Der Weg nach Rio in Brazil: Histoire Croisée, Public Diplomacy and Film-Historical Research

The article discusses the relevance of the histoire croisee approach that has been only marginally applied to film and cinema historical research. Histoire croisee is an approach to write history from a transnational perspective. It tries to overcome the conceptual shortcomings of comparative and transfer studies and integrates them into its theoretical framework. The case study of a political-cultural conflict between Brazil and Germany illustrates some of the methodological advantages of the histoire croisee approach. The paper argues that writing historiography from a transnational perspective opens not only new areas of film historical research, it also offers a better understanding of film historical events that otherwise might be overlooked by comparative or transfer studies.