Edited Journal Issue by Greg Dolgopolov
Apparatus. Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe, 2021
More than a dozen Covid-19 era TV series were produced and distributed on Russian subscription st... more More than a dozen Covid-19 era TV series were produced and distributed on Russian subscription streaming services. In this paper, I examine four different series made under quarantine conditions that illustrate competing regimes for viewers' pleasure and pedagogy. These low-budget productions acknowledge the coronavirus as a context but replace the fear, panic, and anxiety of outbreak narratives with comic domestic foibles of life under quarantine. They embody the 'feast during the plague' syndrome that ignores the mortal consequences of the disease and celebrates a gallows humour. These were the first 'screenlife' serials to be produced as a methodological approach to solve a range of production proximity restrictions and in turn their aesthetics is one of intimacy and authenticity.
Special Section: Inside looking out - film festival reports
This follow-up to the special issue on film distribution in Australia, originally published in is... more This follow-up to the special issue on film distribution in Australia, originally published in issue 9.1, offers a first step in opening up the discussion of film festivals in Australia. Drawing together reports written by the directors of three different events, this mini-issue provides much-needed insight into the economic, programming and structural management of multicultural and specialist film festivals in contemporary Australia. Providing an insider’s view, these reports from the directors of the Audi Festival of German Films (AFGF), Sydney Underground Film Festival and the inaugural Baltic Film Festival reflect on the challenges that festivals negotiate, the programming ambitions they pursue and roles they see themselves as fulfilling within Australia’s evolving screenscape.
Special Issue: Distribution
Studies in Australasian Cinema, 9.1 2015
Papers by Greg Dolgopolov
Acta Astronautica, 1979
~reat rewards for radio astronomy lie in increasing antenna collecting areas and the distance bet... more ~reat rewards for radio astronomy lie in increasing antenna collecting areas and the distance between them. Both these possibilities, which determine sensitivity and angular resolution, can be developed essentially without limit ff radiotelescopes can be built in space. Radio interferometers, with base lines up to 10 AU, assembled from large reflectors 1 to 10 km in diameter, could operate in the I nun to I m range with a sensitivity of 3 × IW ~ W m-2 Hz-I and an angular resolution of 1.5 × 10-I° sec of arc. These parameters are a million times better than those of modern radio astronomical systems. Such instruments could solve many urgent problems: the search for artificial radio sisnals and other evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations; detection and study, within the RF range, of solar-like stars and planets; and holosraphy of astronomical sources and direct measurements of their distance. The maximum distances of objects which could be studied would be comparable with the radius of curvature of the Universe. A possible space radiotelescopo (SRT) cnnflStmtfion, with a modular spherical reflector and feeds providing multibeam operation, is analyzed here. An extendable reflector capable of operatin8 at any intermediate stage is assembled from 200-m modules. These consist of a three-dimensional spar framework on which fiat hexagonal subreflectors of about 4 m are mounted. The precise geometry required of such a reflector is provided by automatic adjustment of subreflector position relative to the framework and by adjustment of connections between modules. In this way, radiotelescopes for the I nun to I m range may be built with diameters up to 10 km. The problems of system delivery and assembly in orbit are assessed. Preliminary estimates for developing and constructing an SRT that is more than I km in diameter are lower than for a similar collecting area on Earth. State-of-the-art technology already allows the development and construction of a 200-m space module.
Forged Network Narratives: Tolstoy’s The Forged Coupon and a Cycle of Adaptations in World Cinema
Edinburgh University Press eBooks, Mar 30, 2023
Horror
Intellect Books, Feb 20, 2015
9. Forged Network Narratives: Tolstoy’s The Forged Coupon and a Cycle of Adaptations in World Cinema
Edinburgh University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2023
Crime
Intellect Books, Apr 1, 2015
High Stakes: The Vampire and the Double in Russian Cinema
Routledge, Oct 15, 2013
Television Series
Intellect Books, Feb 20, 2015
Germinating the Ant Plant
Short Film Studies
This article is an investigation into how short film ideas are conceived. It examines Ant Plant a... more This article is an investigation into how short film ideas are conceived. It examines Ant Plant as a case study of inspiration based in bio-art, the Australian bushfires of 2020 and critical plant studies. The Ant Plant is set in an apocalyptic near future, in a burnt environment. The Guardian seeking to regenerate near-extinct species summons her brethren to deliver rare plants to her at the Greenhouse. A young woman hears the call and sets off on an arduous journey to deliver the key to a conserved plant kingdom ‐ symbiotic Ant Plant.1
Default journal, 2003
Learning Management Systems are sophisticated web-based applications that are being engineered to... more Learning Management Systems are sophisticated web-based applications that are being engineered today in increasing numbers by numerous institutions and companies that want to get involved in e-learning either for providing services to third parties, or for educating and training their own people. Even though the construction of such systems has been taking place for many years, they are still designed and developed from scratch. The reason is that experience from previous Learning Management Systems, is not codified or documented, resulting in forcing the development teams to 're-invent the wheel'. This paper presents an approach of recording design experience in the form of design patterns for Learning Management Systems and aims at developing a pattern language for these systems.
Doing Your Block: TV's Guide to Lifestyle Renovation
BEWARE FILM STAR! Towards a Performance and Cultural Analysis of Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Soviet Film Star
There was a contradictory relationship to popular culture and the notion of stage and screen star... more There was a contradictory relationship to popular culture and the notion of stage and screen stars in the Soviet era. On the one hand individualism was eschewed but on the other the regime needed its heroes and its model citizens. What did it mean to be a star under a regime of such contradictions? According to Richard Stites, the most popular stars in the USSR were Western actors: Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks. Soviet stars were different to these Western popular film stars. They were not just beautiful and glamorous, they needed to represent the ideal Soviet citizen. Innokenty Smoktunovsky was different to both the Western and the Soviet ideals. He was neither beautiful nor glamorous, nor the ideal Soviet citizen. But he did capture the mood of the epoch to become the most celebrated actor of the post War period, from the Thaw to the post-Soviet times. While Smoktunovsky’s fame initially came to him after his outstanding performance as Prince Myshkin in the production of The Idiot by Tovstonogov in the Leningrad’s Big Dramatic Theater (the current home of Lev Dodin), he became an international film star for his performance of Hamlet in Grigori Kozintsev's famed 1964 screen version of Shakespeare's play. The performance won him praise from Laurence Olivier as well as the Lenin Prize. Shakespeare experts Sir John Gielgud and Kenneth Branagh consider this work the definitive rendition of the Bard's tragic tale ranking it above Laurence Olivier’s. Smoktunovsky created a complex and unusual hero, that just like his Prince Myshkin, captured the mood of the Thaw of the 1960s with its restrained force, bitter nuance. Smoktunovsky "blended together what seemed incompatible before: manly simplicity and exquisite aristocratism, kindness and caustic sarcasm, a derisive mindset and self-sacrifice" (Wiki). His later cinematic roles additionally revealed his outstanding talent as a comic actor (Beware of Automobiles). The examination of Smoktunovsky’s rise to stardom and experience raise the question whether the western star theory is applicable to the Soviet and Russian context, and if so, what aspects of the Soviet phenomenon are different. It will be the first study of its kind to examine a Soviet start rather than a director of the authors’ cinema (Tarkovsky, Sokurov). This chapter seeks to examine Smoktunovsky as a Soviet star of stage and screen with particular focus on his performances in Hamlet, Beware of Automobiles and The Idiot. We examine what factors made him into a star and what this status entailed. Analysing Smoktunovsky’s status in the Soviet and post-Soviet period; the reception and rewards by the government, critics, audiences this chapter will investigate the contradictory meanings of being a film star in the Soviet era.
Special section: Inside looking out – film festival reports
Studies in Australasian Cinema, 2015
Look about. From big cities to rural centres, tourist towns to sheep farms, film festivals are ev... more Look about. From big cities to rural centres, tourist towns to sheep farms, film festivals are everywhere. Hardly a weekend now passes without some celebration lighting up screens somewhere around ...
Russian Screen Responses to the Pandemic
Mehr als ein Dutzend Serien wurden in Russland wahrend der Quarantane-Zeit von Streaming-Diensten... more Mehr als ein Dutzend Serien wurden in Russland wahrend der Quarantane-Zeit von Streaming-Diensten produziert und vertrieben. In diesem Aufsatz werden vier verschiedene Serien besprochen, die unter Quarantane-Bedingungen gedreht wurden und konkurrierende Modelle darstellen, wie man durch Vergnugungsangebote und Padagogik um die Gunst der Zuschauer buhlt. Diese Low-budget-Produktionen nehmen das Corona-Virus als Hintergrund zur Kenntnis, ersetzen aber die Angst, Panik und Verunsicherung gangiger Pandemie-Ausbruchsnarrative mit komischen Darstellungen von menschlichen Schwachen unter hauslichen Quarantanebedingungen. Sie verkorpern das „ Das Fest wahrend der Pest “-Syndrom, das die todlichen Konsequenzen der Krankheit ignoriert, die Pandemie mit Galgenhumor feiernd. Die hier behandelten Werke gehoren zu den ersten “screenlife”-Serien, die eine methodische Losung der verschiedenen Probleme bieten, die infolge der Kontaktbeschrankungen bei Dreharbeiten auftreten, und folglich ist ihre As...
Lost and Found: Children in Indigenous Australian Cinema
Odyssey across the outback: Jeremy Sims' 'Last cab to Darwin
This inspirational comedy-drama, based on the real-life story of Broken Hill taxi driver Max Bell... more This inspirational comedy-drama, based on the real-life story of Broken Hill taxi driver Max Bell, tackles the tricky territory surrounding terminal illness and euthanasia. According to Greg Dolgopolov, it is also a quintessential road movie, with a protagonist who learns about life and love during the journey, as well as a shrewd cinematic text that critiques Australian mateship and emotional reservedness.