Central Asia’s Glorious Cinema: An Interview with Dina Iordanova

Central Asia’s Glorious Cinema: Distant and Different, From the Edges of the Soviet Empire
Journal Article

In: Studies in World Cinema [1]

ISSN: 

2665-9883

Publication Date: 

05 Sep 2025

An Interview with Dina Iordanova

Authors: 

Aslı Kotaman

 [2] and 

Dina Iordanova [3]

Online Publication Date: 

05 Sep 2025

Abstract
A discussion of Soviet-era filmmaking in the five Central Asian republics (Kazakh ssr, Kyrgyz ssr, Tajik ssr, Turkmen ssr, and Uzbek ssr) which addresses the marginalization faced by republican studios within the ussr, whilst offering insights into the spatial, logistical, thematic, and aesthetic specificities of filmmaking across a wide and diverse territory. The transnational approach allows assessing the positioning of regional cinemas within the broader Soviet system with its structural hierarchies and centralized oversight of production, distribution, and education. The effort is to understand these cinemas not merely as provincial extensions of Moscow-based production, but as historically and culturally situated practices requiring closer attention within world cinema scholarship.

[1] Studies in World Cinema A Critical Journal
Editor-in-Chief: Eva Jørholt Associate Editors: Olivia Khoo , Jeremi Szaniawski , and Stefanie Van De Peer

Studies in World Cinema: A Critical Journal takes a pluralistic, polycentric and non-normative approach to the notion of ‘world cinema,’ treating it as a fluid and expansive term. The journal examines both local and global cinematic perspectives and their points of intersection, taking into account historical contexts as well as contemporary developments. It also explores the power dynamics surrounding access to and visibility in the global film market.

[2]  LEFT Dr. Asli Kotaman was an Associate Researcher at the University of Bonn. Her studies focus on video activism within feminist perspectives.  Fellow at CAIS from October 2023 until March 2024
Visiting Fellow, Scuola imt Alti Studi Lucca, Lucca, Italy

[3] RIGHT Dina Iordanova Emeritus Professor, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK, Dina Iordanova (born 1960) was Professor of Film Studies  at the University of St. Andrews. A specialist in world cinema, her special expertise is in the cinema of the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Europe in general. Her research approaches cinema on a meta-national level and focuses on the dynamics of transnational film; she has special interest in issues related to cinema at the periphery and in alternative historiography. She has published extensively on international and transnational film art and film industry and convenes research networks on film festivals and on the Dynamics of World Cinema, with funding from the Leverhulme Trust.