Albanian cinema truly represents a terra incognita for most of the world. Decidedly Europe's most isolated country during the Cold War era, communist Albania had already been cut off from the West for centuries as a one of the western-most outposts of the Ottoman empire. Nonetheless, and unknown to most of the world, communist Albania had a vibrant cinema tradition. Although bound by official orthodoxy, the films of the state-run Kinostudio enterprise were surprisingly innovative and, at times, daringly subversive. This book opens with examinations of moving images in Albania from the Ottoman period, through those captured under independence and the Fascist occupation. It subsequently foregrounds transformations in Kinostudio, from the early optimism of socialist realism through the brooding social angst of the 1980s, which constitute a bridge to the socioeconomic concerns of Albanian films of the postcommunist period.

The Barrandov Studios are one of the largest and oldest film studios in Europe. For more than 80 years so far, the studios have been the location of choice for over 2,500 Czech and International films. Barrandov's founding fathers, the Havel brothers Vàclav and Milo. (the grandfather and uncle of later president Vàclav Havel), built the 'Hollywood of Eastern Europe' in the 1930s.

A legendary studio like this - and its story - has so far not been told to an English-speaking readership. This collection aims to correct this, presenting the studio's rich history, its esteemed directors, and their most important films.

The end of the nineteenth century saw the Balkans animated with cultural movements and socio-political turmoil. Alongside these developments, the proliferation of print media and the arrival of moving images was transforming urban life and played a significant role in the creation of national culture.

Based on archival research and previously overlooked footage and early press materials, this book is the first study on early cinema in the region from a transnational and cross-cultural perspective. The work investigates how the unique geopolitical positioning of the Balkan space and the multi-cultural identity of its communities influenced and shaped visual culture and early cinema development. Moreover, it examines the relationship between the new medium and visual culture through the notion of the haptic, and explores the role early cinema and foreign productions played in the construction of Balkanist and semi-colonial discourses.

Reframing hierarchical relations between ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’, this book departs from approaches such as ‘new cinema history’ and ‘vernacular modernity’ to counter modernity discourses of ‘lacks and absences’, and instead, establishes new connections between moving image and print artefacts, early film practitioners and intellectuals, the socio-cultural context and cultural responses to the new visual medium.