Transnationality and intermediality in post-colonial perspective

contemporary Portuguese-speaking coproductions

Abstract

This article aims to explore the relationship between transnationality and intermediality in Film Studies so as to foreground how both inter-act. I believe that the question of film’s complexity as a medium needs to be addressed when discussing the epistemological and methodological aspects of transnational film production. While European and American academia see in transnationality a welcome tool to discuss cultural plurality and hybridity, as well as a chance to overcome euro-centrism, in the case of the Portuguese speaking nations, ideas regarding its supposed hybridity, such as luso-tropicalism and lusophony, tend to remytify identity questions in transnational productions. To foreground their connection I will first offer a historic discussion of the two concepts, and then refer to my earlier studies on Portuguese-speaking films that deal with colonialism and post-colonialism to exemplify this approach.’