Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- Religion and politics in Soviet and Eastern European cinema: a historical survey / Liliya Berezhnaya and Christian Schmitt -- Institutional Powers. Blessed films: the Russian Orthodox Church and patriotic culture in the 2000s / Hans-Joachim Schlegel -- Russian film premieres in 2010/11: sacralizing national history and nationalizing religion / Steven M. Norris -- A cinematic churchman: metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky in Oles Yanchuk's Vladyka Andrey / Liliya Berezhnaya -- Sacred and profane images: rethinking history: heroes, saints and martyrs in contemporary Russian cinema. The godless Czechs? cinema, religion and Czech national identity / Eva Binder -- Beyond the surface, beneath the skin: immanence and transcendence in Gyorgi Palfi's films / Jan Culik -- Conflict, trauma, and memory. Narrating the Shoah in Poland: post-1989 movies about Polish-Jewish relations in times of German extermination politics / Christian Schmitt -- Memory, national identity, and the cross: Polish documentary films about the Smolensk plane crash / Maren Roger -- Religion visible and invisible: the case of post-Yugoslav anti-war films / Miroslaw Przylipiak.

After the epochal turn of 1989 a new wave of movies dealing with the complex entanglement of religious and national identity has emerged in in the eastern part of Europe. There has been plenty of evidence for a return of nationalism, while the predicated "return of religion(s)" is envisaged on a larger scale as a global phenomenon. The book suggests that in the wake of the historical turns of 1989, an "iconic turn" has taken place in Eastern Europe - in the form of a renewed cinematic commitment to make sense of the world in religious and/or national terms. 'Iconic Turns' combinestheoretical articles on the subject with case studies, bringing together researchers from different national backgrounds and disciplines, such as history, literary and film studies.

Description based on print version record.