , which received €600,000).
- 7.
Mr. Nobody grossed a paltry $3622 domestically, while its overseas gross was tallied at little over $2 million (‘Mr Nobody’).
- 8.
Despite the promise offered by its full title of Das weiße Band—Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte and its depiction of a generation that would vote Hitler into power, The White Ribbon takes pains to avoid direct reference to Germany. As I argue elsewhere, ‘it takes a particular kind of director to make a film about a nation without once mentioning it by name. Yet, this same refusal to identify is at its core a salient tenet of Haneke’s work’ (‘Dance Me to the End of Love: Community and Impending Doom in Michael Haneke’s Das weiße band and John Ford’s West’ 120).
- 9.
All of Haneke’s French language films (Code Unknown/Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages (2000), Time of the Wolf, Hidden/Caché (2005), Love/Amour (2012), Happy End (2017)) feature central characters called Georges and Anne, with the exception of La pianiste/The Piano Teacher (2001), which, though shot in French, is based in Vienna. As such, we should, in Michael Lawrence’s terms, view these characters as ‘incarnations or reincarnations rather than distinct fictional human individuals realistically represented in consecutive films’ (‘Haneke’s Stable’ 75).
- 10.
Azerbaijan, which has been part of the CoE since 2001, is one of several member states to openly flout the body’s seeming commitment to transparent democratic values (Russia and Turkey being two other obvious examples). A recent investigation into the Azerbaijan-related activities of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which was published in April 2018, seemingly corroborates long-held suspicions about alleged corruption in the body. The report states that members of the assembly are strongly suspected of accepting bribes from the Azerbaijani government, which, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported, conducted ‘lobbying activities’ to ‘silence criticism from the human rights body in exchange for gifts and money in what the report termed “caviar diplomacy”’ (Burack, ‘Ex-President of Council of Europe Assembly Under Fire for Azerbaijan-linked Corruption’).
- 11.
For Caroline Bainbridge, author of The Cinema of Lars von Trier, the ultimate goal of what she describes as von Trier’s ‘encyclopaedic oeuvre’ and ‘eclectic intertextuality’ is to both display the director’s ‘extensive knowledge and appreciation of film’ and to align himself ‘with the magisterial qualities associated with the greatest moments in cinema history’ (1).
- 12.
French and Shacklock single John out for special mention in their analysis of the film, writing that ‘ Melancholia is critical of the hollowness and meaninglessness of contemporary bourgeois society, embodied in the film by the figure of John and his grand estate situated on an 18-hole golf course’ (‘The Affective Sublime’ 350).
- 13.
Allowing for seasonal adjustment, the EU’s own figures state that unemployment figures rose from 9.0 per cent in 2002 to 9.6 per cent by 2010, while in Sweden the figure is more acute still given the post-1990s strength of its economy, rising from 6.0 per cent to 8.6 per cent in the same period (‘Statistics Explained’).
- 14.
Writing in Sight and Sound, for example, Kim Newman noted that ‘the film has been in production so long that some of its best jokes are now backlist items – like the North Korean delegate mocked in the UN when he claims that the unidentified attacking spacecraft were personally designed and built by his “great leader”’ (‘Moon Kampf’ 44).
- 15.
Iron Sky’s IMDb page alone cites references to Dr. Strangelove, The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin 1940), THX 1138 (George Lucas 1971), Jaws (Steven Spielberg 1975), Star Wars: Episode IV-A New Hope (George Lucas 1977), Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola 1979), Crocodile Dundee (Peter Faiman 1986), and The Matrix Revolutions (Lana and Lily Wachowski 2003).
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Power, A. (2018). Shaping a European Narrative: Eurimages, SF, and the Auteur. In: Contemporary European Science Fiction Cinemas. Palgrave European Film and Media Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89827-8_2
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