Introduction: The Art of In-Betweenness in Contemporary Eastern European Cinema

Abstract

The introduction offers an overview of a wide spectrum of approaches to studying intermediality in the context of Eastern European cinemas, from concept-based studies to analyses of films, and the stylistic devices of intermediality. It presents the way in which the poetics of intermediality can reflect not only the correlations between arts and media, but also between art and life, corporeality and abstraction. The relevance of intermediality is that it enables us to grasp the complexity of reality and culture, to observe various tensional states of in-betweenness, along with anxieties, relations of power and conflict that define life in Eastern Europe. The introduction outlines some of the main figurations of intermediality or 'strategies of in-betweenness’ which have significantly shaped the aesthetic of contemporary Eastern European films followed by a brief summary of each chapter in this volume.